My last few posts have focused around affiliating products online and primarily focusing on Amazon.
In today's article I'm going to provide you with some pro tips about what you shouldn't do when setting up an Amazon affiliate website.
As one of the biggest businesses in the world, Amazon has strict rules about what affiliates can and cannot do.
Here are the 6 biggest mistakes that I see Amazon marketers make that either costs them sales or gets them banned.
1. Not including a disclosure
Every website that uses affiliate links to sell products on Amazon must have an affiliate disclosure. You might not get banned right away but if you're caught without one you'll lose your account and all the earnings you made over the last 90 days.
Simply add the following to your website and make sure their is a link to it in the header or footer:
[website name] is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
2. Don't List prices
Yes, as tempting as it can be to list the price of the item you're promoting, it can get you banned from Amazon.
Products on Amazon are changing all the time and so are their prices. Listing one price on your website and being shown another on Amazon damages the visitor's experience on Amazon and is why they have such a rule.
Instead of listing the price of your product, segment your products by price range. For example:
- Budget = $
- Mid-range = $$
- High-end = $$$
Not listing the price is also a great way to get users clicking your links, if your content is engaging enough visitors will jump over to Amazon to view the price, increasing the likelihood of you making a sale.
3. Don't Use follow links
There are two types of links on the Internet, they are:
- Do-follow – these links tell Google that the website linked is credible and that it should pass Page Rank to that page.
- No-follow – these links tell Google that they should not follow the link or pass any Page Rank to that page.
While Amazon doesn't care what link you use, in Google's Webmaster Guidelines they state that all affiliate and sponsored links must be no-follow so they don't pass Page Rank.
Having your affiliate links as do-follow can result in your website being de-listed from Google.
A simple WordPress plugin can turn all your Amazon links into no-follow links.
4. Don't Have The publish date on articles
Most articles you create for your Amazon website will be written once and most likely never updated again. If you reviewed a product in 2010 and the searcher finds it in 2016, they'll most like leave your website looking for fresher content.
By removing the date of your post you can make your content appear evergreen.
5.DO Post long-form content
You only need to spend 5 minutes on Upwork to see Internet marketers asking for 500 words for articles reviewing lawn mowers, speakers, water filters etc. With so much content online, creating short-form content won't get ranked high enough online.
You must research keywords and focus on long-tail phrases to target people who have a greater intent to buy.
Don't be the next review website that has dozens of reviews all 300-500 words in length, you'll be wasting your time. Studies have shown that long-form content ranks better in Google:
6. Don't Mention Amazon trademarks in your domain
You cannot mention any Amazon trademarks in your website domain. For example, if you were promoting BJJ gis, your website cannot be called:
www.AmazonBJJgis.com
You'll quickly get banned and your host may even ask you to change your domain or remove your site from their server. However, you can put Amazon in the slug of your domain. For example:
www.BJJgis.com/Best-bjj-gi-on-amazon
Amazon Fire and Kindle are both trademarks that you cannot use either. Avoid using the Amazon logo in your own website logo or material if possible.
Summary
These are the biggest issues I see most new affiliate marketers make when getting started with Amazon. Having do-follow links to Amazon products or not listing a disclosure may not sound like a big deal, but they are.
Once you receive a ban it's almost impossible to un-lift so I advise you all to take the right steps to safeguard your website to ensure your hard work is not done in vain.
