Now that we are 'all in this together' so to speak with the new HP Amazon program, it is in all our interests to get as many sales as possible, as we will all benefit.
I'll start.
If your hub is all about cleaning carpets, for example, a hub entitled How to Clean Carpets may encompass all if your hub goes into detail about carpet types and cleaner types.
You may even persuade someone who had no idea at all about how to clean carpets to buy the vacuum cleaner your recommend.
That's a bit hit or miss, because someone ready to buy the new CycloMagic Vacuum Type 2 is not going to search 'how to clean carpets' but are going to be searching for 'Cyclomagic Type 2'.
If your article about cleaning carpets is entitled the Cyclomagic Type 2 Vacuum is the best for cleaning carpets, or Cyclomagic Type 2 User Review or similar, you are more likely to attract a buyer.
You can write about the types of carpet it cleans well, the types it doesn't, if the machine is heavy, or light, or easy to use etc etc.
On the other hand, you might write a hub entitled 10 Best Vacuum Cleaners and explain the types of carpets they work best on, their pros and cons, and you are sure to attract sales.
You might not believe me, try it and see.
Izzy, This is just my opinion, and I am by no means an expert, but I think yours is "almost" (*grin) a good suggestion if the lesson drawn is to target the product to the hub content - not just throw random Amazon capsules hoping to get lucky.
My search experience has been that If any brand name is typed in - the first page rankings are usually dominated by the "big boys" (Amazon, Best Buy etc.) and other major shopping sites - so relative to HP's current "authority" status with Google, I don't think trying to corral a sale your way would be any do any better in attracting buyers than a focused hub on something specific about carpet cleaning that might include a section talking about the Cyclo-whatever with an accompanying Amazon capsule.
**I think the exception to this would be an in-depth authoritative "review" hub, with "review" in the title.
Using HP as a platform - I think a more successful hub would be one that addresses a need first, and then discusses and directs to a product.
I can't remember the last time I saw a hub in the search results when I was looking for a product, but I have frequently seen hubs that discuss a need or topic on the first page results.
Of course I could be all wrong, and if I am, I am sure others will chime in and correct me.
GA
I'm sure my tip will get lost in the thread but here it is:
Product comparisons are much more likely rank well (and make lots of sales) over reviews of individual items.
I just burned that into my grey matter.
For me what works wells is to focus on a 'specific subset of needs', so it would be something like 'the best vacuum cleaners for dark shaggy carpets with polka dots' ….the above isn't real obviously I know nothing about vacuum cleaners.
'The best vacuum cleaners' is probably too broad to have a chance of working. And people do have specific needs for things they buy and they do search for them. Obviously you still have to look at each keyword.
The other thing I've always heard and I believe, is that ads above the fold have a bigger chance of being clicked on. I am too chicken to really do this properly because I want my hubs to look 'virtuous', but certainly don't bury the Amazon too low in the page.
Great tips.
The more specific the search query the more likely someone is to buy.
An amazon ad floated top right of the first text box works wonders for conversions on a page designed for amazon sales. Using one under the first text box also helps. It will depend on the products on offer though. With some products people like to read a bit about them; with others they're quite happy to shoot straight over to amazon.
Ads above the fold have a better chance of being clicked on out of curiosity. With Amazon you don't make money unless the reader actually buys something. So the best place for your Amazon capsule is always right next to the text which gives your reader a reason to buy. That's not likely to be that early.
That is true, but I remember reading the blog of one very successful Amazon marketer (on Squidoo so at least there was a way of verifying her claims to a certain degree) who said that pages which had amazon modules near the top converted better.
You would think that people seeking buying recommendations would take the time to read the text carefully, but internet readers seem to be very lazy. I guess they want to see you're recommending some products quickly. I think capsules right next to the text describing the product are the way to go, but I think you shouldn't spend too much time introducing the topic. Of course it depends on the type of page, I'm thinking more of the '10 best things to buy for…..' type of page rather than a 'how to grow a lemon tree' page.
Totally depends on the searcher's readiness to buy.
Using an amazon ad with a great product and a call to action in the subtitle in that first block is definitely worth experimenting with.
I have experimented and I can safely say that it can significantly increase conversions. My conversion rate is usually around 10%.
I have seen 'warnings' in the 'style tips' dialog about having an Amazon ad or capsule in the first slot at the top...so I don't think you're supposed to put it there...(and that was before I was even finished working on the article...and I hadn't even put anything in the capsule yet!)
So, it seems like we are getting mixed messages. "Above the fold" is okay if HP/Google puts it there, but not if we do!
That's exactly right MsLizzy - there are mixed messages. I have EC hubs with an amazon capsule in that position, so it can't be that bad eh?
When you put an amazon ad top right, it pushes the adsense ad down below the fold, so in reality you're just replacing one above the fold ad with another.
P.S. just re-read your post and you can't have an amazon capsule as the very first capsule, but you can have it floated right of a text capsule.
P.P.S I would only ever put an amazon ad in that position on a product oriented hub and I would test to see if improved conversions or not. If not, then I would remove it. It's not something to do willy nilly.
