Ultimate Amazon Affiliate website Guide, we will show you everything about the Amazon Affiliate Program
The Amazon affiliate program, called Amazon Associates, is free to join and pays bloggers and website owners a percentage of every sale they refer to Amazon. Getting started is simple, and the earnings can be big.
Part-timers can make hundreds of dollars each month easily while some power bloggers make millions annually.
How the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program Works:
Amazon affiliate marketing works like other affiliate marketing programs by paying website owners.
Generally bloggers — commissions on sales that result from marketing Amazon products to their audience.
Site owners insert trackable Amazon affiliate links into site content.
In blog posts and can also insert affiliate ads into site sidebars, headers, and footers within your site.
When a site visitor clicks on one of these links or ads, he or she is sent to Amazon.
For Example, if you use this link to purchase something from Amazon, I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you or any of your friends and family.
If they complete a purchase there, the site owner — called the “affiliate” — is paid a percentage of the sale.
Amazon affiliate commissions range from 1 percent to 10 percent of the item’s selling price.
These percentages are based on the category the item is listed under on Amazon.
Here’s a sampling of the affiliate commissions that Amazon pays per category:
Amazon pays affiliate commissions based on the purchased item’s category.
We’ll explore how Amazon commission works in detail in step three.
Who the Amazon Affiliate Program Is Right For?
Bloggers are the primary users of the Amazon affiliate program.
However, Amazon’s affiliate links aren’t limited to use on blog websites.
Book authors, e-commerce sellers, and service businesses can bolster income with Amazon affiliate earnings.
Here’s a look at the range of online businesses that can benefit from the Amazon affiliate program in this guide:
- Bloggers: Bloggers can cover every broad and niche topic imaginable
- Amazon Kindle book authors: Every Amazon Kindle Author should have an author website on WordPress.
- eCommerce sellers: Ecommerce sellers can insert an affiliate link to a similar item on Amazon
- Online & offline service providers: you can launch a WordPress business website and publish content
Essentially, any individual, group, or business that creates some type of online content and attracts an audience can bolster income with Amazon affiliate earnings.
How to Become an Amazon Affiliate in 6 Steps:
Becoming an Amazon affiliate isn’t difficult.
You need a Website: See how to create one here
WordPress is ideal for this — and the ability to create content around something that interests you.
These are the two simple building blocks that many Amazon affiliate marketing empires are founded upon.
Getting to that point takes some work but the payoff can be very worthwhile. Here’s how to become an Amazon affiliate in six easy steps.
1. Launch Your Affiliate Website:
If you don’t yet have your blog or website, you’ll need to launch one to house the content you create to market Amazon affiliate products.
You must have your website in place before you can apply for the Amazon Associates affiliate program, which we detail in step two.
WordPress is, by far, the most popular web platform for affiliate marketers.
You can learn how to get your site up and running quickly in order.
A simple content-focused WordPress blog or website is all you need to get started with Amazon Associates affiliate program.
Once your website is up and running, your long-term goal is to build it out with content that interests you and attracts an audience.
Most successful Amazon affiliate marketers target a niche that interests them like:
- cooking
- hiking
- aquarium care
- antique Corvettes, and so on.
Niche topic possibilities are endless, but you want to be sure it’s something that you’re passionate about.
One of the perks of the Amazon affiliate program is that you can apply for it as soon as you’ve launched your site.
You don’t have to have a large following to get started.
So, you just need to set up a website on a BlueHost site and then get WordPress for free.
2. Sign Up to Become an Amazon Affiliate:
The Amazon Associates affiliate program is completely free to join, and it has very low-level entry requirements, so entry-level beginner bloggers and content marketers are welcome.
Start the process by visiting the Amazon Associates Account page:
The Amazon Associates sign-up page lists its affiliate program details in one convenient place.
Once you click the “Join Now for Free” button, you’ll be taken through the account signup process, outlined below:
The Amazon Associates setup wizard guides you through each of the five steps.
To complete the registration process, you’ll need to have these three elements ready to go:
Your Standard Amazon Account:
You need to have a standard Amazon shopping account to join Amazon Associates.
