Yesterday was a momentous day, I received my first payout from my Amazon Affiliate account. My website this month has finally earned me enough to pay a month of Wealthy affiliate subscription.

When I was top 50, I would get many messages asking me about how much money I was making. At the time I had not earned a single penny. This would baffle many as they seem to assume that being ranked high in Wealthy affiliate means you are earning good money. I had to burst many people who messaged illusions.

It has taken me a grand total of ten months to achieve this. My website has been receiving a steady flow of visitors but the sales were for very small ticket items and earnings were for small amounts.

What I have noticed in month ten is that my average ranking has dropped significantly, so maybe the search engines are now beginning to trust my site more and this has resulted in far more impressions and of course many more clicks.

It has also given me a renewed motivation to write for my original blog. The pandemic and resulting isolation sees many more people turning to the internet to entertain themselves, to seek advice and information and of course to buy things. In some cases the internet maybe their only source to purchase goods.

This is great for those of us with websites in retail, I can imagine those with sites in crafts, baking, school supplies, gardening, DIY etc are going to potentially see an increase in visits and maybe even sales. Anyone who sells toilet roll, or hand sanitiser right now is going to be really busy!

The really great thing with Affiliating to amazon is that visitors do not have to only buy the product you are linking to. This month I have been credited sales for toothbrushes, cashew nuts and chocolate chip cookies, and rose syrup, when my website is for baby products! It is of course really exciting when you actually get a sale from your link, which I also got this month for 3 baby blankets.

I write this blog to give you a realistic idea of earning potential. Now this website could have earned a lot more, if I written far more frequently and had targeted much higher ticket value products. This is now something I intend to do from this month.

Rakuten Advises "Content producers could see an increase of 20% in visitors"!

In an email I received from them they gave an update and some advice for us affiliate marketers. They state:

"The top performing verticals across our regions include:
UK: Jewelry, Gifts, Pets
Central EU: Apparel, Department Stores, Luxury
US: Video Games, Education, Food & Drink
Canada: Luxury, Department Stores, Software
APAC: Sporting Goods, Food & Drink, Beauty Goods
Brazil: Department Stores, Sports, Décor

Consumers are increasingly turning to content publishers, which isn’t surprising as people’s attention is turned to the news. Content publishers in the Rakuten Advertising network have seen their share of traffic grow by 20% over the course of the past week."

The global pandemic has of course seen the world change in a very short time. My job has been paused for a while, which on the one hand is incredibly stressful. However, what this does do, is give me the time and energy to dedicate to my website and create content for an audience who are also likely to also be isolated at home.

I wish you all well building your websites and sincerely hope you are finding more visitors to your sites. This unique difficult period may also find you with more free time, it would be wise (if you can) to invest it in your websites, it could pay dividends in the future!

Be well my friends

Much Love

Sara