Thanks, Susana S--
You know, thinking back, that was a weird situation, and possibly a glitch, because at that point, with the hub still in 'being-written' mode, I didn't even have ANY external links or Amazon capsules placed...
I don't use them very often anyway, and less since they changed the thing about 'multiple products in one capsule,' ** so very strange. In any case, I usually put them at the bottom, or as you say, floated right, but never at the top....
I hardly ever, very rarely, almost never (lol) write product-oriented hubs anyway.. Usually, my Amazon capsules are for books as an adjunct to the topic of my article.."for further reading" type of thing..and sometimes for related products (as in my hub on camping for beginners), with some products that were discussed, but not brand-related, as I didn't mention brand names in the article.
**(Which brings up the question, if we are now discouraged from putting multiple products in one capsule, then why was that ability not simply disabled?)
Never put eBay or Amazon ads at the bottom of the Hub, they don't work.
Amazon or eBay ads MUST be immediately adjacent to the paragraph relevant to them (either right-floated or directly underneath). Otherwise there's no point in using them - they are just useless clutter!
ok--thanks. I guess I have some edits to make.. ;-)
I notice you said you sometimes use them to offer "related reading". If you're going to do that, I'd right float it next to the final paragraph - but make sure you refer to the book in the text, and give some information about it. Readers are far more likely to buy the book if you explain why it's going to be helpful to them.
It's one reason why the reduction to one product per capsule isn't a bad thing - unless you're doing a comparison, trying to write some info about each product in a multi-product capsule can get messy.
Thanks to the advice Marisa Wright. I have some edits to do.
This is true and that is why HP puts so many ads above-the-fold. And that is precisely why you shouldn't put an Amazon capsule there.
In fact, I've noticed that newer Hubs (published in the last six weeks are so) are having a more difficult time gaining search rankings. One of the reasons for this is that Google just launched a new revision to its Page Layout Algorithm which penalizes webpages with too much ad content vs. text content above-the-fold. On some of my Hubs, less than 50 words of content are displayed against three ads above-the-fold.
See:
https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/432940645200588800
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/23 … -Algorithm
aa lite, I do put most of my ads, probably 99%, at the bottom of the hub. That might be a problem, huh? I understand what you mean by wanting your hubs to look "virtuous" but I guess if we want clicks and sales, we will have to move them up. Thanks.
Edit: I do have a good number of ads within the text but I have a feeling ad placement is the least of my problems. Will keep at it.
I think there are two possibilities here. A hub written to give information, and that has an Amazon capsule as a side issue no matter how important it is to YOU, should have that capsule next to text explaining the product.
A hub written primarily to convince a prospective buyer to buy a particular product might work well with the capsule at the end, if the hub is fairly short. Don't want the reader getting bored before seeing that beautiful ad, but convincing them that they really want and need that gizmo should be done before they see the ad. Desire opens pocketbooks!
That's a good point. I rarely write Hubs about a specific product so I haven't used that layout but I can see how it would work - you marshall all your arguments and then at the end "buy this!". In that case I'd also be using the Review capsule to give the product a rating.
That's me, too, Marisa. I only have a couple of hubs dedicated to a single product, but I do think that could work for those.
And I do have several that push a couple of dozen products; generally the ad is at the end of the paragraph pushing that particular item and that can be successful. Similar to a hub with one product and the ad at the end.
I took a look at a couple of your Hubs. You're on the right track with Amazon ads but placement is certainly an issue.
You could sell some books on your relationship Hubs, but I would choose one book which addresses that specific issue, and place it higher in the Hub - perhaps second paragraph. People are looking for a solution, and everyone's different - so not every reader will resonate with your take on the situation. If they're not feeling it, they may click away from your Hub without reading to the end - so give them something to click on!
Gift baskets could have great potential for Amazon sales. Again, the "gift basket business starter" ad needs to be much higher in the Hub, not lost down the end. And I know it sounds mean, but if you offer links to other sources of gift basket supplies, then you're competing with yourself - try to find those supplies on Amazon or eBay if you can. Or Google "crafts affiliates" and see if you can find sites you can join as an affiliate, then you can refer people using their links (PM me if that's confusing).
My big tip is: don't get so focussed on your main topic that you miss better opportunities.
My favourite example is a Hub about how to successfully grow a lemon tree. The obvious thing to put in your Amazon capsule is a lemon tree - but that probably won't sell. Why? Because your reader probably has a lemon tree already and is trying to get it to grow better.
So what will sell is a fertilizer or pesticide which you recommend to solve common problems with lemon trees.
The lesson? Don't think, "what is my Hub about", think " what does my reader need to solve this problem?"
1. Choose a product with dozens of great reviews on Amazon. Don't choose a product with no reviews or with bad reviews.
2. Remember that people are persuaded most by personalities (ethos) and secondly by emotions (pathos). Lastly, people are persuaded by logic (logos). What this means is that it is better to say "#1 best-selling laptop in US" or "More people choose this laptop than any other" than it is to list ten technical reasons why the laptop is good. It is better to appeal to emotions like love or fear than to present logical reasons why life insurance is important.
3. If the tiny picture on the Amazon ad is too small to really present the item well, make your own photo and put that in your Hub, too.
