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Follow Along [Journey #5] 4th Amazon Affiliate Niche Site

Overview

My first journey was a flop, but I learned a great deal from that:
  • Sauna https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ tube site (August, 2017 - 2018).

My second journey has been a success for a nice side income:
  • Hobby site (3rd of March, 2018 - 2020+),
  • 1st Affiliate site (5th of April, 2018 - 2020+).

My 3rd journey is slowly picking up, but I'm not sure what will become of it.
  • 2nd Affiliate Site (7th of June, 2019 - 2020+).

My 4th journey was a flop, I got too full of myself and got carried away.
  • 3rd Affiliate Site (October, 2019 - 2019)

And now I'm starting this 5th journey thread. This is very likely going to be a success story.
  • 4th Affiliate Site (09.12.2019 - 2020+)

What's interesting to me about this is that the niche is pretty new. That means no long-standing competitors. It (the niche) is something I'm fairly motivated to write content for. It's not a weird niche, fairly simple one, actually useful to learn about as I research and write.

This too is a summer niche site btw.


Content Strategy
It's the usual: I'll start off writing informational content first as I learn about the niche myself, from there I'll start to analyze the products themselves and write reviews, and then, with all that figured out, I'll make the money posts.
  • informational (5 to 10),
  • review (around 10),
  • and pillar type posts (around 3).
I'm aiming for about 20 to 30 posts. Trying to get this phase done before the summer in 2020.


Competition
Since it's a fairly new-ish* niche, too strong of a competition hasn't yet set foot in this niche. So you can imagine my surprise when I found it.

The "Best Cheap Niche Product" keyword for example has only 1 super sketchy All-In-Title article on the first page, the rest are related topics from random sites like quora, reddit, Amazon, etc - ALL these sites are insanely easy to outrank without backlinks. In fact, if I started off by making the pillar post as the very first article on my site, I'd probably win the 1st spot and even get the snippet. However, I can't start with that because my knowledge of the products or the niche itself isn't quite where I want it to be. I don't want my content to look like a high-school student's attempt of describing a product by its picture only. That's completely rubbish. I need facts, I need actually researched useful and interesting nuggets of facts and statistics to off of.

Lucky for me my main competitor right now looks to be an Income School student! https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ yes. They've got fabulous content (they seem like an actual expert in the field) from which I'm able to learn so much. Their on-page SEO is kind of meh, off-page SEO probably non-existent, but the content in itself is almost superb. That means competition is fair game because I don't ever build backlinks either. I try not to "steal" his content though. Instead I try to pinpoint what the readers are looking for more precisely, along with interlinks and references to "studies" and whatnot. I'm not an expert myself, so I have to dig real deep into research papers to get a full understanding of things. It's like learning about some things about physics from scratch from those papers at times...

The SEO side of things is exciting for once. Instead of a site with absurd amount of sketchy backlinks and smelly content making me puke, I now compete with an actual whitehat passionate site. It's refreshing, really. They're really focusing on being useful, just as Income School would have it, but they aren't really targeting any of the money keywords directly, they've taken the "come at it at an angle" quite literally when it comes to money posts... ^^ On informational content, they target search queries directly and it's working wonders for their site. Almost every topic I tried to search for in my own limited research had their site sitting in a snippet position.


Keyword Research
I've tried out a handful of keyword sellers by now.
This time I figured I'll pay a little more than I'm used to in order to get an actual decent niche I'd be comfortable writing about, not some uber random freaking cringe set of trash keywords I've been getting lately...

Here's an example of a good, but bad keyword (in my opinion): "Harmonicas". I don't know about you, but to me harmonicas are cringe-worthy. They don't really sound nice. They don't look good either. But that's just me...

I paid $63 for a keyword package that lead me to an Amazon niche I didn't quite see the potential in. The products were comparable to a classic piano - expensive, huge, heavy and sensitive. How did the seller imagine people buying something like that from Amazon, how would that be transported, etc. People don't buy such a product online, I don't think. But then I looked around within the category, because I didn't want my money ($63) go to waste again, and then I found it!