If you have a business entity like a sole proprietorship, LLC or corporation, you can set up a new Amazon account under that entity to keep your affiliate account separate from your personal Amazon shopping account.
An Active Website or Blog:
As mentioned in step one, you need to have your website or blog set up and running before you sign up for Amazon Associates.
You must provide the URL to your website during registration, so get your BlueHost website (click to get my special pricing) or other site set up before applying.
You can include up to 50 different affiliate sites under one account.
Plus, if you develop mobile apps like a mobile deal finder or how-to app, you can include those in your affiliate marketing plan too.
Step two of the Amazon Associates sign-up asks for your website URL.
Here, you can enter one or more websites or mobile apps into your Amazon affiliate account.
A General Idea of Your Site Content:
Your Associates’s profile is the place where you tell Amazon what your blog or website is all about.
Including the type of content you cover and the types of goods you plan to market via affiliate links.
Here’s an idea of what Amazon wants to know:
The Profile stage is where you tell Amazon what type of content you intend to publish and how you’ll market Amazon products through affiliate links.
After completing your Profile step.
Amazon verifies your websites and will send you an approval confirmation within about 12 to 24 hours.
Once you receive that, you can start adding affiliate links to your site content.
You’re Approved! Sort of …
“Your initial approval is the beginning of Amazon’s 180-day probationary period,” says Amazon affiliate and owner of Books That Sow Strength, Cherrye Vazquez.
“To remain in the program, a new Amazon Associate must earn three qualified sales within 6 months of sign-up, and those three sales cannot include purchases by family and close friends,” warns Vazquez. “Amazon’s sophisticated algorithm can identify purchases from close acquaintances — so don’t rely on that trick.”
Vazquez advises new bloggers to “be diligent and work on getting at least 20 posts up fast since that time goes by very quickly.
However, once you get those three purchases,” says Vazquez, “you’ll get an email that you’re fully approved.”
Vazquez adds, “Amazon Associates Is one of the few affiliate programs that allow new bloggers to enter their program without an existing social following.
Many others only approve new applicants that have a social following in the thousands.”
3. Learn How Amazon Affiliate Commissions Work:
Once your Amazon affiliate account is approved, you can start adding Amazon affiliate links to your content. But before you jump in head-first, you need to learn the different ways you can earn Amazon affiliate commissions and understand Amazon’s category-based affiliate commission structure.
Here’s the list of Amazon affiliate commission percentages, per category:
Amazon affiliate commissions are category-based, so you can make higher payouts per-sale by marketing goods within higher-paying categories.
Here’s a closer look at the three ways that Amazon pays commissions to its affiliates:
Linked Product Purchases:
If your reader clicks on a link to Amazon and purchases the item, you earn a percentage of that sale, per the list above. For example:
- Furniture, home decor, and lawn & garden: This category pays 8 percent of an item’s sale price; if a shopper purchases throw pillows for $40 via a link on your site, you make 8 percent, or $3.20, on that sale
- Beauty, musical instruments, and headphones: This category pays 6 percent of the items’ sale price; if a shopper you sent to Amazon purchases a garden rake for $30, you make 6 percent, which is $2.40 in your pocket
- Luxury beauty: Affiliates are paid a whopping 10 percent commission on items in this category; if you market an $60 item from this category, you’ll make $6 when a visitor clicks through from your site and makes the purchase
Now, Amazon’s categories can be confusing. As you use the program, you’ll find that something that you’d consider a “Home” or “Luxury Beauty” item might be categorized at a lower rate.
This $121 item within the Luxury Beauty category would net an affiliate $12.11 if the shopper came to Amazon via the affiliate site.
Commissions from Other Purchases:
Here’s the most exciting part of Amazon’s affiliate program. You make commissions on any other items your shopper buys too. They don’t even have to purchase the original item that sent them from your site to Amazon. This is a great perk.
If your visitor clicks on one of your affiliate links, says for the beauty cream above, but purchases another brand of cream or even a blender or pair of shoes during their visit, you get paid a commission on those items too.