4. Give people a reason to click-through to the Amazon ad: "Read preview of book and see Table of Contents", "Go read 100 great reviews from people who bought this", etc.
5. If you have a long Hub which uses a Table of Contents, put an Amazon product near the beginning of each linked capsule.
This is great! Good to see people chipping in with tips for getting Amazon sales
It is really important to check out the competition for your product/s before you write the hub. It is true Amazon and the big boys tend to dominate the search results and if they have already targeted the words "best"' "review" and "buy" then you need to consider another angle.
By placing the product name in Google search, then adding in question words one by one in front of the product name (why, what, which etc) autofill should show you what people are searching for about that product.
Then you can go ahead and answer that query with your review of the product plus some original photos to engage the reader.
The big boys seldom if ever target specifics like this, so your hub should occupy a prominent position in the SERPs.
Just to point out that pages with Amazon ads are more difficult to rank for a whole range of reasons.
One of them is that Google is much more likely to see the page as spam and, possibly, your entire account as spam.
In other words, if you scatter Amazon ads through your account without very careful thought, you risk losing all your traffic.
Having said that, if you get it right you can easily make ten times as much from Amazon as from Adsense or HP ads.
A simple rule is do not keep ads on pages that do not sell products regularly.
I doubt that is gonna be an issue. if the links are no-followed they shouldn't matter at all. A site that I'm working on is purely amazon affiliate based and it's doing pretty well for itself. It's got amazon modules on each page (multiple on each page that too).
You mean Google has suddenly lost the ability to recognize affiliate links or a doorway page because the links are no followed?
You should not try to put it into people's minds that affiliate pages are not problematic.
We will all suffer here if the newbies go crazy with Amazon links.
Anything with moderation isn't going to hurt. As long as the page is useful and providing information and not just crying out "Bye me" "Buy me" there's no problem.
I agree with Will on this. Well chosen Amazon capsules that are relevant and kept to a minimum are better than just splattering random ones everywhere. (You also need to keep them up to date).
In Ye Olden Days of HubPages, there were pages which were pretty much entirely Amazon ads, these worked for a time, then Google hit hard, not just against individual pages but the entire site.
I never said they're random products. It's all well thought of and you need to know what to place and where to place them.
Only write about products you actually own and have experience with.
You'd be surprised how well actual recommendations work better than fake ones.
Your comment reminds me of the the great Ted talk by Simon Sinek.
If you've never heard it, it's worth listening to. Basically people buy 'why', not what. We buy something when we hear or read why we should have it. That's most effectively done if we actually believe experientially what we write/say.
Write about products buyers are more likely to buy online, versus from a brick and mortar. Diapers ain't gonna cut it- most people buy them from a physical store. But writing about some unique baby product you have that's not readily available in stores, for example... well, you are way more likely to find buyers this route.
PS: I am not recommending selling baby products, this is only to be used as an example.
PPS: You would be shocked to learn what people will actually buy online!
Oh and I meant to add: writing about really obscure products is normally feckless. You have to strike a balance between obscurity and mass appeal.
Nice tips
P.S. I've tried selling diapers online and you're so right!
Another tip: learn the difference between buying keywords and looky loo keywords.
The first will convert into sales very well, the second lot will not.
That sounds like fodder for a Hub, Susana--I'm not sure I know the difference.....
My two cents...
On my infamous gopher hub I have "Gateway to Gopher Traps on Amazon" as the title of the capsule. We'll see how that goes...
Research the products you want to promote. Find products that are not only Top Sellers, but also fall into a more narrow niche that is not saturated by the competition.
It helps that you own a product before you write about it but it is not necessary.
Find products that have plenty of 5 star reviews then once on Amazon, capture a screen shot of the reviews like the image below:
Use the image in your hub. Refer to those 5 star reviews and the most important thing in sales is to ask for the sale.
There was a time when any affiliate link was allowed on HP but gradually all but Amazon and eBay were disallowed when the others were shown to damage the site.
As to Amazon and eBay, the long time Queen of those affiliate programs recently said that she had once had several thousand pages on HP and Squidoo but they were all gone now.
She did not specify why but I imagine it was down to Panda, unfeaturing and the 2 sites desperate efforts to get out from under penalties.
I don't think so, Will. Affiliate links are still allowed on HubPages. They say only "reputable" links are allowed - but the only major one that's not allowed, as far as I've been able to work out, is Clickbank. The limit of two links per domain applies, of course. But one could still theoretically have two links each to ShareAsale, Commission Junction, Linkshare, Affiliate Future, and Clixgalore as well as Amazon and eBay ads, all on the same Hub. Not that I'd recommend it but the point is, HubPages' rules do still allow it.
Which makes sense, really. An affiliate link is an affiliate link - Google doesn't think Amazon or eBay links in capsules are any better or worse than other affiliate links.
I agree that HubPages decided excessive affiliate links are bad. But clearly, they don't believe one affiliate link per 50 words is excessive - otherwise they would've set a lower limit, wouldn't they?
You can't have it both ways - either HubPages knows what it's doing and has set a sensible limit, or they've got no idea about affiliate links and are being far too generous. Which is it?
I used to have CJ and Clickbank links which were pulled by staff. There might be some obscure affiliate progs they have not banned.
