Signing up to become an Amazon affiliate is easy

 How to become an Amazon affiliate

Signing up to become an Amazon affiliate is easy. Though there is an important part that comes before signing up: having a website, app, or YouTube channel.

Before you head to Amazon, make sure you have one of these options that are up to date and already have some content.

From there, you can apply for an Amazon Associates account.

1. Go and click the Sign up button on Amazon Associates center

                                                  

fill in information for amazon application

From there, you’ll be asked to either sign in with an existing Amazon account or to create a new one. If you only have a personal account, it would be best to create a new one to separate your business. However, if you have a phone number linked to your personal account (and no business phone number), you won’t be able to create a new account.

2. Fill in your information

Here you’ll need to fill in your affiliate account information for Amazon to be able to pay your earnings correctly.

3. Add your website, mobile app, or YouTube channel 

You can add up to 50 websites or mobile apps. If you have more than one digital home, feel free to add them. 

Once you’ve added a website and hit the Next button that appears, you’ll also be asked if your site or app is targeted toward children under 13 (these sites aren’t eligible for the program). 

4. Set up your profile

This section asks you to fill out the information about your website (as well as your preferred store ID, which will normally be your business name). Amazon wants to know what your website is about and what type of products you’ll build links for.

5. Explain how you drive traffic to your site or app

The next section asks you to explain how you drive traffic to your site (you can choose more than one option). You’ll also need to share how your website or app currently generates income, how you build links, your total unique visitors, and why you want to join the program.

After that, you’ll need to complete the security CAPTCHA and agree to the operating agreement.

6. Add your tax and payment information

Once you’ve completed the application, you’ll be prompted to add your payment and tax information, though you can choose to do it another time. From there you’ll be able to start using Associates Central to create affiliate links.

7. Use the Amazon Associate Connector app

If your website runs on Shopify, you’ll be able to use the Amazon Associate Connector app. Using the app allows you to import Amazon products into your Shopify store with ease. 

                                                  

This way you can create a high-quality Amazon affiliate website, earning from existing products rather than selling your own. First, log into your Shopify store from the app page and then link your Amazon Associates account.

From there, you can import specific products using the product URL (searching Amazon products in the app requires Amazon Webservice credentials). After adding a product, you’ll see it in your products window like so:

Once you’ve added the product through the connector app, it will be displayed in your Shopify store, where people can purchase it, and you’ll earn a commission.

Marketing tips to boost income 

So you’ve applied to be an Amazon associate, and you’ve connected the Amazon Shopify app to your Shopify store—what next? It isn’t enough to have your store exist. To make the Amazon affiliate program work, you’ll need to strategize. 

So here are some tips and strategies on boosting your affiliate income and building a stream of passive income.

• Find a niche
• Create original content on different platforms
• Invest in SEO
• Start a blog

Find a niche

As with any brand strategy, for customers to buy from you, they need to know you’re what they need. You do that by establishing yourself in a niche. A niche is a segment of the larger market defined by its own needs and knowledge. It becomes your specialty as an affiliate marketer. 

If you featured a random assortment of products on your website, people won’t know what kind of site it is (and are less likely to find it in a Google search).

Focus on a particular product category you are genuinely interested in. That way it’ll be easier to market, as well as help you stay engaged with building the business. For example, Beardbrand is a store focused on male grooming products, with a particular focus on beards. 

So, how can you find your own niche? Consider the following criteria:

• It’s a topic you’re interested in learning about. Good affiliate marketers become experts in their industry over time. One way to become an expert is staying on top of trends, taking part in events, and constantly learning. 
• You can solve the niche’s problems. People will follow you because they enjoy your insight and you help them solve problems. Sprocker Lovers, for example, focuses only on sprocker spaniel care and education. The brand taps into people’s desire to raise healthy, happy spaniels. 
• The niche is profitable. You don’t want to invest time and energy into your content, only to find out the niche is not profitable. Run a Google Trends search to see how popular your niche is. Look at market research reports and check how often people search for your niche topics. This can signal whether or not people are ready to buy. 

Create original content on different platforms

As an online entrepreneur, you already know the value of original content. It helps you stand out, build credibility, and foster trust with followers—all things you need for successful affiliate marketing.

But creating original content isn’t enough anymore. You also want to distribute content across multiple platforms, considering that multichannel customers spend two to five times more than single channel customers. 

Let’s look at Package Free, for example. Package Free is the storefront for the blog and YouTube channel Trash is for Tossers, a zero- to low-waste lifestyle brand. 

Both its blog and YouTube channel are full of content designed to help people live a more sustainable lifestyle. By creating this content and showing expertise, they’re able to attract the type of people who are likely to trust and eventually buy from them.

Another reason to create original content elsewhere is to target long-tail keywords in multiple formats. In the image above, you can see some of those long-tail phrases on playlists such as “easy zero waste alternatives” and “zero waste shopping.” 

Keep in mind that building a content library is a long-term process. Like any affiliate marketing strategy, time and dedication will lead to significant results down the road.

Invest in SEO 

If you want people to come to your website through Google or any other search engine, you’ll also need to think about search engine optimization (SEO). Making sure your website is optimized for search engines helps make it so that you come up in search results.

However, SEO isn’t about keyword-stuffing. So how do you make sure your website is optimized for search engines? You create web pages or include content that helps them understand your website better.

Product reviews 

Including product reviews serves a dual purpose. They help create social proof for potential customers as well as bolster your SEO. This is because they keep your content fresh and up-to-date. You can also create buying and gift guides for products you recommend as an affiliate.

Product comparisons

Whether created as blog posts or dedicated web pages, product comparisons are also a great way to boost SEO, since 81% of customers research before buying. Offering comparisons to similar products helps customers with their research.

A great example of product comparison articles comes from TechRadar. The publication covers the latest technology news and reviews, publishing many best-of articles with links to Amazon to buy. 

TechRadar makes it clear to readers they’ll purchase on Amazon by using the call-to-action button “View At Amazon.” This sets expectations and can improve conversions, since readers already trust buying on Amazon.

Homepage

It can be easy to forget about SEO for your homepage when most of the effort goes toward design. Some easy ways to optimize your homepage include having your target keyword in your homepage title, optimizing the page meta description, making it mobile-friendly, adding SSL, and keeping the loading speed fast.

These are just a few areas you can look at for SEO, but another way to get to the top of Google is to build a blog. When you post high-quality blog content consistently, you build credibility about a specific topic, which can help you rank higher for related keywords.