Jul 3, 2018
Chris got fired from his last job, thankfully! He was speakingwith co-workers about his affiliate revenues he was making on theside and his boss found out and fired him! Fast forward almost 10years and Chris is the host of the UpFuel Podcast and an expert inthe Amazon Affiliate space. He is the owner of several businessesin the Amazon space, including affiliate, SaaS and physical productbusinesses. His opinions and recommendations are not theories…theyare from real life experiences.
Chris is humble…you’ll get that in the Podcast. He didn’t sellor pitch anything. He just shared his experiences being an AmazonAffiliate entrepreneur. One thing he said over and over when itcame to being successful within the Amazon Affiliate space is to“differentiate” your site. Make sure that whatever product line youchoose to pursue, that you differentiate your site fromothers…there needs to be a strong reason why the end user wouldreview products on your site versus the competition.
Episode Highlights:
- Chris has been self-employed for just under 10 years.
- His Amazon Affiliate income replaced his “job” income…before hewas fired.
- He owns wordpress plugins, saas, affiliate and physical productbusinesses.
- Each niche has its strengths.
- Choose a niche that is of interest if you are startingout.
- If you are building a portfolio of Amazon Affiliate sites, thena system and process takes precedence over passion.
- Price point matters GREATLY within the affiliate space.
- Develop a product review site, not an information site to helpbuyers make decisions.
- Content is still critical, and Chris outsources much of itthese days.
- Amazon’s cookie length is 24 hours, allowing you to make moneyoff products you are not reviewing.
- A long term approach is the key to long term success.
- Building links can accelerate ranking, but is no replacementfor good quality content.
- When buying…beware of PBNs!
Transcription:
Mark: Joe how are you?
Joe: I’m doing fantastic Mr. Daoust, how aboutyou?
Mark: Good. I’d understand you talked to afriend of Quiet Light and a friend of Brad one of our brokers here,Chris Guthrie.
Joe: Yeah Chris is from UpFuel.com and AmaSuiteand I mentioned those upfront because we didn’t talk about it atall during the podcast. He’s an entrepreneur, have beenself-employed for about 10 years, went off on his own after he gotfired. He was actually talking to his coworkers and bragging abouthow much money he was making doing affiliate marketing and his bossfound out and fired him; probably the best thing that ever happenedto him because he’d been doing very well ever since. And thesubject of the podcast is really specifically focused on the AmazonAffiliate Space. Meaning you build the site doing product reviewson say vacuum cleaners and people look at those reviews click onone that they like and it takes them to Amazon, somebody buys it onAmazon and you get paid. And it’s really Chris's … one of his areasof expertise and I mentioned Up Fuel which is his podcast and hisblog that he talks about this on so I would recommend people tunein. But also AmaSuite which is a software service that he’s builtthat helps people sort of narrow the path in terms of what theywant to find, what products, how to … what niche, what category andhe didn’t talk about it at all. He didn’t pitch. He didn’t promoteso I’m doing a little bit for him because what I was trying to getwas a clear path for people that want to either build one fromscratch or buy one and grow it or things of that nature. And Ithink that he was hesitant to talk about his own product becausehe’s such a nice guy. He really … listen Mark I’m going to, don’tlet this go to your head but he reminded me of you a little bitwhich is he just wants to have conversations and help people. Andwhen he helps people it comes back around. And it was a great greatgreat show and I think it’ll help a lot of people in terms of theAmazon Affiliate Space.
Mark: He reminded you of me huh?
Joe: Yeah just the better looking, a lot betterlooking.
Mark: The poor fellow.
Joe: All right well let’s get to it … I mean ifyou … it’s got to be good so let’s get to it then.
Mark: All right here we go.
Joe: Hey folks it’s Joe Valley from Quiet LightBrokerage and today I’ve got Chris Guthrie on the line with me. HeyChris how are you doing?
Chris: I’m doing well thank you for havingme.
Joe: Chris you’re like a … you’re a little bitof famous in my world you know. You are. You’re like a star. I knowyou from your podcast and we’ve run in the same circles for yearsbut didn’t get a chance to meet each other until last Octoberright? It’s Rhodium Event Weekend out in Vegas. It turns out you’revery good friends with one of our brokers here, Brad Wayland. Youguys are in the same neck of the woods I think right?
Chris: Yeah well actually he’s an up and alittle bit south to Seattle; he’s over several states but-
Joe: Okay so in the internet world I guessyou’re in the same neck of the woods because you’re-
Chris: That’s right.
Joe: You should like candies; you guys don’teven if grocery’s on.
Chris: Yeah.
Joe: But you talk to each other often?
Chris: Definitely, yup.