Perhaps you would like to point us to some hubs where they can be found?
CJ links were outlawed by accident and then reinstated if I remember rightly.
I was pulled for having 6 CJ links in an account with 10 pages as I recall. I don't think any redemption was ever offered. Truth is I don't dwell on projects that hit the rocks.
Anyway, I would love to hear from anyone making a living from affiliate pages nowadays, excepting Amazon and eBay.
And more to the point, I would ask the oldtimers to think of all the affiliate marketers who hit the rocks here, on the much safer Amazon route, before pumping up the newbies to go and take that course, without careful thought.
They didn't hit the rocks. They deleted their Hubs rather than do the work of revising them. Not because they had tanked, but because they felt they couldn't continue to earn at the same level if they had to massacre them to meet the new rules.
Some others had their Hubs deleted because they didn't have time to revise them before the deadline.
Either way, we will never know whether their Amazon-heavy Hubs would have recovered from Panda or not, because they were gone before sub-domains were introduced.
Of course they hit the rocks.
They put a huge amount of work into affiliate pages that no longer make money and would not make money under any circumstances.
Here is the classic example. We all remember the kinds of page that she produced: http://www.bubblews.com/news/927140-i-h … es-account
You should also ask yourself why you have been forced to give up hope of making a living online, Marisa, and now only engage as a hobbyist. Are there some practical details that you do not grasp?
The other affiliate 'experts' should also ask themselves why they are not millionaires by this point.
Not quite.
When Panda hit in 2011, the whole of HubPages was hit, not just Amazon sales Hubs. Nelle deleted her Hubs in response to the constant rule changes. Because she deleted them while the whole of HubPages was still in the toilet, they never got a chance to recover.
You also have to read that Bubblews post with the knowlege that Nelle is very, very, very bitter against HubPages because she felt the Hubs were good and that she shouldn't have been put in the situation she was. She did open another account under a different name to try out some experiments - clearly they didn't work but we don't know what style they were, do we?
And I might remind you of that hilarious exchange between IzzyM and Paul E, where he tried to help her fix her Hubs after Panda. He picked on an Amazon sales Hub about pussycat Hallowe'en costumes. Turns out it was one of the few Hubs which was still doing very well, when some of her informational Hubs had dropped out of sight. That doesn't support your argument, does it?
Now, as for me giving up: it has nothing to do with affiliate marketing. In fact my affiliate websites are still jogging along at almost the same level as 2010, though I've added virtually no new material to them in all that time. Only one of them got a Panda slap and it was (I think) due to some very short posts - after I combined them, the site recovered.
No, the reason is laziness, pure and simple. I was attracted to the idea of creating a body of work, then sitting back and letting the money trickle in. That concept doesn't work any more: if I want to make a decent living online, then I'd need to treat it as a proper job. If I have to work hard, then I prefer to do it in the real world where I can make a larger and more reliable income.
I see what you're saying Will though I'm really not trying to pump up the newbies. What I would encourage, for anyone wanting to use amazon and ebay wisely (and actually earn some money from it), is to think about ad placement and experiment with it. What works on one page isn't necessarily what will work for another and hubbers need to find a way to learn what works for them ie: experiment, experiment!
I have several Hubs using one or two links to ShareASale, Affiliate Future, Skimlinks, Linkshare, Clixgalore - that's all I can think of for the moment. I didn't have much success with Commission Junction so never used them on HubPages - I must admit, I only assumed they were allowed, since I hadn't heard of them having a bad reputation.
Yes, I also had Hubs pulled because of Clickbank.
I get most of my Amazon sales from one hub. It's about the movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and it sells at least one movie collection each month. I have links to several of the movies I talk about.
I think your best bet would be to read up on the factors that make up a great landing page and temper your writing/marketing balance upon the cost or level of interest required to make a conversion.
suggested resource: http://unbounce.com/blog/
A great portion of buying traffic you grab doesnt care one iota what you have to say (the words you wrote only made you a good match for the query), you just interrupted them on their way to a retailer.
Making sure that in an obvious location above the fold there exists a clear opportunity to complete their intended purchase will greatly benefit you as without that above the fold opportunity they would have likely just clicked back and found that amazon/ebay product page they really wanted in the first place.
After you have reacted to that traffic that never wanted to see you in the first place then take in account landing page methodologies and basic buyer psychology principles.
Some clear ones I rarely see when I occasionally read a hub:
Why do I care about your opinion? Whats your expertise in the matter - "actual user" "hobbyist" "online guy who rewrites reviews for money in affiliate earnings?
You can also turn to social proof, marketing claims, ( 5 stars by Consumer Reports, over 10000000 4 star reviews on amazon, blah, blah, blah,)
Some things you should know like the back of your hand:
Goldilocks Pricing
Decision / Purchase Funnel
Analytics data for your pages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_principle
http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/cu … chase.html (overkill in information - but start at the beginning (look up AIDAR) and see if you can gain insights in how you yourself make such decisions and what type of information you look for at each stage)
http://www.smartinsights.com/customer-r … dar-model/
I will add a modifier.
