Get Ready to Bank on Holiday Shopping!

Christmas is the busiest time of the year for shopping and this is not just a good thing for business owners, but for Amazon affiliate members as well. With Amazon shopping becoming a top source of consumer purchasing, this gives online marketers the upper-hand for making money. This is the perfect time to be an affiliate member because your traffic and sales can dramatically increase if you are promoting the right products at the right time.

But what products should you promote and how should you go about doing this?

How To Display Your Holiday Products

First, you must have a way to actually display these products on the internet. This can be done by having a blog, website, or a social media profile. The most popular is to have your own blog or website so that you can easily create, edit, and keep track of your traffic.  I recommend a WordPress created website or blog because it is the easiest to manage and allows you to customize the layout and plugins.

Which Products To Choose

Next, you need to do a little bit of research and find out what items are hot for this year. You find this information in a few ways but I will recommend my two favorites.

• eBay Pulse – This is a section on eBay that will show you the most popular searches and most watched items. This will give you a great idea for what people are looking to buy this holiday season.
• Amazon – This is the #1 online store for daily shopping so you know that the information is reliable. Navigate to the category you are targeting and sort the products by “Best Selling” so that you can see what is the most sold.

Creating Your Review Post

Once you have your categories and sort by the best selling products, you will want to narrow down your list of products to promote. A great method is to do a Top 10 product review list because this includes the most eye catching title. Plus it is very popular for social bookmarking websites such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and others.

Go through each product and review it by discussing the features, price, customer ratings, and other helpful information. Make sure that you include your Amazon product link in your post so that your visitors can purchase the product. You can use either a direct link or product image widget to capture the attention of your reader. Just make sure that the link or image is in a good position so that your reader will notice it and click. Having a clean layout will ensure that your visitors will stay at your blog or website longer and actually read the post.

Remember that you do not have to do a Top 10 list, but can also do separate product reviews as well. Sometimes this works better because people can find that specific product review when doing a search through Google. You may find it easier to receive traffic this way. Just make sure that your review is easy to understand, lists the benefits of the product, and entices the visitor to click your product link and purchase the item.

Promote Your New Post

Once you have created your product review post, then it is time to share it with the world. If you can advertise your post correctly, you will notice a large increase in traffic and sales through your affiliate program. It is much easier if you already have a well established website or blog but for beginners it is much harder. So here are a few great methods to advertise your holiday product posts.

• Share your link on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
• Create a product review video and upload it to YouTube. Include your post’s link in the description.
• Comment on other blogs related to your topic. You can find other holiday gift blogs and comment on the posts, leaving your link within the comment.
• Post in popular forums that allow signature links.
• Advertising on Craigslist is a great way to receive traffic and sales. Make sure you create a catchy ad that follows the website’s guidelines.
• Other places you can share your link include : Tumblr, Squidoo, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Buzzfeed, and Del.icio.us

Watch Your Sales

Now that you have created your post on hot holiday products and you have advertised, you can sit back and wait for a few days. You may not see sales fly through the roof right away but you will definitely notice an increase in sales before Christmas. If you continue to promote the same post or improve your blog’s content, then you will have a better chance of earning more money.
Just remember to keep track of your traffic, sales, and your click through rates so that you can monitor which methods work best for you.
Good luck with your affiliate future and happy holidays!

Extra Tip – Top Toys For Christmas 2011 (not in a specific order)

• Angry Birds : Knock On Wood Game
• Syma S107 R/C Helicopter
• Sesame Street Let’s Rock Elmo
• Bananagrams
• Air Swimmer R/C Inflatable Floating Shark
• Stomp Rocket Jr. Glow Kit
• Xbox 360 Kinect
• Fisher Price iXL
• Lego Board Games
• Sing-A-Ma-Jigs
• Dance Star Mickey
• My Pillow Pets
• Stinky The Garbage Truck
• Loopz Game
• Nintendo 3DS

This guest post written by Brian Boyer of BoyerBlog.com.