Joe: Well he speaks very highly of you. And I …as I said pre intro here we don’t do fancy intros. I don’t haveyour bio in front of me. I know about you. I know what you do alittle bit. But I think folks want to hear it directly from you. Sowhy don’t you give us a little bit of background on how you gotstarted in the internet space and what you do for a living thesedays.
Chris: Definitely. Yeah so probably the reasonwhy I try and put myself out in the first place is just because itleads to conversations and other different types of opportunities.That’s kind of some eyesight a long time ago when I was digginginto this online space that I wanted to blog about it and talkabout it because it would lead to relationships and friendshipsthat I count people out and they count me out. And that’s sort ofwhy when you said the famous thing I think … I don’t really thinkthat but it’s more just that’s kind of why I went with thatdirection. But yeah I pretty much just have been doing variousonline businesses now for about 8 ½ years full time. On the AmazonAffiliate Side of things that’s actually how I was able to firstleave my day job. I was just fired but I left ahead that job andwas able to just keep doing online stuff because my AmazonAffiliate income had replaced my day job income. And so I justbasically got to work the next day working on building more sitesand growing the main primary site I had at the time. But yes soother than Amazon Affiliate thing I also run WordPress plugins, aSaaS company, physical product company, and other different typesof Amazon Affiliate or well regular affiliate websites as well. Soa bunch of different things along the way but yeah I’ve been hereright for quite a while.
Joe: So what’s your favorite in terms ofrunning the business? Do you like the physical product space whichtakes working capital and things of that nature or the AmazonAffiliate Space?
Chris: It’s tough to say because each one hasits benefit. With the affiliate side of things, you don’t have any… you don’t have to deal with any capital it’s just other than yourinitial capital to invest in the content creation and building asite out. There isn’t going to be as many costs associated withthat especially once you get up in ranks and start making money.And then there is … in many cases there’s less ongoing expenses.But on the physical product side you’re constantly putting in morecash and then a lot of cases it’s just a matter of trying to laythe damage to yourself for as long as possible so you can continueto grow that business. I mean everyone has a different goal interms of what they want to do with any business type but in thephysical profit side you’ve got to do … you’ve got to re-invest somuch more. So I can’t really answer I guess one way or the other Ithink it really comes down to what people are most interested in.For me, I like both and so that’s kind of why I still kind of havemy feet in both areas; both on the physical product side and if theaffiliate side and then also selling software and things likethat.
Joe: Got you. Well as we talked a little bitbefore we started recording, I’ve sold a number of affiliatespaces, businesses where they’re selling Amazon Affiliate productsand making money through Amazon Affiliates. And it’s becoming moreand more prevalent in some of the event groups like RhodiumWeekend, a lot of folks getting very interested in that. I’vealways been in the physical products space, I had a couple ofcontent sites and my physical products site was actually write goodquality content and Google will reward me was my methodology. Andit happened but I sold physical products. But the affiliate spaceis fascinating for me and I think more and more people are wantingto learn more about it. So that’s obviously why we’re chattingtoday and want to really get your expertise on how do you getstarted in this space? How do you focus on growth? Can you ramp itup? Can you do pay per click? Do you do social media? Do you do thetricks and tactics that they do with physical products on Amazon,or what’s the approach? And then maybe keep in mind that we haveboth buyers and sellers that listen to the podcast. So tell me froma starting point how do you begin in the Amazon Affiliate Space? Doyou just simply research a product, pick one, and go with it? Dosomething you love? What would you recommend to thoselistening?
Chris: Yeah definitely. So for the way I liketo do things is I like to look into … it’s more of a just generalniche research. And that’s of course … you said that where there’sa lot of baggage because there’s a whole different bunch ofdifferent ways you can do this. You can use various tools to helpwith the research process. You can just go out to Google based onthings you’re interested in and do research in that way. On theAmazon Affiliate side, that’s what I’d spent more of my time doingwas focusing more on areas that I was most interested inpersonally. So I had a site that was focused on like smallercomputers and that was something that I was interested inpersonally. So that’s kind of how I decided. I was looking at thevarious niches online and what people were ranking for and howthey’re making money. And it just seemed like a lot of the contentthey are creating wasn’t really … in many cases at least for theniche that I was in before I sold that site, they weren’t evenactually reviewing the products that they’re talking about. Theyare just basically writing articles and using CNET [inaudible00:08:34.7] large conglomerates, larger websites to come up withthe information they could write about. So what I did and so I was… you know contacted these companies and got them to send meproducts for free and I sent it back and do things like that. Sowith any site that I do whether it’s Amazon Affiliate or anythingelse it’s … for me, it’s mainly about finding a way todifferentiate. So looking at any niche is just okay what can I doto be better or to better serve the audience than the existingniches that are out there? So I usually-
Joe: Okay. I would think it would matter thatit’s something you’re interested in because with an AmazonAffiliate Space you’re reviewing the products. You’re writingcontent about it. You’re sharing your voice and your opinion. Itseems like it’ll be important that is something that you like.
