Most of the domains I acquire, I look to resell or hang on to for the long term. I really haven’t developed anything up to this point, but I have a couple sites in the works. While my domains are sitting unused, I am trying to find some quick and easy alternatives to parking to generate income until I’m ready to make a move.
Back at the end of June, I blogged about launching an Amazon based affiliate e-commerce store on one of my hyphenated domains, Mens-Razors.com. Granted, it’s not the greatest name, so it was one of those things where I thought I’d give it a try just to see how it looked. I didn’t spend any time adding content to the site and it hasn’t been indexed by Google for that very reason. To be honest, I haven’t given it much thought since then. Today I decided to have a look.
The visitation statistics still suck, barely breaking out of the single digits per day, but they are up from two weeks ago where I was getting one or two visits per day. The top sources of traffic, accounting for over 75% of visits, are Yahoo and Bing. Could it be the holiday shopping? I’m sure it is. The chart below shows the very modest earnings in the week of November 25 to December 1. A couple of things I realize here:
- Amazon commission blows. While I’ve generated $246.34 in sales for Amazon, I get paid a commission that averages 5.5%.
- If I want to generate any significant earnings, I better get indexed by Google.
The site ranks well on Yahoo and Bing and I credit the domain name alone for that. Another encouraging point is that the bounce rate is around 30% which means, once people get to the site, they’re looking around and not bailing right away.
My plan from here will be to add a good amount of content to the sites in the form of articles. I’ve already received two back earlier this week from the source Elliot cited in his post today, TextBroker.com. I’ll also work on some back linking and then resubmit to Google. After adding content and filing a reconsideration request with Google, I’ll post a follow up if and when the site gains traction and revenue increases. I have a couple of other domains I’m experimenting on with different affiliate programs as opposed to parking or outright developing. I’ll try to get more information out about those as well.
Do you have any affiliate partnerships that are working well? Shoot me an email or leave a comment.
14 comments
I am using the ebay partner network and it has always converted much better than amazon for me. It also allows you to build your own site I use wordpress and then just insert the ads. Unique content is the key!
I haven’t tried that yet… I might give it a shot with another domain.
I use commission junction, but I also use valueclick, the parent company.
Amazon does convert very well. I think better than cj.
@Steve, If you’d like to mention a couple of your sites, I’d be interested in seeing them.
I’m often using Wordpress along with ReviewAzon, a WP plugin that lists Amazon products. It has worked out quite good for me, although commission is quite low on Amazon it often converts good and it adds up.
Recently I also launched a site with unique product reviews, and a simple (though quite ugly) Amazon Astore integrated to it as a “shop” page. Will be interesting to see how that works, since it sure takes a lot less time to setup.
@Johan, I’ll have to check out ReviewAzon. SOunds interesting.
AFAK Amazon affiliates can not be used outside the US, so I use programs from ShareASale.com instead and it performs quite nicely, I like the wide range of goods they have and their free advertising tools for webmasters.
@Jon, thanks for sharing ShareASale.com.
Hey Sully
Indeed, Amazon commissions are a bit low but it’s all about the traffic. They offer a tiered structure so the more traffic you can get and the more conversions you make, the higher percentage you earn….but you probably already knew that!
In the last week or so I have driven $500 of sales to Amazon and I haven’t even been rewarded with even 10% of that, so I feel your pain man.
I’m going to shoot you an email with perhaps THE best resource on how to increase Amazon Associate revenue. What’s more, it’s FREE!
Jim
@Jim, Awesome. Thanks
Personally I have been buying and selling products for years (electronics, toys, other collectibles) and just recently started blogging about them on my site using amazon affiliate. I also wrote about the hottest black friday toys which led to an increase in sales but the conversion sucks! I am only getting 5 or so percent.
I dont have any specific micro niche minisites just because I am weary about actually making any profit from them based on all the articles I have been reading similar to this. Ill stick to writing about newest released products and focus on holidays to get some extra $$ from amazon.
Good luck with your razor site!
The razor site looks nice but as you pointed out, you
are not making any money with it. Especially, if you add
the $150. cost for Mike’s page.
The problem with automatic (was referenced in your
initial blog posting) it is obvious it doesn’t convert.
When they list 50 testimonials and more than 1/2
are no longer active, the domain owners were not
making any revenue.
I can live with 5.5% commission if enough revenue
was generated.
I’m sure there must be better WP plugins for Amazon,
Shopping and CJ. We just don’t know about them???
@passive domainer, great points. I’m hoping adding content will help drive traffic, but only time will tell. It’s a low return to be investing any more time and energy in, but I like to experiment, it usually yields lessons if nothing else. FYI for anyone interested – sitedepot.com is soon raising rates on the affiliate stores.
This past monday while searching for a particular item,
my wife landed on a page and noticed it was thru
Amazon. She then went to Amazon to see if the price
was better and also to see additional items.
She probably would not have realized it was Amazon
if it wasn’t for the name near the price.
She ordered a slightly different item from Amazon and
it arrived a few minutes ago.
Thought it was ironic you were discussing Amazon’s
program this morning.