Amazon’s affiliate links track the shopper from your site to that of the shopper. If he or she completes a purchase within a 24-hour window, you get the commission — whatever it is he or she buys.
Plus, if the shopper leaves Amazon’s site without purchasing, but returns and completes a purchase within 24 hours, you earn commissions on anything the shopper purchases.
If the shopper adds items to his or her Amazon cart within that 24-hour timeframe but leaves without purchasing, all is not lost.
If he or she returns and completes the purchase within 90 days — without clearing the cart and starting over, that is — you can still earn that commission.
These are not factors you can control, but they are nice perks of the Amazon Associates program.
Amazon Bounties:
Amazon Bounties are flat-fee payouts that affiliates earn when a visitor signs up for an Amazon service like a Prime membership, Amazon Music, or Kindle Unlimited. Most bounties pay around $3 to $5.
It’s easy to market Bounty programs by adding an Amazon Bounty ad into your store’s sidebar or banner:
Amazon Kindle and Prime subscriptions are two of the many bounty programs that you can add to your site via text links or display ads.
You can see all of the category-specific percentages and bounties on the Amazon Associates program payouts page.
4. Learn How to Use Amazon Affiliate Links:
Amazon affiliates can insert different types of trackable links into content to market Amazon goods and services. Some of the affiliates that we interviewed have one or two favorites as you’ll see below, but most use different types of links throughout their site.
Amazon’s free Site Stripe extension and popup link button are quick and easy ways to insert Amazon affiliate links into your website content.
Here are the five primary types of links that Amazon affiliate marketers use to monetize site content.
Amazon Affiliate Text Links:
The blue text underneath the bullets above are affiliate text links. When clicked, these send the viewer to Amazon’s baby gate listings page, where a purchase leads to affiliate earnings.
Text links are simple to use, and many successful bloggers recommend them for both startups and established affiliate programs.
Slavik Boyechko, the founder of the filmmaking equipment review site GearDads, says:
- The easiest way to begin as an Amazon affiliate is simply to write good content and insert in-text links using Site Stripe.
- When it makes natural sense to link to an item.
- Banners and native ads and advanced comparison tables are something you can do down the road.”
James Goodwillie of the blog One To Multi agrees: “
- I’ve been an Amazon Associate from day one, and it’s the number-one way I monetize my content.
- I’ve found that things like big sections of product image links are too much and scare away users.
- Adding affiliate links for product pictures or any text where I mention the product is the method that works the best for my site.”
How to Use Amazon Affiliate Text Links:
With the Amazon Site Stripe extension turned on, you can search for and insert Amazon affiliate text links within your website editor.
Using its handy popup “Create Link” button.
First, you select the text to link, and the Amazon Create Link button pops up, like this:
When you click on “Create Link,”
- can select an item from the pop-up list.
- Search for a specific item.
- or link to a search results page on Amazon.
- You can complete the entire affiliate linking process in just seconds within your site dashboard — as we did in this WordPress post edit screen:
You can also create text links for any Amazon item or page within your Amazon Associates dashboard.
Once you select the item or page, Amazon gives you code that you copy and paste into your web content.
Amazon Affiliate Image Links:
The image in this how-to post was taken by the publisher.
But you can also insert images copied from Amazon product listings if you’re covering a specific item.
You want to be careful with this because the item featured in the image needs to match the item that you’re linking to best-serve your reader and to meet Amazon’s affiliate image guidelines.
How to Use Amazon Affiliate Links in Images:
Like text links, the simplest way to insert Amazon affiliate links into images is by using the Site Stripe extension.
With that, you can select the image in your site editor, and the Amazon “Create Link” button pops up, like this:
Then, click on “Edit,” and the pop-up search window opens.
In it, you can search for the exact item you want to link to, and click “Tag Image,” to insert the affiliate link, like this:
Amazon Featured Product Affiliate Links
Amazon provides many types of ad-style affiliate links
These Links come with custom coding that automatically updates item pricing, names, review starts, and images for you.
One of the easiest and most effective options is Amazon’s Featured Product links.
Amazon’s Featured Products affiliate links are easy to insert anywhere in blog posts and content pages using Amazon’s codes.