It's almost 100% guaranteed that this site is going to make me a decent amount of money once I'm done with it.


TECHNICAL
The domain is bought via Namecheap for 2 years ($22.12). It's hosted by HostKoala using the now closed 4th journey's premium shared hosting plan for 2 years ($50). I've implemented https for this site and it's using a relatively optimized simple free theme (Roseta).

I figured I had set the site up fully, having checked everything in the checklist. But only today I found out that I had forgotten to create a Robot.txt file for the site. Google Search Console was giving an "oopsie" error when I tried to index one of the posts, and that lead me to the root of the problem eventually (had no robot.txt file and google had a hard time understanding the site because of that - kind of tells me that the free theme probably isn't SEO optimized well enough).

I've also created the logo, favicon, all these neat design elements as well by now and can focus on bumping out content.


EXTRA

This time I don't have this doubt in the back of my head that it might not work and that I'm wasting my time. This time I'm almost 100% certain I will get money out of my efforts. Perhaps even more than my 1st affiliate site which is made almost $2000 in one month in summer.

I've already published 2 pages (About and Privacy Policy) and 2 posts (informational content).

Snail pace.

The only and only problem I have is the lack of pictures available on the internet (because the niche is fairly new, but it's rising in popularity fast). So what I was thinking was actually buying 2 of the products to make the pictures myself... But there are a few complications with that (bad timing).


Expenses:
  • domain: $22.12 (December, 2019 - 2021)
  • hosting: $50 (October, 2019 - 2021)
  • keyword package: $63
  • total: $135.12
Earnings:
  • not monetized yet

h294EDDC3
 
UPDATE
December, 2019

4th Affiliate Site 09.12.2019-31.12.2019.png

Because the niche has so much potential, I've had fun doing research for the topics people are searching for on Google. There's a lot of value for me to spread because there are gaps in information provided by others I can fill.

I'll likely do all the writing myself without even thinking of outsourcing anything for this site.

I think I've gotten better at researching and writing content. Sometimes I'm surprised myself how the blank screen just fills with useful stuff after a while. Still snail pace though... Some people burp out 20,000 words a day. I write maybe just a little and then I usually end up analyzing the crap out of that little piece of writing, factoring in everything I've learned and trying to improve it even more. Making it so that just by glancing over it I'd get all the important information. This time I haven't spent the extra time finding pictures to emphasize the words, that usually takes even longer than researching and writing does.

I'm planning on writing a few more informational fundamental articles before going after review posts.
 
Forgot to add... As of December

Expenses:

  • domain: $22.12 (December, 2019 - 2021)
  • hosting: $50 (October, 2019 - 2021)
  • keyword package: $63
  • total: $135.12
Earnings:
  • not monetized yet
 
I think I've got the fundamental informational topics covered now (roughly 5 strictly informational posts so far).

Before diving into buying intent keywords (reviews, best-of's, etc), I have one important pillar post to make. That'd be a "Buying Guide". This allows for a better transition between informational posts and money posts. Binds them together, sort of. Relevancy, basically.


Another thing is, right now I don't have a single picture on the site. I'll need to flood my posts with them at some point or I won't be ranking for shit on SERP...

Soon

wholesome-shencomix-com-29816478.png
 
I got done with the "Buying Guide" pillar post. It's actually quite a pleasant experience this time around. I kind of enjoyed putting it together.

Now I need to start putting together the first review post. And since I want all the review posts to share the same structure, I need to get this first review just right. I'll basically create a template out of its structure and use it for pumping out new reviews faster. This template also acts as a guideline for outsourcing the reviews should I ever get bored of writing them myself.