Chris: Yeah definitely I mean that’s … for methat was the approach. I mean I think that if the goal and thisisn’t something that I’ve done personally but if the goal is toreally systemize and launch dozens of sites or something like thatthen you would need to just … you could really do just things yourinterested in because you can’t potentially run out of those. Butyou’d be looking at different types of criteria just like what’sthe average sign price of a product, that’s one of the things thatyou focus on as well is if you’re focusing on a niche where theprice is much higher then you can make more money in Amazon’sAffiliate program because of the way they have the structure; theiraffiliate payouts. But that’s something to consider as well is justthe price of the items that are going to be sold.
Joe: Okay so focus a little bit on somethingthat you like but also look at the math behind it in terms of theAmazon Affiliate Payouts and the different categories that theyhave and the price points. Because you’re going to get a paid … youget paid a percentage of the close transaction I assume; is thatright? Can you touch on that a little bit, how you make money as anaffiliate? Start from scratch and assume that people are tired ofphysical products or tired of SaaS products and they want to maybebuy one of these. How do you make money doing it? Go right intothat a little bit.
Chris: Yes, so the way that it’s done prettymuch is just focusing on … actually to see and try to pull up theactual charts that I have memorized it off the side of my head buteach category will have different types of payouts. And pretty muchthe way you can … I would say and try and pull it really quick butI have it in front of me … yeah, so the way that I would that isfind-
Joe: So somebody reviews a product and let’ssay they’re reviewing vacuum cleaners. And someone sells vacuumcleaners on Amazon; obviously, they do. And I’m talking about thereviews on those physical products and someone clicks on the linkand goes to buy it on Amazon, I get paid a percentage of that but Inever have to own the physical product that’s the upside of thisright? I get a percentage of the sale but never have to purchasethe inventory, correct?
Chris: Exactly yup and in pretty much the … andI was trying to find the category here, so every category isdifferent and they’ll show you which … what the fees are like I’dgive you one example, so if it’s outdoor tools for instance that’s5.5% as a percentage that you’ll get. And the great thing too isany time that you send someone to Amazon you’ll get a commission onany product that they buy while they’re on Amazon. So even ifyou’re referring people to vacuum cleaners then you can get saleson other types of these accessories as well within a 24 hourwindow. That’s the cookie blank for Amazon.
Joe: Excellent. So I know that with physicalproducts you can get to the top fairly fast. There’s differentprocesses and categories and not just on Amazon but if you’reselling a physical product all that you need to do is pay some PPCads for instance with Google Ad Words. It’s not a winning formulaoddly … obviously all the time but with affiliate how are yougetting traction? How are you getting up to page one of the searchengines and is it a short term game or is it a long term game?
Chris: Yes, definitely more of a long termgame. With any website that I’m trying to build out and rank it’smore of kind of like we say you’re creating content or someone iscreating content for you. Looking at what’s ranking there andlisting okay what can I do that’s better than that? And then havingsomeone or doing it yourself. Creating out that content andcreating something better. Things that you can do to accelerate theprocess of trying to rank would be building links and doing thingslike that. For me most of the time it’s more of an emphasis on thecontent creation side aspect but like in the case of the examples Iwas referring to before that I sold, I would do things like tryingto … because mine was in the tactical category, I try to do thingslike breaking news within that niche. And I would contact largersites to say hey this product is available on Amazon now. And likein gadget and other types of sites like that, I had a link back tomy site because of doing that. So it’s like another way to try andhelp with getting more link authority from external sites thatwould help with the content that I was creating for that site. Butthat’s kind of the process that … and I would never do anythinglike pay advertising for affiliate sites. It’s … and I’m not sureif any of Amazon affiliate person out there that’s doing that. Forme I just … it never [inaudible 00:13:30.0] just because I knowthat the margins you’re getting from the sales of the productsyou’re referring rather.
Joe: Yeah.
Chris: There’s not really enough money actuallyif I’d like to drive then paid traffic to try and convert that paidtraffic.
Joe: Right.
Chris: Years and years ago people would do justracked paid advertising straight to Amazon’s website and you coulddo that before they banned it but that was like years and yearsago.
Joe: Got you. Well, they get smarter every yearand fix the problems and make it tougher. And the people that aredoing it right, I think survive in the long run and knows thatcheating to get to the top end up getting kicked to the curbhopefully anyway.
Chris: Yeah.
Joe: So with an Amazon affiliate site, somepeople have the impression that if you’ve got a physical productsite that you’re constantly managing customer service, constantlymanaging inventory and that it’s a grind, you get to constantlychurn out new skews to stay on top of the competition and then, ofcourse, grow beyond Amazon.com to the different countries. Itsounds like and some people get the impression that it sounds like,seems like Amazon Affiliate would be build it and let it growslowly and it’s a lot less work. But from what you just said whichis breaking news and staying on top of things you’re putting in thesame kind of effort on a daily basis I would assume with anaffiliate business as you are with that physical products businessor is that not the case?
