Amazon as an Affiliate Partner

Amazon is the mother of all online affiliate programs. A large part of Amazon's success has been their ability to get other people to do their selling. Millions of web site owners and bloggers send customers to Amazon everyday. Almost everyone wanting to make money from web site content has dabbled with Amazon at some point and many earn substantial amounts from it.

In some ways Amazon is a great affiliate partner. They have a trusted brand name, are based in several different countries and carry such a large number of product lines that they have something for everyone. The downside is that the level of commission they pay is not that high. About 6% on books and music but even less on big ticket items such as Playstations.

Amazon is such a huge program that it can shape how you implement your affiliate strategy on your web site. With Amazon you don't have to choose between focusing on a single affiliate or using multiples. Because of its large catalogue, you don't need to worry if your visitors are not being converted into sales. Rather than switching affiliates just change which products you are selling.

There are several different strategies you can employ as an Amazon affiliate. Product reviews and recommendation with text links to the appropriate product page on Amazon. Or use the aStore feature to create your own mini-Amazon store but with only those products you want to include. This can be taken further using Amazon's API which allows you to pull information from Amazon's database of products, run your own shopping cart and have a complete online shop without your customers even knowing you are using Amazon. If all this sounds too much then the easy option is just to use Amazon's widgets or adverts. They have a variety of these including ones that automatically select products based on your web site's content. This approach to Amazon makes it more like an advertizing program than an affiliate.

For the first time web site owner Amazon is a great way to get started. Their range of products and ways of selling them are unrivalled. This makes up for the lower than average commission rate. Combined with good keywords and search engine friendly web design and it becomes very easy to make money with web site content.