Though I fear it will be tough. Normally it hasn't been a pleasant process because days go by without me having anything to show for it and I start to feel stuck, perhaps even a little impatient, making me rush it out. And when I rush it out but have to use it as the baseline for all the other reviews, I grow a little distaste for writing new reviews as the structure isn't as intuitive for potential reader to follow as I would have liked, but backtracking all the reviews and fixing those imperfections is as daunting. That said, I hope I've learned the lesson on a subconscious level and can pull through.

callmecarsoncrying.jpg
 
It's done!

Finally finished the first review post. I must admit, it wasn't all that bad, and I managed to get it to a point where I'm fairly satisfied of how well it flows and the structure makes sense while covering everything in a convincing way.

Goofy face.png

However, there is a new problem now.

The review template is now at a point where I'm so satisfied with the review template, I don't really want to change it at all when writing new reviews based on that. Since the products are for the most part very similar, there's only really tiny bits that actually need changing. It's on the verge of being duplicate content like that.

I'm at odds...

Do I just go: "https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ it!" and pump out this duplicate-like content or waste time naturally spinning each of them to look different enough from one another in order to avoid taking any risks algorithm negatively affecting the site (duplicate content SEO stuff).

I'd like to just use the review template as I intended it to be used and go with the "https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ it!" approach. ^^



But I feel uneasy about it still, halts all the creative juices in me...
One-does-not-simply-300x300.jpg
 
At this point I feel comfortable writing stuff in this niche. I seem to have learned enough about things.

The review template is working nicely. The only problem is finding pictures, then editing the pictures, etc... Takes longer than writing. And when it comes to writing, as long as a product is sufficiently documented, I can write a full review using the template within 2 or 3 days. The word count per review ends up being 1.5k-2k+ words long that way - not too long, not too short. But, yeah... those damn pictures. But if I wanted to rank without unnatural backlinks, I need good content.

I mean, editing those pictures is relaxing, but I constantly feel pressured to make things faster in order to get this site to a decent level before summer. I wanna retire* this year. ^^ (*not worry about money that much and just casually build the empire).

long way to go.jpg
 
Using the template by copy pasting much of the content found there over to the reviews is a bit scary...

I don't want to run into the same problem I've been running into on my 1st affiliate site where I used a similar tactic where I used a template for all the reviews but put a lot of effort manually spinning those samey parts. Although it took a little more effort to compile those reviews like that, it seems to have worked out just fine.

I've been trying to analyze as to what extent can I copy paste text from the template in order to form product reviews that differentiate in some aspects while being the same for the most part. Google algorithm comes off as fairly clever by now, so maybe this type of copy pasting is not a problem if done meticulously...


Like... I'm reading this thing and I feel pretty confident that there shouldn't really be a problem in the long run. Like, sure, it's probably going to take a whole lot longer for the algorithm to figure out what content is what when most of it is duplicate (the context is different), meaning that I won't be ranking even for 0 competition keywords right off the bat, but it seems to me Google is really trying to understand duplicate content and doesn't just categorize it as such to simply ignore it all together. If I were to spin those samey content areas, it would essentially pose a counterproductive problem instead where now I need to pass some other algorithmic check against suspicious spinning activity on the site...


Uhh... I guess I just have to keep on pushing and find out the hard way, huh? ^^

d68.jpg
 
4th Amazon Affiliate Niche Google Trends 2010-2020.png


The first picture makes it clear that the niche (this 5th journey 4th Affiliate site's niche) is somewhat new and on the rise.

To put that into perspective;


1st vs 4th Amazon Affiliate Niche Google Trends 2015-2020.png


The first niche is pretty developed by now in comparison.


This is really just trying to be a visual overview of the market situation.
There's reason to be exited for summer 2020.
^^​
 
Nice post this will really helpful to people who starts affiliate marketing. I am also planning to start a website.
Most people could do way better than I do if they just gave it a try and kept at it. I'm held back by my stupid ideals, but I'd imagine many people having way more fitting belief system than I do.

I don't know about you, but I guess you too would have a better outlook in that sense. It just takes some time (months and months of delayed gratification) given how Google works. Requires not real skills apart from common sense.
 
