Adding Amazon affiliate links to your website is a really easy way to start making money online. When I wanted to start adding affiliate links to articles in my website, I could barely find any helpful information online about how to set them up, so I’ve broken it down for you in this guide, focusing on Amazon affiliate links as I find this the easiest company to start doing affiliate marketing with as the set-up is so easy. Read on to discover how to make money from Amazon affiliate links on your website!
What are affiliate links and how do they work?
With affiliate links you basically act as the middle man or sales person. Let’s say you see a product on Amazon that you like or want to recommend: a camera for example. You advertise it on your website/blog using a link that is specifically for you. Whenever somebody clicks on that link to the product and purchases the product, Amazon will know the referral came from you as it was your specific link, so you earn a percentage of the sale – a referral fee basically where you earn commission. It doesn’t cost the buyer anything extra, yet it puts extra money in your pocket.
One of the best companies to get started with when setting up affiliate links on your website is Amazon as they have such a wide variety of products, they are a well-known international brand, and their criteria to join is fairly easy. For Amazon affiliate links to accept you, you need to have an active website or YouTube channel.
Amazon Associates Programme (also known as ‘Amazon Affiliates’):
Amazon Associates Programme is free to join, easy to get accepted and you can start adding the affiliate links on your site pretty much straight away.
Just head to the website (click here) and click “join now for free” – it’ll tell you to log into your normal Amazon account or create an account. It will ask you to add some account details and the link to your website or YouTube channel. You’ll then create your own Associates ID name (try to make it the same name as your website) and then they will ask you to provide some relevant information about your website that they will analyse. After this they’ll verify your account by calling you or giving you a OTP to input in the website, then that’s it – you should get accepted straight away! Just add your preferred payment method afterwards and then you’re good to go!
They’ll then send you a welcome email that will tell you your Associates ID – it’s the first 13 letters of your store ID then your country code, for example the country code for USA is -20 and for UK it is -21. Your Associates ID will also be visible on the top right hand corner of your browser when you log into Amazon Affiliates.
Your personal homepage (dashboard) shows the total number of clicks on the links and your earnings overview so you can keep track of sales.
Selecting appropriate Amazon Affiliate links:
Now for the fun part – selecting the links to put onto your website! Before you start though, it is important to not go crazy and start adding affiliate links everywhere on your site as it will really put people off even reading the article or ever going back to your website. Anything that you are advertising needs to be relevant and of some value to your reader. If your readers feel like all you want to do is make money from them as opposed to help them, you can say bye bye. So choose your products wisely and only select companies you trust.
On your dashboard above your earnings overview, you’ll see two tabs: ‘Quick Links: Search for Product” and “Browse for Product” (see image below). Use the “Quick Links: Search for Product” tab if you know the exact product you want to promote, or use the “Browse for Product” tab to search for a category of product – for example electronics or luggage.
When you find the product you want (I will use my camera as an example) click on “get link” .
You’ll have 4 tabs giving you the option to choose if you want to display the product on your website as an image or text, or both text and image, or as a widget. I like to use a variety of them on my website, depending on the context I am writing in. Let’s have a look at them below:
Text and Image:
I like the text and image choice as it displays both a picture of the product and the price, for example:
Text only link:
The text only option is good to use if you want to include a link in the middle of a paragraph and don’t want to break up the paragraph with an image of a product. For example say you want to promote the Canon Powershot G7X Mark II Digital Camera
Image Only link:
The image only link just displays an image of the item you want to promote. Your readers can click on it and it will take them to the product on Amazon.
Adding the link into your website:
Once you’ve decided how you want your link to look it’s time to add your own personalised affiliate link into your website. Stay on the same page you were on to select the product and just copy the HTML link that you’ll find below the product (click the button that says ‘highlight HTML’ to make it easier and then copy the code). It will already have your Associates ID embedded into the code. See below for screenshot:
Remember to always click ‘open in a new window’ in the 1. Customise Link section so your page will remain open and a new Amazon tab will open up. This way your page stays open and viewers can go back to reading your post easily.
To paste the link into your website you’ll need to paste the link into the coding part of your website. In WordPress this is the ‘text’ tab next to the ‘visual’ tab that you’ll find underneath your post title when you are editing a post – see the screenshot below: ‘text’ is highlighted.
When you click back on ‘visual’ (the one you use to write your articles), you’ll see the link of the product and people will be able to click on it and it will take them to the product on Amazon.
One tip for customising the ‘text only’ link:
If you look at the screenshot above, under 1. Customise link, whatever is written in the box next to ‘Link Text” is what will appear in your article, so for example, you can write the name of the product Canon Powershot G7X Mark II Digital Camera
Again, your Associates ID will already be embedded in the HTML code, meaning when someone clicks on the link, Amazon can see the referral has come from your website and so credit you with commission.
Tips:
Check your links work!
When previewing your article, check the link will work before you publish it! Amazon has a link checker so you can check your link will work and you will get commission for any products bought. You’ll find the Amazon link checker under ‘Tools’ on the drop down menu when you are logged in:
When you are previewing your article, click on the link of the product you are promoting so that the Amazon page opens up in a separate window. Then copy this URL into the Amazon link checker. You are not copying the HTML that goes in the coding part of your blog, but you are copying the link that appears in the browser. Once you have inserted it, Amazon will check it and should tell you that it is correctly linked to your Associates ID (yay!).
Don’t include affiliate links in all your articles
Try not to have too many articles on your website that have affiliate links in them. Some people can find them annoying, plus Google doesn’t like it when you have affiliate links in too many articles. It is best to have a few articles that have several affiliate links (such as a packing list post/Christmas gift suggestions for example) and for other articles to have no affiliate links, as opposed to having many articles that each contain a few affiliate links as you won’t rank well in Google. To see an example of an article where I included Amazon affiliate links, CLICK HERE.
How many sales do you need to make to keep your account open?
Your account will be approved for 6 months, but you’ll need to make 3 sales otherwise your account will be closed. Don’t worry though, you can easily create another one again. Once you have made the 3 sales Amazon will review your website just to make sure you are complying with their standards and they will contact you.
Click here to head to the Amazon Associates website to start making money from Amazon affiliate links!
Amazon Bounty Program
You can also sign up to the Amazon Bounty Program. It is essentially the same but instead of promoting a product you are promoting an Amazon service. There are many services on the program such as Amazon music for example. With this you earn a fixed fee (called a ‘bounty’) rather than a percentage of the price of the product that your reader has purchased. The bounty program work in the same way as promoting products – you get a unique code that your readers can click on and you will earn money from the sale. I actually find it even simpler than the Amazon affiliate links! Some examples of Amazon services on the Bounty Program include a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime, Amazon music unlimited or Kindle unlimited.
If you found this guide on how to make money from Amazon affiliate links on your website useful, drop me a comment below!
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