Chris: It’s not necessarily the case. I thinkit really depends on the niche that you’re in because you know itlike before we hit recording you mentioned another mutual friendthat does Amazon Affiliate things as well.
Joe: Yuan Fitzner let’s just say his name outloud. So Fitzner it’s you and he’s a great guy. For anybody whodoesn’t know him, find him through Rhodium Weekend; he’sfantastic.
Chris: Yeah so he’s probably a good person atall as well but he doesn’t do any link building, right? He focusesmore on just creating the content and that’s similar to thestrategy that I do as well. But in the case of the niche that I wasin specifically before I sold that site doing that as a strategywas … I knew there was a benefit there. Because I think one timeEngadget linked to the site and they didn’t change the affiliatelink. I think it was like several thousand dollar affiliate feesthat they … but in that case, it was more just like here issomething that fits-
Joe: You didn’t point that mistake to the underlaying and good backing.
Chris: None of it, it’s just like tip line andyou just say hey here’s this product that’s out now and people areprobably excited about it and it’s available on Amazon now. And yesthat was a nice little bonus but … so now it was more of like nichespecific. I definitely think that … I’m probably more often thannot actually. You’re building out affiliate sites because I hadother sites as well. I have other sites that it’s not like that.Where we’re not trying to break news or do things like that. It’sjust more niche specific. Even people in the technical space theydon’t want to do that approach and they don’t have to. I meanthat’s just kind of the style that we chose for that site.
Joe: Okay so good quality content, SEO friendlyover the long run and theoretically you’ll get rewarded. Is thatthe basic simplified dumbed down approach?
Chris: Yeah I mean it does simplify it butthat’s really kind of the core. And I think I really emphasize justthe differentiation aspect. Like any site that I build it’s alwayslike okay I don’t really want to enter this area unless I’m willingto do something multiple times better than what’s already there. Sothat’s the approach I take for really building any site.
Joe: What are some of the mistakes that you’vemade then in terms of doing these affiliate sites? I mean what didyou learn the hard way?
Chris: Yeah. So of the some of the mistakes Imade was … at least for me personally, I do better having fewersites and just focusing on doing really well with those sites asopposed to having many sites. Like another [inaudible 00:17:09.7]can find that was Spencer he … years and years ago he used to dolike hundreds of niche websites and make money from Google AdSense.For me I never … she was interested in doing that type of approachand systemizing in that way. But for me at least it was just amatter of trying to focus on two small niches and so I can … Ithink I had one that was on HDMI cable reviews. Which was a failbecause that was … HDMI cables are inexpensive and then it’s alsoit’s just kind of a small niche and … well, not necessarily a smallniche but it was kind of a … it was hard to do well with that onethen than some of the other niches I went after.
Joe: That could seem like it would change awhole lot over the years either.
Chris: Yeah I mean it was … well, that’s thechange in standards in terms like new for kay, signals and thingslike that. But yeah it was just like if you can go with higherprice items that’s helpful right? With the part that I was doing iscomputers and so it’d be you know … or small laptops rather thatwould be more of a payout each time.
Joe: Okay, I had an example given to me maybeat December, January you know someone that was passionate about … Ithink it was salt water fishing and writing a blog about salt waterfishing and within that doing the affiliate links on the differenttackle and lures that you can get with salt water fishing. Wouldthat be an approach that someone could take? You know if I have apassion like that whether it’s salt water fishing or basket weavingif you will, to build a site based upon that passion and then justgo with that approach? And then the follow up question is all rightgreat how do I learn about SEO as you have over the years? Whatresources do you have? Because it seems again really simplified tosay just build a site that you really are passionate about, findgreat products, review them, and off you go. But you’re still gotto build an SEO from this site and write good content that that the… your Google is gonna love, right?
Chris: Yeah so going back to the example, Ithink if you’re building out just a site that you’re passionateabout and then trying to then add Amazon Affiliate as like amonetization … kind of like an add-on, I think it’s harder to makeAmazon a larger portion of the revenue for that site. If the goalisn’t from the start like hey we’re going to build out like a moreof a review type site as opposed to here’s something that we’reinterested at about just general information and then here is whilereading this article happened to may be interested in this specificlure or whatever the example is you gave.
Joe: Salt water fishing.
Chris: Yeah, so that just from what I’ve beenlooking at sites in the past it just seems like that’s morechallenging. What usually ends up happening in those types ofcases, the website owner usually ends up making a larger portion oftheir money just from banner ads or other types of ad platformslike that and then Amazon is more of a supplemental as opposed tothe sites that I build. It’d be more … really focused around thereview side of things. And so it’ll just be like people that arecoming to this content are interested in reviews about this productand so then that traffic is more likely to buy something thanpeople that are just interested in general information come to mysite and then they may or may not be in a buying state.