UPDATE
January, 2020

4th Affiliate Site 09.12.2019-31.01.2020.png

There's like 6 info posts and the rest are review posts.

There's not much to talk about yet, but when I'm looking at Google Search Console, the keywords are volatile. They go up and down like crazy. I guess I'll need to create more useful content and get out of the sandbox, get Google to trust my site...

I might need to re-optimize the copy-paste review posts a little more, too. I get the urge to go wash my hands when it comes to some parts of the copy pasted sections. Surely I can make them more unique and relevant to that particular product the review is about. Right now I think I've been a little too lazy and comfortable with just copy pasting a lot of the parts with even anchor texts (link texts) being the same...


If not this year, the following years to come this site might prove to be the most profitable one I've ever dreamed of having. The technology of this product is still improving and most people don't even know it exists yet. It's a good future-proof product (I might be wrong of course) and I'm truly glad to have found it so early, makes it easier to have an aged authority site getting high spots in this niche in the future. The site should grow in value like that, too. It's like a real investment.


Expenses:
  • domain: $22.12 (December, 2019 - 2021)
  • hosting: $50 (October, 2019 - 2021)
  • keyword package: $63
  • total: $135.12
Earnings:
  • not monetized yet
 
I've started to redesign the review template.

What went wrong:

I started off with a cheap basic niche product and took that as the benchmark for the template. A big oof.

At first, I had figured that the higher end niche products weren't all that much different from the cheaper ones. Now that I've reached those high-end ones, I've had to resort to just squeezing in all that additional information where the template structure allowed. Because of that, some vital information is deeper down the review rather than highlighted up front. In an effort to adjust that misalignment, things started to look off (as per my criteria). It's not as intuitive as I'd like things to be - because if I was the reader, I would like to get ALL the niche relevant vital information up front without feeling overburdened, and if based on that first-impression wholesome information I'm interested in actually now buying the product, only then will I read further to get the whole picture from the following information.

Why am I doing this?
I've found that if the template is good, writing the review becomes almost enjoyable. It almost feels like writing a simple blog post as I don't need to constantly and critically analyze the flow of things (algorithmic and psychological optimization) but comfortably follow it instead, assuming I had researched enough to know everything about the product that the flow wasn't halted by external hiccups...

Maximum Efficiency.jpg

Review TEMPLATE optimization process.

I've got like 10 reviews to rewrite now.
Luckily all the research is done, so all I really have to do is re-locate that information
rather than start researching things from scratch.​
 
I'm now done with redesigning the review template.

Also, I created the first review with it and I think this upgraded template is better in every way - covers more search queries and solves more potential problems the users might have. Hits more keywords, comes off more authoritative, is simply just much more useful. While the old version made the reviews 2000 words long, this new template makes them 3500 words long. It's all super compact (yet not in a way that it would look like science paper). I'd imagine if I wrote like my competitors (greasy walls of text, something like these comments I make here), it would become more than 10 000 words long... ^^ Additionally, I managed to perfect the snippet introduction section by looking at what Google had used for snippet information on other reviews and by deriving from those what Google is thinking people are mainly looking for in a review. Everything's there now (in the snippet information) - both the readers and Google should fall in love.


Now I need to work on the pictures in a similar way the template works. That is, the pictures across all the reviews ought to look and feel exactly the same with only the meat, the product and its related things themselves being swapped out in them. This way I can simply listen to a podcast while editing the pictures without having to reinvent the wheel each time I have to put them together. I'm doing the editing using Paint.net, so sometimes I have to do things Photoshop would do in one click manually instead.

Here's to explaining how the pictures work:
When I talk about some key aspect of a product in a review (key aspects being just me trying to predict what the readers might think is important), a related image showcasing that aspect is close by. There's not too many images, but there's definitely not too few of them. Like that, every important aspect is visually supported, almost like a children's book effect. And since the review template touches on those key aspects in exactly the same location in each review, the accompanying picture is, too, essentially at the exact the same location with the image showcasing exactly the same aspect of the product (with the image depicting just a different product instead and having correspondingly different meta descriptions and so forth).

relevance.jpg

veevy deep

I simply like order in things.
Factor in and cover Everything systematically without missing a beat.
For analogy, there's science in music, too.

