A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the things I planned to do to make my business profitable enough that it could take care of my retirement. (If and when that day ever happens, because at this point I feel like I could do this stuff forever. That’s JUST how much I enjoy it.)
Part of that plan entailed starting a writing service, which as you know I did back in September with Buyer Friendly PR. A second part of that plan was writing ebooks. I’ve been on that road for several months now, and I’m loving it. A third part of my retirement plan was creating a few Amazon affiliate sites that I could eventually sell off.
I started putting that part of the plan into action this past weekend.
While I won’t be revealing the actual topic, I will be letting you in on the things I’m doing to build and promote these sites.
My previous Amazon affiliate site experience
Just so you’ll know, this isn’t my first ride at the Amazon affiliate site rodeo. I’ve had 4 other sites up and running for a couple of years now.
The income from one site is used strictly on Amazon gift certificates. This is an excellent way to fuel my slight Amazon addiction and do my holiday shopping without feeling like I’m dipping into my bank account. I’m usually done Christmas shopping by September, which is great because crowded stores really ain’t my thing.
Income from the other three sites come as cash. And that’s how I’d like to keep it for the sites I’m doing now.
Site structure plan
I know from past experience that having an exact match domain has been beneficial for my other affiliate sites. I’ve had first page rank for two of the exact match domain sites for quite a while. And I really don’t promote them at all.
But this time I couldn’t get an exact match domain in the traditional sense. Instead I chose a number, then the exact match domain — something like 3BestWindowFans.com.
So far my goal is to promote 5 products on the site. The products will be based on long-tail keywords that are easy to rank for, but have decent traffic volume. By ‘decent’ I mean 5K+ searches a month.
Why just 5 products? Because I plan on featuring the best-in-class for each segment.
For example, if my site sold fans, I’d do a review for the best window fan. Then another review for the best table top fan. And another for the best standing fan.
My feeling is that whenever I visit a review site and there are too many products to choose from, I end up not choosing any. So I prefer to present a small number of choices showing products with a lot of great reviews.
Alternative income sources
The one thing I really want to add is an ebook or two, preferably Kindle-based since they’ll already be on Amazon. However the products I’m selling really don’t have good ebooks to back them up.
That’s something I might work on, since I do know this topic really well.
SIDENOTE-
I just started a weekly accountability group where I promised my group mates that I’d write no fewer than 10 pages a week on a new ebook. So I might just crank something out for the new Amazon site.
I’m also thinking about adding Adsense, but that’s still up in the air. I haven’t used Adsense in a long time, and I’m not sure if I want to put it out there.
If you have any suggestions, I’d be happy to listen.
Early promotional ideas
Steve Scott just did a really good review on BuildMyRank.com.
I’m always a little skittish about link building groups like this, because I’ve always been pretty good at accumulating links organically. But since it’s an affiliate site, I’m going to take Steve’s advice and give it a go. Over the next few weeks I’ll be reporting on my results.
Of course I’ll also put some press releases together. I’ve done them for other people’s affiliate sites, but not my own. I’m curious to see how it works on a brand new affiliate site.
So stay tuned, and it you have any recommendations, I’m all ears.
Devesh from 
Brandon on 
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