Joe: So a clear differentiate is a content sitethat’s just giving information about products in general versus areview site when you’re comparing a variety of different products.And when you choose one of those products it’s going to Amazon andyou get a percentage of that revenue. That’d be, right?
Chris: Yeah and I don’t think it’s a bad thingto do … really your example where you’re building out because it’sgreat to generate revenue from ads and just have a lot of trafficas well just from various articles you’re writing and all aboutsalt water fishing and then also be able to make money from Amazonwith the Affiliate Program. It’s just there’s two different waysthat you might see sites if you’re on the buying or building orselling side of things.
Joe: Well on those three sides which do youlike … do you think, let’s just talk about two; building or buying.We had Walker Deibel on the show a couple of weeks ago talkingabout build versus buy or buy versus build. It’s actually in abook. He’s coming on the Quiet Light team as an advisor in July. Doyou personally in terms of specifically the affiliate space, AmazonAffiliate Space do you think it’s better to build or to buy?
Chris: Well I’ve done all of them. Build, buy,sell, every aspect on the Amazon Affiliate Side. I prefer now atleast … I’ve been doing this for a lot longer to … or that dependsright? Because it depends on for me at least where my capital mightbe tied up; either I just recently bought something or I’m doingother investments that are outside the online space and I want itjust free of capital. And so I’m not actively looking to buysomething or I’m just trying to focus on okay now that I’ve gotthat other thing going on but I can try and focus on scaling up allmy things and as well. I prefer, if I had to pick one I’d say Iprefer building and then being able to sell after that because forme at least I’d like to be able to invest less of my own personalcash. I know you mentioned [inaudible 00:22:18.3] before,[inaudible 00:22:19.4], a lot of the buyers there they don’t haveaccess to capital that I don’t have access to through … you knowpeople have consider with more money that they can then use asinvesting partners. And so I suppose if I … given the opportunity Ihad more capital then I would probably be doing more buying. So Iguess it’s tough to say. If you don’t have cash and you want tojust get started then building would make the most sense and maybeyou can sell once you get to a certain point. That gives you somecapital to either reinvest and build more sites or maybe build orbuy other things. But if you have access to capital from … for anyreason then buying would be great because you’re able to just startwith something existing.
Joe: How long has it been for you from thatbuild to sell? Do you typically hold something for 12, 24, 36months? What have you seen? What do you try to set as a goal foryourself when you’re building something? I think okay I’m going tobuild this to eventually sell it if that’s your goal, how long doyou like to hold it for? Or does it just depend?
Chris: Well, a lot of the times it’s more justa … it really does depend. Because half the time I do this site …well most of the time actually when I do these sites it’s more amatter of I’m building something up, I like the cash flow andthat’s kind of the main goals is just building our monthly cashflow from various websites, businesses, etcetera. So that’s kind ofmore of what I’m after is just getting more cash flow and thenrather than just trying to pull out my capital right away and justto sell. So for me, it’s all about the cash flow and I am notalways interested in exactly trying to sell.
Joe: How many how many balls do you have in theinner; Amazon affiliate wise, how many sites are you jugglingnow?
Chris: If I were to add up all the differentsites it’d probably be … I had to look-
Joe: You know it’s more than a dozen or so whenyou have to look.
Chris: Well, no it’s more I was trying to get aspecific number. I’ll say it’s less than a dozen but I also includein that other affiliate sites that just make money from other CPAtype offers opposed to Amazon.
Joe: Got you.
Chris: Because kind of once … for me, Amazonwas a starting point. That was kind of how I got into the wholespace was building out this Amazon Affiliate Site, I was doing iton the side outside of my working hours in a completely unrelatedjob and just trying to find a way to earn enough money to do thisfull time. And then once I started making enough money from Amazonit opened up all these different opportunities to try and do otherthings as well. And that’s one is going to software, creating toolsfor Amazon Affiliate Sellers or well affiliates rather and doingthings like that.
Joe: How long has it been since you werethankfully fired from the last day job you had?
Chris: Yeah, I was looking it up. Actually, Ihave it on my calendar October 13th is the day and itwas … it will be nine years this year, later this year rather. Andthen I’ll be 10 years the next year but that will be sort of,that’ll be what 2000 … I’m trying to think now what the year it is,2018 so it’s 2009 I believe.
Joe: 2009.
Chris: Yeah.
Joe: It’s a long time to be self-employed; it’simpressive that you pulled that off.