Smarts.PNG
 
The new template is much more wholesome. Slowly but surely working through all the reviews now and even creating new ones. Building an extremely strong foundation for this one.

I need to vent though.
There aren't too many brands in this niche yet. New products from those few brands replace older model products every couple of years, so things stay fairly fresh, too. I feel like such conditions are perfect for a simple niche site to thrive:
  • niche hasn't blown up yet (new, growing demand, early bird gets the worm);
  • every competitor is a fairly small player (potential for a new site to become a big player);
  • there isn't a sea of niche products to drown in (the new player is not overwhelmed, and it's easy to break into);
  • the niche has future (it's in a phase where newer generation solutions replace older generation solutions - imagine Apple's iPhone).


While I really am excited for the future,
I'm also sad for the present at the same time.
I've never felt them both at the same time so strongly...
Hide the pain Harold.png


Happy for obvious reasons:
it's a goldmine of a niche waiting to be discovered by the masses (opinionated).
While it's not yet widespread, all the marketers have been lining up their little excavators (read: platforms, sites).

Sad because everything good is so far behind the future.
It's as if I'm sacrificing the present, the now, for the future that'll never be... (seemingly too far away)

NB.jpg

Sunset seduces;
Each step takes me no closer;
The horizon flees.


Gib me your https://www.beermoneyforum.com/'n money.jpg
 
Overview

My first journey was a flop, but I learned a great deal from that:

My second journey has been a success for a nice side income:
  • Hobby site (3rd of March, 2018 - 2020+),
  • 1st Affiliate site (5th of April, 2018 - 2020+).

My 3rd journey is slowly picking up, but I'm not sure what will become of it.
  • 2nd Affiliate Site (7th of June, 2019 - 2020+).

My 4th journey was a flop, I got too full of myself and got carried away.
  • 3rd Affiliate Site (October, 2019 - 2019)

And now I'm starting this 5th journey thread. This is very likely going to be a success story.
  • 4th Affiliate Site (09.12.2019 - 2020+)

What's interesting to me about this is that the niche is pretty new. That means no long-standing competitors. It (the niche) is something I'm fairly motivated to write content for. It's not a weird niche, fairly simple one, actually useful to learn about as I research and write.

This too is a summer niche site btw.


Content Strategy
It's the usual: I'll start off writing informational content first as I learn about the niche myself, from there I'll start to analyze the products themselves and write reviews, and then, with all that figured out, I'll make the money posts.
  • informational (5 to 10),
  • review (around 10),
  • and pillar type posts (around 3).
I'm aiming for about 20 to 30 posts. Trying to get this phase done before the summer in 2020.


Competition
Since it's a fairly new-ish* niche, too strong of a competition hasn't yet set foot in this niche. So you can imagine my surprise when I found it.

The "Best Cheap Niche Product" keyword for example has only 1 super sketchy All-In-Title article on the first page, the rest are related topics from random sites like quora, reddit, Amazon, etc - ALL these sites are insanely easy to outrank without backlinks. In fact, if I started off by making the pillar post as the very first article on my site, I'd probably win the 1st spot and even get the snippet. However, I can't start with that because my knowledge of the products or the niche itself isn't quite where I want it to be. I don't want my content to look like a high-school student's attempt of describing a product by its picture only. That's completely rubbish. I need facts, I need actually researched useful and interesting nuggets of facts and statistics to off of.

Lucky for me my main competitor right now looks to be an Income School student! https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ yes. They've got fabulous content (they seem like an actual expert in the field) from which I'm able to learn so much. Their on-page SEO is kind of meh, off-page SEO probably non-existent, but the content in itself is almost superb. That means competition is fair game because I don't ever build backlinks either. I try not to "steal" his content though. Instead I try to pinpoint what the readers are looking for more precisely, along with interlinks and references to "studies" and whatnot. I'm not an expert myself, so I have to dig real deep into research papers to get a full understanding of things. It's like learning about some things about physics from scratch from those papers at times...