You don't need to learn how to make the perfect "Amazon Focused Hubpage" - you need to learn how to take measured steps to attract the people you intend to and then deliver the message that you intend and offer the solutions they require.(no matter where your content and layout is hosted)
From headline to final action before they leave the page you should be predicting the users intent and reacting to it.
If you can incorporate the concepts outlined in the links above you can increase your conversions substantially, if you do well in product selection AND conversion strategies you can add a digit to your earnings ..easy
Rowse and Copyblogger was a good link - but rather than read the "how" - look at what he actually implements in his own online businesses like :
http://digital-photography-school.com/p … s-and-gear
Sales does not equal SPAMMY - there are few signs of a successful piece of content and strategy as positive as inspiring someone to part with their money due to some fancy words and pictures on a little screen.
Strategy and followthrough defeat "luck: anyday - winners make their own luck
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/200 … -good-luck
Exactly. It annoys me when people label all affiliate marketing as "spam". It's only spam when done badly.
Well, what with the tsunami of new ads showing up around here; I just went and disabled the ads altogether on some of my zero-traffic hubs. Nothing to lose. Hopefully, Der Fuhrer (G) will be pleased...
So much of ad placement depends upon the search terms your Hub is targeting (whether you are targeting a specific product or a specific need). One of my best Hubs for Amazon sales has the targeted product at the bottom after 1,150 words of content. That Hub is about solving a rats problem. It creates the need for the product built on fear and then presents the product as the solution. It sells a lot of rat traps at $37.99.
It's built on the principle of the 'long sales advertisement' advocated by David Ogilvy, who is considered the 'father of modern advertising':
http://www.infomarketingblog.com/images … ut_One.jpg
On the Internet, that approach is called 'the long squeeze page.'
So, there is more than one way to sell Amazon products on your Hubs. You should experiment with different ad placements and find out what works best for the audience of your Hubs, for your topics and for your preferred writing style.
As to some of the other things mentioned in this thread, Commission Junction affiliate links are still allowed. As with all Hubs, your Hub cannot be strictly promotional or it won't pass QAP. It must contain quality content for the viewer and not just be written to sell a product.
@Lobobrandon – You're right, Google basically doesn't care about the number of ads, so long as they are labeled as ads and the links are NoFollow (HP just created the ability to do this in text capsules only a few months ago), so long as ads are limited above the fold and so long as the content of the webpage is not just advertising. (Do a Google search for 'graduation gifts' and the top search results are all pages of products to buy.)
Amazon is generally a falling market for affiliate marketers. Making money from it is getting harder and harder all the time. A few years back, people just put a page of capsules/ads and waited for the clicks to happen - your page is likely to crash if you try that now. But the truth is, even the best pages (by people much better than me) are suffering.
My Amazon earnings have dropped by 70% over the past year and there are no signs of improvement.
There are numerous challenges, one of which is that Google are placing paid adverts at the top of the search results (so that they resemble genuine search results) for many of the most lucrative keywords. Now, no matter how well you do, you are chasing for third place nowadays in many circumstances, not first and second, as before.
One can fret about the placing, wording, etc when it comes to Amazon capsules, but sometimes it seems like re-arranging the furniture on the Titanic.
I would be wary of advising anyone who is starting out of going down the Amazon route. I myself did used to make some money from accounts using Amazon capsules here and at Squidoo, but am pretty disillusioned and am trying other methods nowadays...
I was never even trying to make a living online but I hit a big enough rock to shoot in the air and bounce twice when I hit the ground, and move content farm writing from #2 or 3 on my online earning activities to about #5 (based on rough earning return per hour of effort). #1 is ebooks, #2 is stock photography etc.
I've wondered how successful writing an eBook would be. You've given me the answer.
I am proposing a new prayer for Hubpages:
Almighty Internet, protect us, we beseech you, from 'experts'.
Do not let those who make a few hundred bucks a month preach down on those who make none. Let both of these tribes think hard on their soles.
Save us from those who have opinions but no insight.
Do not let the desperate for attention, applause and affirmation shout their way to our notice so that wiser voices are drowned.
Do not let failures blame others for their misfortune or say 'I know how to do it but it is beneath my dignity.'
And finally, oh mighty Internet, protect the money grubbers and the affiliate fiends willing to do the work to succeed.
And heap your gold upon us.
I particularly need the last bit of the prayer to work as I'm working on an affiliate site myself right now!
One of the best investments that anyone can make in this racket is a high quality bullsh*t detector, which can tell you who is giving you good info and who isn't!
(I am selling them for $256 each by the way, message me if interested...)
....and protect us from the condescending and patronising, who resort to sarcasm when they don't have a leg to stand on.
I'm lucky I live in Australia, where the most basic job, working in a shop or office, pays $20 an hour plus benefits. That's guaranteed, predictable income every week
If you can point me to anyone who's making $20 an hour from writing online, I'll be happy to give it another shot.
I need to move to Australia. Definitely no jobs like that here. If there were, I'd probably not be here.
I always wondered why so many Americans were persevering with writing online when the hourly rate, even for successful writers, seems so low - then I watched a documentary on wage levels in the US and I understood!
