If you’re looking for a way to make extra cash, you’ve probably considered trying Amazon Mechanical Turk. Thanks to its affiliate program, which allows companies, brands, and individuals to earn a commission off each purchase, you can easily make a few extra bucks online without even trying. But is being a part of the Amazon affiliate program worth it? That is the question.
The Math Behind Mechanical Turk
To answer that question, let’s first examine the math behind Mechanical Turk. When you join the Amazon affiliate program, you get a special link, which when clicked, will send users to an Amazon marketplace – where they can then make a purchase. On average, about 10% of those visitors will purchase a product (usually an affiliate product, such as a t-shirt or pair of shoes) and then make a purchase on Amazon after joining the program. So for every $100 spent on products, you could earn about $10 in affiliate commissions.
Now let’s look at some of the drawbacks. First, getting started as an Amazon affiliate is a bit tricky and requires a significant amount of upfront investment – $25 for Amazon Payments, listing fees, and launch fees (plus you need a web host to get the site live). Plus, you need to have a high click-through rate on your affiliate links to make any money at all. If you’re just diving in to the affiliate world, this can be a bit daunting and may discourage you from trying. Also, Amazon takes a cut of any earnings you make. Finally, Amazon’s affiliate program can be a bit unstable, as Amazon can change the terms and conditions at any time. For example, Amazon recently changed their affiliate program to disallow people from promoting products that they advertise on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. So if you’re doing any type of social media marketing, make sure you are following the rules set by Amazon – or you can risk losing revenue and getting penalized by Amazon for your misstep.
The Pros Of Working For amazon
On the other hand, there are a number of benefits to becoming an Amazon affiliate, which you should consider before dismissing the idea. First, the commission earnings can be very good, even if you have a small website or blog. According to data from Statista, the average commission is about $3.50 per day, with the top 10% earning about $6.67 per day and the bottom 90% earning about $2.67 per day. In some cases, you can earn up to $25 per day or more. So while it may not seem like a lot of money, if you’re doing the math, it can add up to a significant sum.
Second, the job can be done remotely from anywhere you have an internet connection. Since you don’t need to be physically located at a desk to do the work, you can take on this task anywhere you have a reliable internet connection. This may mean you can make remote work arrangements with other businesses or employers, which would then allow you to chip in on projects, products, or services that you might not have time for otherwise. For example, if you’re the sole trader of a small business, you may want to consider offering your services as a freelance writer or editor, while also keeping up with the shop’s daily operations – all from the comforts of your home.
Third, you get to choose the products you promote. Thanks to the affiliate program, you get to choose the products you promote, which are then tracked by a cookie that allows Amazon to see how much traffic you’re driving to their website from the products you chose to promote. With all the options available, it can be a bit overwhelming to choose the products you’ll be promoting, so you may end up choosing products that you’re familiar with or have personal experience with. In these cases, it can be more convenient to use an affiliate product finder tool to filter the results, so you can quickly choose products that are already established in the marketplace with a good reputation.
Fourth, you can promote almost any type of product or service, including physical and digital products, as long as you have a way for customers to find you. Since the job requires little to no experience, just about anyone can become a successful Amazon affiliate marketer. You don’t need to be specialized in any way, which allows you to promote your services in a variety of industries, such as business, marketing, and finance, to name just a few.
Fifth, you don’t need to have a huge social media following to be able to join the program. Thanks to the rise of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, many businesses now advertise extensively on these platforms. But while having a sizable social media following is certainly beneficial, it’s not necessary. You just need to have a way for people to find you online, which is usually done through a combination of social media platforms and search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a form of internet marketing that helps your website or blog to appear more consistently in search results when someone searches for your keywords or keyphrases – both in the sidebar snippets (the small snippets of text that appear next to the search results) and in the main content.
Since SEO is done through a combination of on-site and off-site strategies, it’s always evolving. This is why it’s so important to keep up with the latest trends and technologies that can help your website or blog to rank higher for your chosen keywords and phrases. Never, ever, try to shortcut the process of gaining high search rankings, as doing so can cause your website or blog to lose its organic listing and subsequent traffic.
Finally, working for Amazon can be a stepping stone towards more lucrative opportunities. One in five Amazon employees started their careers as affiliates, and almost all of them eventually move up the corporate ladder. If you do happen to move up the corporate ladder, you’ll find yourself doing very well indeed. In fact, about half of Amazon’s senior executives started their career in the company as an affiliate marketer. So in the long run, working for Amazon can be very rewarding.
Choosing The Right Niche
When choosing the right niche for your website or blog, consider the type of content you’ll need to produce to be successful in your chosen field. The more you know about your chosen topic, the easier it will be to position yourself as an expert in your field – which brings us to the next section.
Build Your Knowledge Base
One of the things that can make or break you as a content producer is the information you have available about your chosen topic. If you’re writing about fashion trends, for example, you’ll need to have a good understanding of style, fashion, and color. If you’re writing about sports, you’ll need to be familiar with the rules and regulations that govern your chosen sport. Fashion and style may be more important to you than your chosen sport, but without a basic understanding of both, it may be difficult to produce content that is informative to your target audience.
The good news is that you can easily acquire this knowledge through a combination of books, blogs, and online communities. You may decide that fashion is the best niche for your website or blog, for example, so you can focus on building a fashion knowledge base. If that is the case, it would be a good idea to consult the following sources of information: