There has been a boom in popularity around Amazon affiliate based sites on Flippa. Everything from dietary supplements to coffee beans have been listed and sold on the marketplace which is exciting to see. I’ve discussed this Flippa niche with multiple investors and there are a couple components that are important for beginners to know when researching this type of web property.
What is an Amazon affiliate content site?
First of all, a content rich blog can be monetized in multiple different ways. The primary and most common way is through an ad network like Google AdSense or Media Vine. The second way many entrepreneurs are now monetizing content sites is through Amazon affiliate links which generate a small commission when readers click through and purchase the item linked on Amazon. The mixture of these two revenue streams is a powerful “one-two” punch to diversify your investments revenue streams. If you can manage to build up a body of high quality original content about a specific product line in a growing niche while linking to those products on Amazon you will have a healthy income producing long-term profit.
Why doesn’t everyone do this?
The short answer is traffic. The long answer is that building a body of quality content while focusing on search engine optimization (SEO) for organic traffic are two separate difficult skill sets. In fact, these are two separate full time jobs at most organizations and it requires a lot of experience to perfect these skills. As mentioned previously, if you can manage to build up the output of quality content with your Amazon product links, the rewards will be there but SEO is the curve ball many can’t quite master.
How do you pick an Amazon affiliate site to buy?
There is some quality content available about Flippa due diligence as well as recent Affiliate partnerships with Human Proof Designs and Alpha Investors. In my experience, the site’s age plays the biggest role into the price given it will take between 3-6 months for Google to begin indexing it. So, you will have to buy the asset depending on the amount of organic traffic the site will be receiving or how close it is to being indexed by Google. The two recent partnerships Flippa launched are to provide professionally designed affiliate sites for entrepreneurs to immediately run with. For example, there are a handful of investors that manage 10+ affiliate sites from Human Proof Designs that generate a few thousand dollars per month each. Adding new “turnkey” affiliate sites to your portfolio monthly, once you’ve mastered your strategy, has massive upside potential.
Pick a Growing Niche
As someone that has experience with content based affiliate sites, I’ve found that picking a growing niche is the first key path to success. Finding writers to help you develop content isn’t too hard and I know of a handful personally that are content powerhouses in dozens of niches. If you’re struggling to find content creators for your content site DM me on Instagram at @stvmcg and I’ll be happy to help direct you to quality content producers.
Leverage Popular Content Categories
In my experience, to fully scale one of these affiliate sites it’s also important to leverage already popular types of content like reviews of products in your chosen niche. Reviews open the door to a lot of new products, branches to alternative products, comparison posts, lists of top products, and many more. The main bottleneck many buyers don’t understand with content based affiliate sites is the blog topics. Reviews and top 5-10 product “listicles” will give you and your writers an open playing field for new content topics.
When should I get started with Amazon Affiliate content sites?
The best time is now. Even if you’re reading this post 5 years from the publication date, I recommend trying this type of investment. If you aren’t comfortable learning SEO or writing your own articles, as I mentioned previously, I can help direct you to the right services or you can just find experts on UpWork. eCommerce isn’t going out of fashion anytime soon and the barrier to entry on an Amazon Affiliate site is relatively low, so the sooner you jump in, the better.
Ideal Amazon Affiliate transaction team:
1 Developer to transfer hosting and domain.
1 writer to start with content development .
1 SEO expert to help with long-term organic traffic from search engines.
How do I start to rank highly on Google?
As with all businesses and apps, including Amazon affiliate sites, currently available on Flippa, you will have to put in some work upfront to maintain a smooth transition and protect your downside. Once you set up your SEO strategy and have begun to get keywords ranked with high quality content directing readers to your ads and affiliate links you can scale quickly. Google rewards new and original content so once you’ve ranked on their search engine, adding consistent content about your product will fuel the growth quickly.
I highly recommend focusing on the quality of your content and paying more upfront for your writers so you’re first ranked articles generate traffic long-term. Also its just good business practice to provide value to customers and in this case, your readers. Many people will take short cuts and try to pay $5 per post without knowing that Google is extremely smart with ranking content and keywords. Google and other search engines will not index a poorly written $5 article over a high-quality product review or comparison article.
SEO indexing on Google on average will take between 3-6 months to begin yielding results so front loading your content development is key. Make sure you are producing consistently and using WordPress with plugins like YOAST and Google Analytics. Also sharing every post on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, and all other channels where you have a community.
How can I manage multiple affiliate sites?
Realize that you don’t, and likely shouldn’t, do all of the work yourself. My most successful content based affiliate sites in the past have been managed by having a shared Google document with a list of 50 topics at a time, assigned to writers. I split the list of 50 topics by a payment every 5 posts to give a clear picture of when they are paid. Many writers will charge by the word (Example: $0.25 per word) but the best writers will charge by the finished article. Using the “charge by the article model” will allow you to bundle payments for multiple articles together for bulk content packages with the best writers.
Conclusion
In summary, protect your downside by coming to a transaction prepared with a team, knowledge of your niche, and a reasonable timeline for your ROI.
I’ve learned that with transactions that involve content production and ranking on Google you will need to be patient. While Google works on indexing, you can drive quality traffic from alternative channels like social media.
Posting your articles on niche subreddits (Reddit) is a great way to drive targeted traffic as well as indirectly indexing your links on Google faster than through traditional SEO. As a pro tip, be sure to target smaller subreddits in your niche and have a friend help by asking questions in the comments of your posts. Creating conversation on subreddit posts is actually how Reddit started. Their founders would post and have discussions with each other in the comments to trigger engagement. Subreddits are an extremely valuable strategy to driving targeted traffic on a budget and on top of that Google loves indexing Reddit posts.