Exactly. I had a friend from Canada and a friend from Australia at my old job and both were shocked and disheartened that we, and they, couldn't get decent wages nor health care coverage here. A bit of an eye-opener for me, the other way around.
Did you look at how many man hours it takes to buy the equivalent of a chevy? Or a 2500 sq. foot home? Or a month's supply of groceries? A decent pair of shoes? And of course, how much the worker gets to keep and how much goes to taxes.
Wages mean little unless viewed in that light.
Yes, exactly. With these low wages here, one can't afford any of that and still get a big chunk of taxes taken out of their check. So, in that light, we get hit with triple whammies. I know I have.
Odd. From the link, it appears that Aussie wages are about 25% higher than the US (average) but cars cost about 3X as much. In terms of hours worked, then, the car is very much cheaper in the US.
http://www.carsguide.com.au/news-and-re … _in_the_us
Another site gives values for a variety of things; almost everything is well over 25% higher in Australia, showing again that the man hours needed to purchase are considerably less in the US.
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co … =Australia
Those figures would attest to Australia's high cost of living. I guess I should not have entered a comparison game, it's my least favorite game, creates pretty much all the problems in the world. I do know from direct experience that a low paying job will make it so that you can barely pay the rent and bills and then you'll have to borrow money or visit the food bank for groceries. Not to get personal, definitely not my intention there; in fact, I don't consider it personal at all, because I'm pretty certain many people can attest to the same thing. It is a shame that anywhere, no matter where, a human being is so devalued that he is given the wages of a pauper, while working many hours a day with barely enough time and energy to care for himself let alone anyone else he might need to care for. What I'm saying here is not about you or me. It's about everyone. I'm shocked daily that we accept it.
I think one of the bigger problems is assigning that low value to a person instead of to the work they are producing. The product of their labor is NOT the person, but that is what is being purchased in a job contract.
And it is what SHOULD be purchased in that contract - we don't buy or sell people, not even ourselves. Recognizing that, paying more for a product that is not worthy of a higher price doesn't make a lot of sense; we don't do it when WE buy, why should an employer?
Rather off topic.
I pay more than the going rate because you get much better quality work, increased loyalty, increased productivity and less sickness. Employers with any sense know this.
I find that most successful companies do just that. Not all - WalMart has an extremely successful business plan centered on low cost everything - but most.
I haven't studied the comparison between Aussie and US wages in general. The big difference is that Australia has a minimum wage, below which employers can't pay. It's currently $16.37 per hour for adults. That means you don't get the situation you have in America, where low-paid workers can be living below the poverty line even though they're working full-time.
From my brief visits to the US, the cost of living definitely seems cheaper there, though of course as a tourist I didn't experience everything.
$16.37, yes. Unless you are under 21 (we consider 18 to be an adult). 18 year old's can be paid just $11.18
Or an apprentice, whereupon the minimum is $10.49. I was an apprentice at 46 years old with a wife and 2 children to support.
Or if you have a disability, whereupon it is based on the amount of disability; theoretically it could go to near zero.
I get the feeling you're being defensive, Wilderness, and I don't understand why. I am making NO comparisons between the general standard of living in the US and Australia. As you and others rightly point out, trying to compare living standards in two countries is a very complex matter.
What I'm saying is that for me, the gap between potential income online and potential income in the real world is so big that it's a no-brainer - I can earn more for less hours in the real world, even in an unskilled job. Until recently, I assumed the same situation would apply in the US and the UK. It was only when I saw the documentary that I realized there's no minimum wage in the US so unskilled jobs pay only a few dollars an hour - which means that working online becomes a viable alternative if you're not prepared, or able, to work in a better paid profession.
That was why I said I felt lucky. I'm at a point in my life where I don't want to stay in the corporate rat race, but I can't afford not to work at all. Thanks to the minimum wage, I can work at a less stressful, less skilled job and still get paid a livable amount. Whereas if I want to earn that kind of money online, I'd have to work much longer hours.
The US does have a minimum wage and each state also has minimum wage laws:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wa … ted_States
I stand corrected, however looking at that list, the minimum wage in all states is far less than the minimum wage in Oz.
For a more accurate comparison, look at the average wage statistics.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf … enDocument
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_i … ted_States
It's also important to look at cost of living expenses:
http://www.news.com.au/national/how-wou … 6196606062
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co … ted+States
WF,if you read my post, I have a total lack of interest in comparing living standards between the US and Australia. All I'm posting about is how it affects me personally.
In that context, the comparison is simple. I can work full-time online and about the best I've ever been able to achieve is $2,000 a month. Or I can work full-time in the real world, and even at minimum wage, I can earn over $3,000 a month including benefits - and get paid for holidays and sick days.
I'm just saying I feel lucky because that would not be the case in the US, where the minimum wage is around half that. It also helps me understand why writing online is a viable choice in the US, because the comparison between online potential income and real-world potential income is more attractive.
I add an Amazon ad for gopher traps on my gopher hub. Now I'm getting buried in Amazon ads for gopher traps on Bubblews.
I know. Being stalked like this is old news. Still funny though.
As a side note, any Amazon ad that doesn't show promise within 30 days gets exterminated. It's just the kind of guy I am.