Chris: Yeah. And now for me at least it’s moreof a matter of just further building out multiple different incomestreams and revenue streams from a variety of different businesses.There’s … well, that’s a whole other discussion right whether youshould focus on just one thing or kind of spread it out. For me, itwas more like build something out that starts making cash. And it’slike well I don’t know if I can really sell this for enough to makeit worth selling. It’s not going to change my life in anymeaningful way so I’ll keep it and have someone help me out to runit. Well, that’s kind of the approach I’m working with.
Joe: So if someone is listening to this andthey were in your shoes, you know where you were 10 years ago andthey had a day job and they want to do what you’ve done which isbuilding Amazon Affiliate Sites and make some income on the sidewhat should they expect? Should they … if they pick a category theylike, they do a review site, they sign up, they get involved shouldthey … would your expectations that they’re going to hit 1 out of10 on sites that they do, 2 out of 10, 5 out of 10. What would yougive them in terms of a ratio so that they can understand and ofcourse these are all ballpark numbers and what kind of money canthey really make? I mean we’re talking about on the small side afew thousand bucks a month and the people that are big and reallyexperienced at this you know what kind of money are theymaking?
Chris: Yeah you know that’s a tough … it’stough I think with the ballpark it’s a challenge to give an answerto that because the experiences that people have may lendthemselves to be able to be successful more easily.
Joe: All right, well look everybody listens tome all right. And they’re like Joe you’re an idiot but I like youand you know would … I have people tell me like they feel likewe’re old friends from this nude podcast. But you know me throughBrad, we chatted, if I was to do this … let’s be specific. Youcould say … be honest say, Joe, you’re going to do 1 out of 10.Just face it, Joe, you’re not going to do well. I mean you’re theexpert what would you guess if people are going to do this withsome these in experience on a thing that they love and they’resmart and they’re going to do research online, they’re gonna go toyour podcast, they’re going to go read everything about ChrisGuthrie and figure how you do it. What are they going to do, 1 outof 10, 1 out of 5, what do you think?
Chris: Ah if they’re learning from me it’sgoing to be 100% right.
Joe: You’re a humble guy every time okay.
Chris: Yeah and though I’d say probably it’s …with a lot of things, you get into it and sometimes they’ll hit andthey’ll do well. So for me, the best site that I have was doingover 10k a month.
Joe: Okay.
Chris: Worst site would be like $300 a month.And that’s where I’ll be some of the weaker ones and then some arethem between where I have a few thousand or so. Hit rate would bemore like maybe 25-50% with sites that would be doing pretty well.But it … yeah, it’s just really tough to answer that question forme.
Joe: You improved that hit rate I would assumewith the research that you do upfront. Is that right? I mean justlike a physical products business on the web, on Amazon or Shopifywhatever it is if you do your research up front; what are thecompetition price points, how are you going to sell it, things ofthat nature-
Chris: Yeah.
Joe: And you’re doing the same thing withAmazon Affiliate; you need to pick a product with a great margin,something that you can write about, something that has been upsearches online. What tools do you use to help … even if you have apassion for something whether it’s worth it on … whether it’s worthcreating an Amazon Affiliate Business? So are there certain toolsthat you use to help that hit rate go up?
Chris: So well tools for like the research sideof things?
Joe: Yeah to help ensure that the path thatyou’re going down is going to be as successful as possible.
Chris: Yes, I use a lot of SEMrush actually. SoI use that tool quite a bit because I just like to pull up a site,see what stuff is ranking well, where they’re getting their trafficfrom and-
Joe: Do you have the paid subscription for thator do you just use the free version?
Chris: So I fluctuate off and on. So from theprocess of building or going back to yeah I’d more than all do thepaid subscription, and then if it’s okay we’ve got enough stuff onour plate let’s just focus on what we have and not create anythingnew then it’s like well I don’t really need to pay extrasubscription right now. So I fluctuate in and out. Ahrefs isanother tool I use as well although that was another one that Ijust was okay I got a good sense of where our competitors are intheir links, where they’re getting traffic, and okay I cancel outas well. So it’s like-
Joe: I always get that one wrong, it’s A-H-refsis that right? We did a giveaway when we launched the podcast on anaccount on a subscription for that but it was Mark’s area ofexpertise. Can you spell it out for me?
Chris: Yeah, it’s A-H-R-E-F-S.com and I’m noteven sure how you’re supposed to pronounce that either.
Joe: Okay.
Chris: So I mean I met someone that works forthe company at that conference as well. I didn’t bring that up butyeah-
Joe: Mumble what they said that’ll generallywork. If you actually … the way my 16 year old does, he just speaksconfidently and I believe him when he’s comp … no idea what he’stalking about but he speaks confidently. I think that’s thetrick.
Chris: Yeah.
Joe: All right so Ahrefs-
Chris: Yup.
Joe: You went through it and that one is moreof what links the sites have right? Is that what you’re lookingat?
