The Current State of Selling on Amazon
It’s almost hard to believe how big Amazon has become. But for those of us that have been paying attention, it is even harder to believe how much selling on Amazon has changed. But first, a little background on me.
I started shifting my attention from Google to Amazon back in 2013 because even back then, it was obvious (to me, at least) that Google would never disappear, but that it was a mature market. The opportunities were all there that had always been there. But there were very few easy roads to success in Google. Yet, I remembered the “good old days” of 2003 when Google AdWords (now Ads) clicks were five cents and we could easily get e-commerce sales worth hundreds in profits from them. Those were good times. But Google Ads are an auction, and it all evened out. You can easily still succeed with Google Ads, but you need to know what you’re doing, you need a good product, and you need patience.
Google SEO is not much different. I feel strongly that the last ten years have pushed SEO marketers to polarize. Most have listened and obeyed Google. They have gone almost completely “white hat” and obeyed. They “create good content” and they “get natural links”. This works, in general. It is also safe. You don’t get banned (usually). But you also can’t win at the really competitive markets. That’s where the polarization comes in. The really big money is in the competitive stuff. The competitive stuff is where the black hat marketers live. By the way, if you have a negative attitude toward “black hat marketers”, you need to rethink that. These marketers generally are not doing illegal or immoral stuff. Google likes to paint it that way, but it’s not necessarily true. They just aren’t obeying Google. As such, they find the tricks, they exploit them, they make a lot of money, they eventually get banned by Google, and they do it all over again, and again, and again.
Don’t worry, this post is about Amazon. Hang with me here. (more…)