I started this thread with the intention of helping newbies or those unaccustomed to the delights of Amazon sales, not for certain hubbers to act as if they know the secrets to eternal everlasting affiliate practices.
To newbies, trust Marisa, she knows what she is talking about.
There has been some debate/argument over the ideal ratio of advert to sales conversion.
That will go on, but HP has decided on the ratio - 50 words per product.
There has been debate over whether you should actually own the product you reference. Probably you should, but those most in need of money probably cannot afford it.
For newbies reading now, look around your home at what you have. It could something as cheap as the cloth you use to wash your dishes. Can you recommend it? Does Amazon sell it? Are there any recommendations at all for it online?
Your target audience may well be a young person setting up home for the first time.
Let's keep in on-topic people.
Let's help teach people how to use Amazon capsules correctly and to their best advantage.
Helpful if you are writing a product review but not necessary if you are doing a product comparison, which in my experience leads to the most sales on sites like this.
That's what I would call a useful response, thanks Richard!
Personally, when I buy a product online, I want one that other people have said it does what it says on the package.
I research thoroughly, because we all know that Amazon reviews are not necessarily true.
So I read and read everything I can find, and make my decision based on an overall view taken from user experience.
I know not everyone does this, but some people do.
If you have bought a product but based your buying decision on what was said of the other products, you are in a position to write about itl
Give the newbies a history of your main account Izzy, if you want to be helpful.
My history is freely available through the search function for interested parties.
No-one, to this day, can tell me why I was hit so hard.
I have several other subs now, where I continue to write in the same manner, and these subs have not been penalised.
Your point is?
It was not just you that was hit hard. It was practically everyone who had an account with a similar profile. Nelle Hoxie and Mark Knowles used to make thousands every month from Amazon but no longer do. Years of work, gone.
SusannaS was hit hard but recovered, one of the few, perhaps the only one.
PaulGoodman says he is still bumping along the bottom.
And there are hundreds of others.
Frankly, you will only make sales in any number with product comparison hubs. And product comparison hubs tend to be spammy and quickly attract the wrath of Google.
Yes, if you can get it to work, you can make a lot of money. But it is not something newbies should even be thinking about. They should be learning to write decent pages first.
When I say 'newbies', there are a lot of really good writers here on HP now, who have only joined recently (within the last year or so).
They write wonderful hubs that are both informational and unique, so what I would like to see is them learning how to write Amazon-orientated hubs, that are not purely sales hubs, because most of these writers see HP as an outlet for their creative talents. A lot of them do not see themselves as salespersons. They do not even want to be salespeople. But they would like to see a return for their invested time here at HP, and to know their words are being read by a wider audience.
To see this return, all the serious or otherwise writer has to do is write ONE sales-orientated hub to add to their rich portfolio of informational or poetic-driven hubs, and sign up for HPAmazon.
It's only a click of a button to do that. Hopefully, they will learn something useful from this thread about how to word that special hub.
She is surely talking about me. I will consider writing a... what was it called? - Amazon oriented hub. Thank you Izzy.
I doubt if you could muster the volumes of spam and cliche required, Beth. It is an art.
Too late. I've just written one called "How to survive a nuclear bomb, with just the things lying around your kitchen." Of course it will be difficult to google if you're on the wrong end of it.
You have not quite got the hang of this. If you want to fully exploit peoples fear of nuclear war you need to find some expensive options to offer.
So something like:
'The Ten Best Retaliatory Strike Missiles'
Offer some cheap scuds to flatten Mexico at the beginning then move on gradually to ICBM's that can hit Iran and North Korea.
Cheap kitchen utensils will not make you rich.
And clearly one which you have mastered, Will, given the majority of your hubs appear to be sales oriented.
If you only wanted responses from Marisa you should have said LOL
This is an article about how to make money as an Amazon affiliate, from a guy who has made $420,000 with Amazon. He is well-known in the industry and his experience is that product ads are clicked-on more if they are at the end of a webpage:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013 … te-program
If you want to learn how to make money as an Amazon affiliate, go read his many blog posts on the subject.
Rowse is excellent. His book is also a classic of the genre and a great read.
Building up your own website over ten years, like he did with his photography site is more challenging, but probably a better bet in the long run. I get frustrated by all the hits that HubPages takes.
US = http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co … ted+States
Australia = http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co … =Australia
Adjusting for exchange rate and cost of living it looks like a minimum wage worker in the US and Australia have nearly identical buying power.
*the us does have a federal minimum wage of $7.75 ($8.02 in Australian Dollars) and 21 states have higher minimums with Washington at 9.32 being the highest
Also income tax rates are different with Australians paying about 5% more of their yearly earnings
The major and very important differentiation is Healthcare costs,
But that's a massive distinction.
*if the various quickly found resources and calculators I found were accurate
Amazon abandoned then? Lol.
Don't why I am bothering really, but here are the real tips for doing well with Amazon.
You will need to believe that Google is not necessarily your enemy. If this is impossible skip the whole thing. For 'site' read 'subdomain', in this instance.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/a … 6465?hl=en
A quote:
'Our Webmaster Guidelines advise you to create websites with original content that adds value for users. This is particularly important for sites that participate in affiliate programs. '
Please note the second sentence.