Chris: Yeah, so it’d be more like looking atboth viewers and the lengths for me. I was merely just trying tosee where my key rankings were and so I was kind of more justtracking how it is we’re doing. For SEMrush that’s why I would usejust the tool for research. And the thing is that here’s what … thething with tools and especially the two tools I just mentionedthey’ve been around for years and years and years so they have somany different things that I probably didn’t even know. Like Iprobably didn’t even need one or the other it’s just like when youget comfortable using one tool for one thing you’d use it for justthat one thing. And then you might use this tool for the otherthing. But that’s kind of what the approach I would do.
Joe: Okay. So do that research upfront and whatyou’re looking for is traffic, competition, links, things of thatnature before you go down the path to increase success rate, anyother recommendations that you’d give somebody just startingoff?
Chris: Just the main thing I would say is well… I mean if you’re looking at what … just looking at larger sitesthat are doing well. Seeing … I try to reverse engineer a lot. Sowhen you’re looking at starting from now that you’re doing yourresearch process and seeing what sites are getting in the trafficbeyond just like figuring out why are they getting this traffic. Isit because they have a bunch of links pointing at them? Is itbecause their content is much much better? That’s … I guess I keepcoming back to this like but it’s always for me differentiation.What is it that they’re doing that’s really doing that is workingreally well for them and then how can I do better than that? And soin the process of doing that research and looking at that thenyou’re going to see okay it looks like they’re using AdThrive orsomething for their ad platform and then they’re using Amazon’sAffiliate Program and maybe they’re using LinkShare so you link toWalmart and things like that.
Joe: From a buyer’s side if somebody came toyou and said “Hey look I’m looking at buying this site can you giveme your opinion on it?” What things should buyers look for thatmaybe somebody in the Amazon Affiliate Space has done this sort ofcheat and it’s not going to last, is there anything that stands outthat people should be aware of or look for?
Chris: It’s not because … you want to look atwhere they … if they are building links you want look at wherethey’re doing it because there’s you know PBNs or things like thatare definitely more gray area.
Joe: If I were … go ahead and say what PBNstands for, please.
Chris: Yeah, Private Blog Networks, that’swhere people build out like huge networks of blogs and then theyuse links on those blogs and point them at the site. And then thoseblogs are getting traffic or links part of them as well. So thatlooks like you’re getting links from higher quality sites when infact they’re just sites people would construct pretty much solelyfor the purpose of pointing links at properties they own orproperties their clients own. And I can’t remember exactly how longago it was but Google cracked down and quite a bit. From what I’veseen people kind of just got it underground and so it’s kind of the[inaudible 00:33:26.3] a lot but … so looking at that is helpful interms of how a buyer can protect themselves from that. Usually,you’re able to use some of these third party tools to help checkthat out. There’s also things where if you’re signing an agreementthat’s saying I haven’t used a PBN and then you find out that theyare because maybe you’re ranking stopped or go down because they’vestopped in turning to run that PBN and point the links at you thenthat’s something that you could have legal recourse to go afterthem. But that might be something out of buying side thatincluded-
Joe: Yeah, that’s what you definitely don’twant to have to do is to go after them after the fact.
Chris: Yeah.
Joe: Because you’re chasing them for money thatyou gave them which is never a good position to be in.
Chris: Yeah.
Joe: But certainly doing the research to seewhere those … where the traffic’s coming from and see if there is aPBN and trying to avoid it as much as possible. I think a lot ofthe times Chris getting to know the person, trusting a brokerthat’s involved if there is one involved, really getting to knowthe seller in a positive manner. I always recommend whether it’s a$35,000 site and it could apply to 3,500 as well, or a 3.5 milliondollar site, if you’re buying it, it’s your money, you worked hardfor it, get on a plane, spend an extra thousand dollars stay in aHoliday Inn whatever and meet the person face to face. Do a Zoom orSkype conference call so you can see them and talk to them but meetthem face to face before you close the transaction. You can gounder LOI in advance but I just don’t think there’s a bettersubstitute for a handshake, having a lunch or dinner or beer andgetting a better feel for them. Of course, you’ve got to do thatdue diligence and that research and hire experts like yourself or[inaudible 00:35:14.5] whoever might do the research if you don’thave it to protect your money. It’s something you worked hard forand I can tell you right now that when you make an investment andyou blow it, it’s really really hard to pull the trigger again. Iknow a lot of people that have done that. I know more people thathave been incredibly successful and then unsuccessful. But thosethat thought they knew everything and thought that everybody waskind and trustworthy like they were and they pulled the trigger andsomething changed in the world, there was a shift with an algorithmupdate or whatnot and things just fall apart. They can fall apartvery quickly. So lots of research meet somebody face to face, usethe tools that you’re talking about, the Ahrefs and SEMrush, checkfor PBN things of that nature. You know most people are good butit’s the few bad ones that you just want to avoid in my opinion, inmy experience. As far as up the top line revenue you think you knowif somebody that can do this maybe they’re making $10,000 a monththat they do really well, how many hours a week are we talkingabout that is going to take to operate a business of thisnature?
