My first Amazon Affiliate Sale, What did I do?

I am no expert on affiliate selling, when I started with hub pages I had absolutely no previous experience with making money through affiliating. I have found the whole experience a very steep learning curve to be honest! I have struggled to find good information and advice about how to make affiliate sales using amazon and hub pages. I started by using the trial and error method for lack of any other way to proceed. 

The trial and error method of learning is a long and frustrating one and to some extent is unavoidable, sorry to have to say that. One way to cut down on the time spent learning is to find hub pages that have successfully made sales, whenever someone has announced they made a sale my first thought is to go have a look at the hub that got that sale. Please feel free to have a look at the hub page that earned me my first sale here.

The biggest secret I can share is this: Be patient! It takes time to attract buying traffic and its highly unlikely that even your best selling hub will be an over night money maker!

The most obvious trick is to make it easy for your reader to become a customer so sprinkle ads through your hub, do not make them read through the whole article before they can click an ad because they might not read all the way to the bottom. If you are trying to make sales do you really care if they read the whole thing before deciding to buy? Myself, I would be just as happy to have them go and buy something based on the first ad they see. They can always come back and finish reading later :)

Ok my number 1 tip is this, be patient! I know I have already said this but it is the most important thing I can share with you. Impatience leads to frustration not inspiration! While you are waiting for your new selling hub to do its thing and convert readers to customers you shouldn't waste your time fretting over the lack of sales.

Why not try writing another inspired selling hub? This is, I believe, the biggest secret to success. The more hubs you write about a product or a topic (that can be related to a product) the larger your audience will be. When I say 'a topic that can be related to a product' what I mean is what my first sale was all about really. I wrote about a hobby of mine, a how to hub if you will. This hobby is one that requires tools for anyone wanting to try it. By placing the tools needed through out the hub means that anyone who thinks they want to try the hobby out for themselves can easily go and buy the relevant tools.

I have written hubs with the aim of selling particular types of products because those products were things I wanted to buy! I do not have many of these sorts of hubs and they have not had the chance to age and attract buying traffic yet, but I am very hopeful that they will prove popular with time. If you would like to have a look at one that I expect good things from in time feel free to have a look here.

I have no definitive answers on this one, I suspect there are none. If you are writing about a hobby or activity that you enjoy finding good products to advertise will be no problem, you already know what your reader will need to enjoy the hobby or activity that you enjoy.

Outside of writing about my favorite hobbies and activities one method I have tried is to browse through amazon. Its like window shopping and can be surprising. My theory is that if I find something I would love to buy for myself other people will have the same feeling. When I find an item or set of items I really like, the challenge is to find a good angle on how to write for that product. What is it about this item that caught my eye? What do I like about it and what can I share with others.

There are success stories involving a few sales of high priced items and stories of lots of sales of low priced items. Both methods are valid and will work with one person while another person will find success using a different method. I think that the success for making lots of sales on low priced items happens when the person is able to write compelling reviews, often they are book reviews or movie reviews. I have tried writing book reviews as well as writing to more expensive items and look forward to discovering which will be most successful for me.