Also further on:
'Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site.'
You might also like to read the Google Quality Raters Guidelines: http://static.googleusercontent.com/med … elines.pdf
A quote:
'Look for original content on the page. The quality of an affiliate page or site depends on how much added
value, usefulness, or original/additional information is available on the page that is not easily available
elsewhere on the Web.
'If the page has has only copied content from the merchant site it is considered a thin affiliate. This is a moneymaking spam technique. '
And that is the danger. As soon as an affiliate link goes onto a page or into a site (subdomain), the chances of getting a penalty of some kind for spam increase dramatically.
Spam recognition is a skill that is developed through practice and exposure.
Remember to look at the page as a whole. Spam pages usually have some of these characteristics:
• PPC ads are usually very prominent on the page, and it is obvious that the page was created for them. (not logged in to HP? .. yeah, just like that)
• If you do a text search, you will find that the content has been copied.
• If you visually remove all of the spam elements from the page (PPC ads and copied content), there is little or
no value remaining.
Good pages usually have these characteristics:
• The page is well-organized. There may be ads on the page, but they are well identified and not distracting.
• If you do a text search, the original page is usually the first result displayed.
• The page will have value to the user. A good search engine would want the page in a set of search results.
And that is the danger. As soon as an affiliate link goes onto a page or into a site (subdomain), the chances of getting a penalty of some kind for spam increase dramatically.
Only if you are incapable of creating a unique and valuable document
Sadly, many people imagine that a big cowpat of copywriting can really add value to an affiliate page.
Which is why so many wake up one morning to zero traffic.
If you happen to be exceptionally good at hunting out useful info, have a writing style that is engaging and unusually lucid and know when subjects have already been done to death (and should be avoided) then try some affiliate links.
But get a good body of info pages first.
Sadly my current tip for getting affiliate sales is NOT to use the HP Amazon program. Ever since joining I've had 220 clicks, and…….1 sale.
Before I joined, this month I had a conversion rate of 4.5%, and 20 items sold.
I'm trying not to get too paranoid, I've had dry periods on Amazon before, but it's been a long time since I've gone for a week with only 1 sale.
Reporting issues (HP or Amazon problem)?
Statistical blip?
Well done anyway, for not getting twitchy and simply reporting the facts.
Well I was thinking statistical blip……but, I really don't understand statistics, so this could be me making an idiot of myself.
I decided to calculate the p-value. Using this calculator here:http://graphpad.com/quickcalcs/contingency2/
So, blundering blindly in the dark, I filled in the table: Where group 1 is clicks using Amazon ID, group 2 is clicks with HP ID, outcome 1 is clicks with sales, outcome 2 is clicks with no sales (so for the hp group that was 1 and 219)
Outcome 1 Outcome 2 Total
Group 1 20 400 420
Group 2 1 219 220
Total 21 519 640
and…………
it tells me that the p=0.002. This is considered 'very statistically significant'.
So…..I skived from all lectures remotely to do with statistics, and if anybody knows what I am talking about, I'd love to hear from them, but my interpretation of the p value is that the:
I had 20 orders (out of 400 clicks) with Amazon, I had 1 order (out of 220 clicks) with HP. The probability that this is just a 'statistical blip' is 0.2%
Now I am worried.
Of course, the statistics are only as good as the experiment you conduct. I'm sure one criticism could be that I'm not comparing the same periods of the month. But, in previous months I've actually seen an increase in sales around the middle of the month (I think some people get paid every 2 weeks?).
You are an heroic early adopter, discovering the pitfalls and enduring the pain of an imperfect data collection system.
We salute you.
And will follow in your footsteps when everything is fixed.
Or
One week is no where near enough time to know if the system works or not, regardless of your p.
Either way I am feeling smug for hanging back.
Actually I think it is the number of clicks that matters, rather than the time. Say somebody only gets 10 clicks a month vs somebody who gets 100 clicks a day.
Except that it might be that my order reports are delayed, any way I will give it another week. My Amazon earnings aren't so high, even if I am losing some money, I'm not losing hugely significant amounts.
I haven't switched yet. I nearly clicked the button but something told me to hold on and wait a while. Glad I did as I'm a little worried about the reporting issues I keep hearing about. Keep us updated aa!
re: my amazon report. Zero clicks yesterday? Now that is just plain wrong...
11 clicks (very low) but worse, the third day with no shipments.
Traffic has fallen, which is certainly a part of it, but perhaps it will recover when the dozen DMCA's just filed are taken care of.
20 clicks yesterday, 1 item ordered. This makes 2 items from276 clicks since I changed to the HP program. That's a conversion rate of less than 1%, but at least it's getting better!
I'm particularly curious as to where my 2 dozen own clicks went from when I was doing major work on the capsules.
This is very helpful content for a new hubber like me. I do appreciate the knowledge that people are willing to share. I don't know if I will ever make any real money from what I write but reading these kinds of discussions will certainly help. Thanks to everyone for sharing info.
This thread is an example of why old forum threads are so interesting and valuable.
If you, like me, are wondering why Amazon sales are so slow and disappointing, there is a fair bit of information in here. Plus some back-biting too which is always fun.
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