How to Use Amazon Featured Products Affiliate Links:
You can create a featured product affiliate link using your Site Stripe extension bar which appears above the item on Amazon.com.
Use Amazon search to find the item that you want to list, click on that page, then click on “Text+Image” in the Site Stripe bar above it.
Amazon shows you how the affiliate link will appear, and you copy the provided code and paste it into your website content.
To create a row of multiple featured product links as we show above.
You can insert the link code into a table on your website.
Or copy and paste the code for several featured products in succession into your post.
Amazon Native Shopping Ad Affiliate Links:
Amazon Native Ads convey pricing, Prime eligibility, and reviews to your readers, which entices them to click and shop.
You can populate your Native Ad sections in three different ways too:
- Recommendation ads: Amazon populates these ads automatically based on a scan of the surrounding post content;
- These ads insert the products that Amazon feels are the best match for the content and reader interests and make updates automatically too
- Search ads: Creates an ad strip of best-selling items for a search phrase and includes an Amazon search box.
- Custom ads: You can create a Native Ad strip that includes products that you specifically want to promote; Amazon updates the pricing automatically.
Of the three Native Ad options, Rizzo recommends that new bloggers try the simple and effective Recommendation Ads. “These scan your post automatically to make certain that the products it recommends are relevant to the reader,” says Rizzo.
How to Use Amazon Native Shopping Ad Affiliate, Links:
Amazon’s Native Ads can be set up in the Site Stripe bar.
However, many new affiliates find it easier to do this within the Native Ads section in your Amazon Associates dashboard.
There, you can tinker and test all types of ad options to find the best fit for your content.
Banner Ad Affiliate Links:
The site gives affiliates a huge selection of automatically updated ad banners that can be Amazon Bounty programs earlier.
Amazon Affiliate Ad banners and buttons:
- for seasonal and holiday specials.
- shopping events like back-to-school.
- and many other niche-targeted promotions like crafting, kitchen, tech, and plenty more.
They will update any expired banners automatically with standard promotions.
You can find many Amazon Banner Ad options in the “Banners” section of your Amazon Associates dashboard.
Once there, you can search for targeted and niche market ad programs that promote just about anything you wish:
Amazon Banner Ads cover a huge range of niche categories, so they’re easy to target to your unique content.
Caution: Using WordPress Plug-ins to Create Amazon Links:
If you use WordPress to run your affiliate site, you’ll eventually hear about Amazon’s affiliate plug-ins.
These are third-party programs that streamline adding Amazon affiliate links to your website.
This sounds enticing, but many blogging pros warn new bloggers that relying on plug-ins can be risky.
Jon Hayes, the author of the Authority Hacker Amazon affiliate site, says, “When it comes to plug-ins, it’s important to remember that Amazon is extremely harsh with their penalties.”
Since it’s very easy to lose your Amazon Associates affiliate account for incorrect linking.
However, most experienced bloggers agree that the options covered above handle most affiliates’ linking needs just fine.
Next, we’ll look at the different types of content you can create to house your affiliate links.
5. Create Content That Converts Readers to Buyers:
To become a successful, money-making affiliate site owner, you must create interesting and compelling content — and lots of it.
Content is what attracts an audience and that content largely depends on the purpose of your blog.
Some bloggers focus on product reviews while others are do-it-yourself crafters.
Whatever your niche, here are four different types of content that our expert bloggers recommend.
Best-of Lists and Product Roundup Posts:
Jeff Rizzo says “the easiest posts to incorporate affiliate links are best-of and roundup lists, like the ‘5 Best Water Bottles for Hiking.’ These lists allow bloggers to incorporate numerous product links into a single post and thereby have more opportunities for click-throughs.
Shawna Newman delivers readers useful information via best-of lists and review roundups which can be easily monetized with Amazon affiliate links.
Rizzo adds, “roundup lists can also rank higher in Google search results because they tend to be more specific.
In other words, don’t do a post entitled ‘Best Laptop Computer’ because you will be competing with some of the largest websites out there such as CNET, PC Magazine, and so on and will have a difficult time getting traffic,” says Rizzo.
