How Do I Become An Amazon Affiliate? A Step By Step Guide
How To Join Amazon Affiliate Sites & Use Amazon Associates Product Links
If you have a blog that you want to make money with and you haven’t yet become an Amazon affiliate website, then you are missing out on an easy source of income – especially for small bloggers! The Amazon Associates affiliate program allows you to link to thousands of products from your site so that you can earn a commission when readers make Amazon purchases through your links.
Learning how to use Amazon Associates program is relatively simple and as one of many Amazon affiliate sites you can make profit simply by linking to products from the trusted online retailer.
When I first started my blog I began fishing around for ways to make money from it and quickly stumbled upon information about the Amazon Associates affiliate program. After joining the program and adding links to my site, it became one of the first sources of revenue that I achieved for my blog that now makes over 4-figures per month! Becoming an Amazon affiliate and seeing that revenue come in was one of the first things to convince me that I really could build my blog into a profitable business.
If you are ready to take the plunge with your own blog and join other Amazon affiliate sites in profiting on the company’s huge product selection and established retail reputation then read on! In this post I’m going walk you through exactly how to sign up for the program, access links to place in your blog posts, place links correctly in your blog posts, and manage your associates account and earnings.
Don’t get overwhelmed – Amazon really is one of the easiest affiliate programs to work with! If you walk through the steps below you will be up and earning with them in no time.
1. How To Sign Up For The Amazon Associates Affiliate Program
Signing up to become an Amazon affiliate is easy! Simply go to the Amazon Associates sign-up page and click on “Join Now For Free.” You will be asked to sign in to your Amazon account before proceeding. (If you don’t already have an Amazon account, click on the “Create your Amazon account” button at the bottom of the window.) You will then be prompted to enter your account information – including details on a payment recipient, your blog or website, and some additional personal details. Amazon will then evaluate your acceptance into their program and notify you if you are approved.
2. How To Get Amazon Affiliate Links
Links are easy to find in Amazon’s affiliate program! To create a text link simply go to your affiliate home screen, type in the search bar to find the product that you want to link to, click on “Get link,” select the tab for “Text Only,” and edit the exact text that you want to appear with your link right on the page. Next select the button for “Short Link” and you can copy and paste the link below it to enter into your post just like you would any non-affiliate link.
If you want to include an image link in your post then once again you can simply search for the product that you want to link to from your Amazon affiliate home screen after you login, click on “Get link,” and select the “Image Only” tab. Use the drop-down menu to left of the product image to select whether you want to link to a small, medium, or large version of the image and then click the “Highlight HTML” button at the bottom of the screen and copy the selected HTML code.
You can also include an Amazon affiliate link that includes both text and image by clicking on the “Text and Image” tab and highlighting and copying the HTML code provided just like when you are using an image only link. However, I would advise you to consider carefully before using this format for affiliate links since it can easily look like just an ad on your site rather than a recommended product or part of your content.
You can also access affiliate links for Amazon products by searching for a product from your affiliate home screen and then instead of clicking “Get link” beside it when it appears, simply click on the product link. This will take you to a standard Amazon shopping screen where you can search further for the exact product you want to link to or link to the current product by using the Amazon Site Strip. This strip appears at the top of your page and you can select “Text,” “Image,” or “Text+Image” to copy a link from any product page that you are looking at. This is typically how I prefer to obtain links for my posts from Amazon.
3. How To Include Amazon Associates Product Links In Your Post
Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the easiest programs to use in terms of placing the links in your posts. For text links, all you have to do is use your copied link from step 2 and insert it into your post like you would any other page link! Simply click on the paper clip link tool, paste the URL in, adjust any settings as you desire, and click on the return arrow to add the link to your text.
If you are inserting an image or text and image link into your post you need to select the “Text” editor tab for your post and then just paste the code you copied in step 2 into your post text wherever you want the image to appear. You can then alter its alignment etc. in the “Visual” post editing tab.
IMPORTANT NOTE: For SEO purposes, all affiliate links in your posts should be designated as “nofollow” links. You can do this with a plugin or by simply adding the text “no follow” into the code for your link in the “Text” editing tab after you’ve inserted your link. You can paste the text “nofollow” after the words “noopener” in the text code for your links.
4. How To View Your Clicks Or Earnings In The Amazon Associates Dashboard
To view your clicks or earnings within the Amazon Associates program, login to your associates account and scroll down below the product search bar. You should see a window titled “Earnings Overview” as well as a window to the right of it titled “Summary For This Month.” This displays an easy snapshot of the number of clicks through your links that you have received as well as any earnings that you have made.
For a more detailed overview of your link performance and commissions earned, click on “Reports” in the black bar at the top of your associates homepage. There you can filter your clicks/earnings report to custom date ranges, view your payment history, and more. If you click on the “Fee Summary” window on this screen and then on a specific date under “Ordered Items” you can see exactly which products your readers purchased through your links.
5. Amazon Affiliate Terms To Pay Attention To
Note: The below information is not intended in any way to be legal advice or an official communication of the terms for Amazon’s Associate program.
If you are new to Amazon’s affiliate program I just wanted to also give you a head’s up about a few important terms that go with it.
- Amazon has very specific text that needs to be included in your site’s disclosure page if you are a part of their affiliate program and including links on your site. Be sure to read their full policy and terms to include this text on your blog before linking to any products.
- As with the use of ANY affiliate links on your blog, you need to include an in-post disclaimer above the first affiliate link in your post. This disclaimer needs to state that the post includes affiliate links and include a link to your full disclosure page.
These terms are small but EXTREMELY important items that you need to be sure are in place before you begin placing Amazon affiliate links and earning.
Once you have your account approved, legal disclosures in place, and links in your posts then that’s it! You are set up and ready to begin earning money from your blog in your sleep!
If you’re looking for more affiliate programs to join be sure to also read my post on The Best Affiliate Programs For Beginners or, if you are looking for more ways to dive into building profit from your site check out How To Monetize Your Blog For Beginners.
