How Not to Sell Stuff on Amazon
Good Luck to Amazon Affiliates
People learn in different ways. Many students learn very well by a 'hands on' approach, requiring them to execute guided tasks either in a classroom or in the real world. Few people learn by simply watching someone else do something. Sitting in an Algebra class listening to a lecture, no matter how engaging the instructor, rarely produces positive or long-lasting results. Humans acquire new skills by practicing them.
Another educational methodology might be a "negative-feedback narrative integrated with real-time empirical examples." I just made that up, but it sounds mostly official. Expect to see that phrase in a textbook or a peer-reviewed paper very soon.
Amazon.com offers an affiliate program that pays commissions. Web entrepreneurs who steer customers to amazon.com may earn a percentage of purchases made by those third-parties. It's easy to get started and conceptually easy to participate.
Actually making a buck through this program has proven problematic.
Is this Amazon's Fault?
It's not Amazon's fault that my participation in their affiliate program has not put me in the rich house (opposite of poor house). Their system is fair, extensive, and transparent: I'm fully responsible for my failure. They provide oodles of wonderful name-brand products and boatloads of oddities. They sell clothes, books, computer products, tools, gewgaws, lagniappes, and knick-knacks. They stock stupid stuff and mind-bogglingly useful stuff.
My Flawed Methodology
Hubpages thoughtfully provides an Amazon Capsule that can be added to any article. Into this capsule the author places links to products for sale on Amazon.com. It's easy.
My methodology involves leveraging these capsules with witty and wise prose. Hopefully, a deep-seated yearning for specific products will be engendered by my words. Is it my plan to entertain my readers while gently leading them into the world of online shopping.
To that end, I have published a boatload of product-centered hubs encompassing wide varieties of purchasable products. Each hub has a theme. Themes range from conceptual (Buy Stupid Online) to sublime (Golf Gift Ideas) but they all share the common thread of abject failure.
How Should a Hub be Titled?
Theoretically, humans go online to shop. They browse to Google with a general idea of what they want. They type in a thoughtfully worded search phrase and turn over their fortunes to the massive search engine.
As profit-minded writers, we spend our waking hours efforting to predict what our readers will type into Google. We're pretty sure that these words will appear in many search phrases:
- buy
- online
- ideas
- gift
We call these words the crucial quadrivial, at least I do. To that end, I titled my Amazon hubs using an ingeniously simple multi-modal dual-pronged 3-word strategy involving these words. One prong yields this template:
Buy {product category} Online
wherein I have craftily built 2 of the 4 crucial keywords into my title. The middle word specifically describes the general category of items being flogged. For example, I wrote these web masterpieces:
Not to be outdone by myself, I also wrote hubs titled according to this template:
{product category} Gifts | Ideas | Gift Ideas
Some products are given as gifts more than other products. Mother's Day, for instance stimulates purchases of motherly items such as flowers, chocolate, and dishtowels that might not otherwise be purchased for ones self. Several exemplary examples follow:
Where's the Affilliate Money?
I don't know where the affiliate money is. It's not in my bank account. I have not earned the minimum amount for my first payout.
Surely other enterprising entrepreneurs earn significant income from the Amazon Affiliates program. Amazon wants us to send them customers.
Amazon might be one of the top affiliate programs: I don't know. eBay turned down my application three separate times. The Amazon product line offers opportunities unmatched by most online retailers.
Should I give up?
Giving up is more work than moving forward with this program. My hubs persist, even if no one visits them or clicks through them to the Amazon store. Everything is in place and running like clockwork, albeit a clock with a weak battery that has to be shaken periodically and doesn't automatically change for daylight savings time.
It's fun to check my Amazon earnings and see what folks are buying 'from me.' Once I sold a relatively expensive winter coat. Several times I sold digital music downloads and realized about 4 cents in my account. Someday I will sell an obscenely expensive hunk of jewelry to an unknown obscenely rich cyber-shopper: that might make it all worth it.