“Instead, think about deeper pieces of content like ‘Best Security Camera System for Small Businesses,’ which has fewer searches but far less competition.”
Connecting tightly post titles and content to your niche topics helps your site rank higher in search results.
That’s how you build up a following of readers and shoppers who share your interest.
Product Review Posts:
The SimplySmartLiving blog uses a star-rating system to tell readers how reviewed lines meet specific criteria and boost search rankings.
Hayes advises, “when you’re getting started, I would highly recommend sticking to review articles, particularly roundup reviews.
These are a great way to ease yourself into the content creation process.
During the research process:
- you will get a deep understanding of your audience
- and the types of problems they’re trying to resolve.
Product Comparison Posts with Tables:
O’Rourke places quick-reference tables like this at the beginning of product comparison and review pages.
“Placing a product comparison table head of your post or webpage increases your click-through rates to Amazon tenfold,” says O’Rourke.
“Plus, tables offer a convenient method for your readers to compare product specifications.”
O’Rourke also recommends adding affiliate links to any images in your tables or on post pages.
“Always make sure to hyperlink your page and table images to Amazon,” says O’Rourke.
“Rourke’s testing suggests that images are among the most clicked elements of a page.
Once you get users to Amazon, you’ve done half the job since they’ll often make a purchase once there.”
How-tos, DIYs & Recipe Posts:
Bloggers who focus on creative topics like crafting, DIY, home decorating, and cooking have an endless supply of “How-to” instructional content. “This,” says crafting and cooking blogger Amanda Formaro, “is great for converting readers to buyers.”
“One of the most effective ways to use Amazon Associates is to include affiliate links in a list of supplies or tools that are needed for the recipe, craft, garden project — whatever you may be writing about,” says Formaro.
Amanda Formaro adds affiliate links to useful kitchen tools within every recipe she posts on her AmandasCookin recipe blog.
Formaro also publishes other types of content that appeal to the shopping side of her how-to audience.
- product reviews can be very effective — even more so than just linking to supplies within a how-to post
Next, we’ll look at how to measure and gauge the success of your Amazon affiliate marketing efforts.
6. Review Analytics & Refine Your Plan:
After you have some content published and Amazon Associates affiliate links in place, you’ll want to review how well those posts are converting and your links are performing.
This is a pretty in-depth science. However, as a beginner, you can start to explore and tweak performance using two analytics tools:
Amazon Associates Account Reports:
Your Amazon Affiliate dashboard provides an overview and in-depth reporting.
Here you can review and track the performance of link clicks rates, conversion rates, and the income generated.
Amazon Associate’s performance reports are very intuitive and help you pinpoint products that convert best on your site.
This program is in beta testing now but is in the process of rolling out to all Amazon Associates accounts.
Google Analytics:
Google Analytics will:
- track your overall site performance
- number of visits to your site.
- your most popular pages.
- how do visitors interact within your pages.
There is a learning curve to Google Analytics, but it’s well worth the time investment.
Using Google Analytics Pages report, the blogger can make sure the most popular pages feature appropriate affiliate links.
Knowing which pages are the most popular on your site is important to your affiliate monetization strategy.
This data helps you target your affiliate efforts to the pages that already attract the most readers.
The Bottom Line:
There are many ways to monetize an affiliate marketing blog or website.
However, the pros agree that the Amazon Associates affiliate marketing program is hands-down the best way for most beginning bloggers to start earning affiliate income.
As soon as you’ve launched your website, you can apply for the Amazon affiliate program.
Temporary acceptance is almost guaranteed and that gives you 6 months to build content.
You just need to convert three readers into buyers in this time frame.
Long-term success depends on doing two things well:
- Building content that delivers value, and using that content to market affiliate products to convert those readers into buyers.
- Being able to monetize.
Do you monetize your website with Amazon affiliate links? Are you exclusive on Amazon or do you also use other affiliate marketing programs? We’d love to hear what works for you in the comments below.
To Your Success
Disclaimer: My posts may contain affiliate links! Moreover, if you buy something through one of my links, you won’t pay a penny more. But I will get a small commission, which helps keep the lights on, thanks