Chris: It’s definitely if … so for I guess itdepends. For me, I’ll give … I can really only speak to my ownexperiences. So for that site that like my bigger site that I hadbefore I sold it, it was probably 15 hours a week or so and thenthe rest of my time was on other projects. So it wasn’t like a fulltime thing because I was doing it outside my day job in the firstplace and then I only added a little bit more time because then Ithought okay well I’ve got this new time. I don’t want to have allmy eggs in one basket because now I have no job and just oneprimary site and then other sites that are also helpful butwouldn’t be enough for me to cover my bills and for … at the time Iwas like okay I just want to make sure I could … I don’t have to goback and get a job.
Joe: [inaudible 00:37:01.3]
Chris: And so that’s kind of the approach thatI took and it worked for that site. It really depends on me and alot of times too with Amazon Affiliate Sites especially, you’reable to hire out for a lot of aspects of the process of building;either building, maintaining, any aspect to that because it’s justcontent creation and there are a lot of writers that you can find.They can cover that part. And so if you’re not doing it yourselfand you’re finding ways to get yourself out of that process then itcan be much further reduced. Now I try and just … for me it was Itry to only come up with ideas and then work with people that canhelp implement a lot of these or to … it’s more just about tryingto really limit the amount of time I spend on actually likecreating content for instance. I might like to write aboutsomething on a blog personally but if I can have someone else do itthen it wouldn’t make sense for you to do that.
Joe: Yeah, content creation can take an awfullot of time. Chris, we’re running out of time. Can you share anylast minute thoughts or recommendations for those that arelistening that are either building, buying, or selling AmazonAffiliate Sites; any last minute advice that you would givethem?
Chris: Yeah, I would just say that … well,actually I’d say if anyone is curious or has other questions feelfree to … I would like to say feel free to email me.
Joe: You know without a doubt I want to … let’stalk about how they reach you. We’ll put it in the show notes aswell but you know throw out whatever email address, phone number,blog sites, anything you want to share right now I’d be happy to dothat. But we’ll also put it in the show notes so everybody can findit in writing and get a link there too.
Chris: Yeah so to answer your question I’d saydecide on what you want to do right? If you’re trying to … andeveryone probably has a different expertise or where they’re atwith their life, what they want to do. If you’re limited by acapital and you have a lot of money to invest then it may makesense to just simply build something so you can build it up andthen come to your brokers like you guys of course and then sell itand that can give you cash that would … you could then use toreinvest and do those things. And that might be something you woulddo while you’re still at your day job. If you’re already on a sitewhere you have access to more money then buying something wouldmake sense. And being able to then take where you’re at and growingit from there. I’d really just say that decide which focus you wantto go with. Make sure you find ways to differentiate. I mean I kindof bring out that this whole time but for me, everything that I’vedone with any business is always been for me differentiation andfinding ways to do much better than the competition.
Joe: That seems to be the good … best key wordhere is just be different. You don’t want to be like everybodyelse; differentiate yourself. Still do all the things right, stillbuild something that people want to come to and trust butdifferentiate yourself in whatever way that you can. Excellent.Chris, how do people reach you? How do they find you? Share anyinformation you can now so that they can get in touch with you andtalk about this.
Chris: Yeah, so best place would probably justbe UpFuel.com which is my site. We didn’t talk about it much but Isell the WordPress plugin that helps people with Amazon Affiliatethings as well and that’s EasyAzon.com.
Joe: EasyAzon.com?
Chris: Yeah so if it’s … if you’re runningWordPress and you know a lot of people do of course then that’s asoftware you can use to help with creating links and earning moremoney from those links as well.
Joe: Excellent. I will make sure that link isin the show notes as well. So UpFuel.com, EasyAzon.com anywhereelse that you are in the world?
Chris: Twitter @chrisguthrie and yeah so that’sprobably the main ones but I’m happy to … if any … if you’re on thebuying side and you’re just looking for second opinion, I try andI’ve just done well with trying to provide value and people with noexpectation, no return and then things work out so-
Joe: I agree. Just help people have goodconversations and it comes back around. All right man listen Iappreciate it Chris thanks so much for your time. Hopefully, folksthat are either building buying or selling Amazon affiliate siteswill get some good resources here. Thanks for your time today Iappreciate it.
Chris: Thanks.
Links:
Upfuel.com: An upto date article with respect to the Amazon affiliate niche.
Easyazon.com: The plugin thata lot of WordPress users install as well (they have over 10,000installs).
AMASuite.com: Discoverproducts and how to differentiate and source theminexpensively.
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