5 Cyber Monday Tips for Amazon Associates

Published: Sat, 11/22/14

5 Tips to Get More Sales
I'm freaking out - only 8 days to Cyber Monday!  How can that be?  There's so much left to do!  Do you feel the same way?

If so, take a deep breath and do a little planning.  Following are five tips for getting more from your sites this holiday shopping season including some sales-generating tactics for those of you who want to put that ACK plugin you just bought to good use. 

Keep reading!
#1 - Use Your Sidebar
The top of your sidebar can be used to get the attention of any visitor.  It shows up on every page (depending on your site layout) and is often visible "above the fold" (meaning the visitor doesn't have to scroll to see it). 

Use that sidebar to highlight links to your best converting content, any lists of posts that show the best 5 or top 5 products, any gift idea list posts or to special Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal posts.

When I say "highlight" I mean think outside the box to make those links stand out.  Use an image with a text call to action on the image, change the font color, change the font size, write a strong call to action.

During the holiday season more people will have shopping on their minds than any other time of year so even if they're reading your post on "how to build your own fire pit" they may be attracted to a link that say "5 Best Gifts for DIY'ers this Christmas".
#2 -AZON Commission King Tricks
This is the plugin I wrote about a week ago.  It lets you add a banner to your site that visitors can use to search for Amazon deals without leaving your site. 
 
The plugin is only available for one more day and you'll get my AZON Traffic Tactics bonus through this link:
 
 
I've been playing around with this for a week now on several different sites and have figured out some techniques for getting the most from this plugin:
  • TEST, TEST, TEST - the plugin has a number of different style options.  You can put a bar at the top of your site, you can have a popup box that shows up after a certain number of seconds, you can have a slide out from the side of your site, and you can have a banner show up at the top of your content.  The popup box has worked best for me on most of my sites but the sidebar option worked better on another.
  • Don't want it on every page of your site?  Create a post on your site called "Cyber Monday Deal Finder" and assign it to its own category.  Don't show the category in your navigation menu.  Create a banner that you assign to show only for that category that has the one post.  Make it an in content banner and then put a link to that post at the top of your sidebar with some great call to action.  Many of your visitors will be drawn to checking out your post to help them find holiday deals.
  • Some of the options are blocked by ad blockers and browsers that have javascript turned off but the Bar style seems to show under both of those conditions and you can use two styles at the same time to cover all your bases.
You can see the plugin in action here (won't show if you have ad blockers or if you have javascript turned off in your browser):
 
(That site is built using my PinFabulous method.)
 
#3 -"Cyber Monday Deals On..." Posts
Last year I published a post the morning of Cyber Monday titled "Cyber Monday Deals on...[my niche]" and ranked on the first page of Google for that phrase within minutes.  (Still sitting at #3 for that phrase this year.)

If you have a site that Google likes (your posts rank in the first 1-5 pages of Google) then find low competition "cyber monday deals on" phrases, create a post for that phrase, and fill it with 5-10 links on deals related to that phrase.

Don't go for the big, hot, competitive niches like "laptops" or "cameras".  Go for the less obvious things.

Bring up Google and use Google Suggest to tell you what some of these phrases might be.  Start typing "Cyber Monday deals on a..." and Google will give you some ideas where the niche starts with the letter "a".  Do the same with the rest of the letters in the alphabet. 

You're going to have a hard time getting an idea of search volume for some of those phrases because they're only searched for this time of year but think like a consumer.  If you think a reasonable number of people are going to look up that phrase then get a post published.

To get the post indexed in minutes use the Google Fetch tool in Google Webmaster Tools.
#4 -The "Make it Special" Approach
You'll have a better chance of making a sale during the holidays if you can show the visitor how to make the item "special" as a present.

As an example, my hubby's birthday is coming up.  All he wants is two dozen of a particular Titleist golf ball.  Admittedly, the ball is one of the more expensive ones so I see why he only asked for that one thing but it's not the most "special" gift.  Feels kind of bland to just give him these golf balls even though I know he wants them.

Then I discovered that you could have the golf balls personalized (for no extra cost, by the way).  Now that makes it more of a gift! 

Come up with suggestions or related items to help your reader envision how they could make items that might be purchased as a gift more unique or special.  If you can get them to that "this is perfect" opinion about the item then you'll have cinched the sale.
#5 - Be LIVE on Cyber Monday
We often think of our sites as "static" in that we create the content and leave it alone to do its thing but on Cyber Monday try to play Santa's helper and be "live" for your visitors:
  • Put a blockquote on your most visited pages that says something like "December 1, 2014:  Shopping for online deals today?  I'm here for you!  Leave a comment about something you need to find and I'll help you find it" or "I'm here all day today, December 1st.  Have a question about this product before you buy? Let me know and I'll do my best to get you the answer".  Answer any questions and include affiliate links in your comment replies where appropriate.
  • Keep any posts that mention holiday deals updated throughout the day with specials from the Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday hot deals pages
People are in a hurry to buy on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday and will appreciate you helping them make a decision or find the best price on something. 



Even if you've put off doing anything, it's not too late.  Use a few of the strategies above to make the most of what you have.  Think of all of your "assets" - the pages you have online that get the most traffic, prioritize the few that have the most potential (traffic) and then take advantage of that traffic even if it isn't normally buying traffic.  You'll have no better time all year to do so!

To those in the States, Happy Thanksgiving!  To all, best of luck this upcoming Cyber Monday!

Sincerely,

Erica Stone
erica@extremereviewer.com