The SEO side of things is exciting for once. Instead of a site with absurd amount of sketchy backlinks and smelly content making me puke, I now compete with an actual whitehat passionate site. It's refreshing, really. They're really focusing on being useful, just as Income School would have it, but they aren't really targeting any of the money keywords directly, they've taken the "come at it at an angle" quite literally when it comes to money posts... ^^ On informational content, they target search queries directly and it's working wonders for their site. Almost every topic I tried to search for in my own limited research had their site sitting in a snippet position.


Keyword Research
I've tried out a handful of keyword sellers by now.
This time I figured I'll pay a little more than I'm used to in order to get an actual decent niche I'd be comfortable writing about, not some uber random freaking cringe set of trash keywords I've been getting lately...

Here's an example of a good, but bad keyword (in my opinion): "Harmonicas". I don't know about you, but to me harmonicas are cringe-worthy. They don't really sound nice. They don't look good either. But that's just me...

I paid $63 for a keyword package that lead me to an Amazon niche I didn't quite see the potential in. The products were comparable to a classic piano - expensive, huge, heavy and sensitive. How did the seller imagine people buying something like that from Amazon, how would that be transported, etc. People don't buy such a product online, I don't think. But then I looked around within the category, because I didn't want my money ($63) go to waste again, and then I found it!

It's almost 100% guaranteed that this site is going to make me a decent amount of money once I'm done with it.


TECHNICAL
The domain is bought via Namecheap for 2 years ($22.12). It's hosted by HostKoala using the now closed 4th journey's premium shared hosting plan for 2 years ($50). I've implemented https for this site and it's using a relatively optimized simple free theme (Roseta).

I figured I had set the site up fully, having checked everything in the checklist. But only today I found out that I had forgotten to create a Robot.txt file for the site. Google Search Console was giving an "oopsie" error when I tried to index one of the posts, and that lead me to the root of the problem eventually (had no robot.txt file and google had a hard time understanding the site because of that - kind of tells me that the free theme probably isn't SEO optimized well enough).

I've also created the logo, favicon, all these neat design elements as well by now and can focus on bumping out content.


EXTRA

This time I don't have this doubt in the back of my head that it might not work and that I'm wasting my time. This time I'm almost 100% certain I will get money out of my efforts. Perhaps even more than my 1st affiliate site which is made almost $2000 in one month in summer.

I've already published 2 pages (About and Privacy Policy) and 2 posts (informational content).

Snail pace.

The only and only problem I have is the lack of pictures available on the internet (because the niche is fairly new, but it's rising in popularity fast). So what I was thinking was actually buying 2 of the products to make the pictures myself... But there are a few complications with that (bad timing).


Expenses:
  • domain: $22.12 (December, 2019 - 2021)
  • hosting: $50 (October, 2019 - 2021)
  • keyword package: $63
  • total: $135.12
Earnings:
  • not monetized yet

h294EDDC3
As I started reading your post I became happy and encouraged to start and affilate marketing using your method. But when I get to the end of this post and you say that your income is zero, I felt pity that after the whole sacrifice and money spent it still generate no income. I think that you should seek advise from an expert.
 
As much as I love your writing skills, I find it difficult to pinpoint your strategies because you seems to hide basic information. For instance, you did not tell us the niche. I quote " the niche is fairly new", it is obvious you are hiding the niche. Secondly, you did not tell us how you do the keyword research and which keyword tools you use? When I discovered this your silent manipulation, I know I am going for a very rough ride.
 
You are doing well. I remember back then while i was in school, i needed money, so i decided to go into affiliate marketing. It was then i came to understand that affiliate marketing is not as easy as most people make it seem.
 

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