In the Squidoo Christmas Cash Blueprint I suggested you use Amazon as your product provider. That’s all fine and good but dang, Amazon is a BIG place! How do you find products that are just what we’re looking for in this situation?
Here’s some suggestions:
1. Don’t complicate things, and stop thinking about it so hard. Just go to Amazon and pick a category from one of the options under “shop all categories“.
2. Pick a subcategory once you pick something. Don’t think about it, just click. The more you overanalyze this the longer it will take, and the more you will psych yourself out. There are great products in any/every category.
Here’s an example I went to clothing/shoes/jewelry. I picked jewelry when given the options. Once I picked jewelry I’m given TONS of options as well. However, what I like to do is scroll down and choose to shop by price. 
Now depending on how comfortable you feel you can choose products priced as high as over $10k in the jewelry department.
You’ll find the shop by price option in every department, you may have to get one more level specific in some categories. Like if you pick exercise and fitness you’ll have to pick one more option before you get the shop by price option, so choose bikes, or treadmills, or whatever, then look on the left hand side about half way down the page and you’ll see the shop by price option.
That’s a pretty handy trick.
3. Depending on the department you can shop by seller or designer. There are going to be well known designers that are going to be high priced items ~ now some of them may be pretty competitive, but it’s worth looking at.
4. Shop by reviews. Amazon reviews are a very handy thing for internet marketers (you). They give you great ideas for content, they give you reviews, and they give you social proof, which is very important. You want to make sure whatever product you choose, no matter how expensive or inexpensive has at least a few GOOD reviews. When I say good I mean at least 4 star rating. The more reviews the BETTER!! This gives you a great chance to use all that great information provided from actual product users. You can even choose to search by stars given if you want.
That’s how I filter and find my products for Squidoo Christmas Cash lenses.
Let’s recap:
1. Don’t complicate things, just pick a category.
2. Shop by price (left hand sidebar)
3. Choose products with plenty of good reviews (either sidebar or under the products)
Those three things should help you quickly and easily narrow down your choices to start checking for the search volume and competition. Once you’ve found something that fits ~ go with it!! Don’t worry about it, don’t over think it, just grab it and take action.
If you have more questions about picking a product please just leave them in the comment section ~ I’ll do my best to answer them.
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Thank you so much for helping all of us making a few dollars on the Net.
Greatly appreciated advice.
I will try this Amazon tip for Christmas shopping coming up so soon.
Poutine
poutine´s last [type] ..A tribute to Hannah Taylor founder of Ladybug Foundation
Jackie you are the best. Also, I can relate to the sniffles – my allergies seem to kick in during this time of year. Love your little sweetie in the background of the video. Definitely REALITY Wahm’s life TV.
Funny you did this tutorial for picking an Amazon product because I was making it hard – Spent nearly an hour on the first one and still wasn’t confident in my choice.
Thank you again – You are a gem.
Sara´s last [type] ..10 Squidoo Modules for Your Handmade Business
Great information, thank you for sharing. Will 100% come back again.
Thank you again Jack, this sounds good. Expecting more tips from you. Happy New Year…
Rose@making money online´s last [type] ..Making Money Online Through Pay Per Click Ads
Thanks Jackie it worked a treat.Now I can move forward.
Regards
Chris Perth Australia
Hi Jackie,
I have been looking for a system for years and I have found yours easy to follow and I look forward to your emails.My question is,I am using seo on firedox and the data comes up under the site but there are no numbers only question marks after the wording.I have used it in the past and had no problem.Just like to see what your thoughts are.Any help is much appreciated.
Thankyou
Regards
Chris Perth Australia
My guess is you need to go into the tools/options area and set it up to automatically show the PR information.
Hi Jackie,
I am using your Christmas blueprint to internet marketing.I went in yesterday to get products from Amazon,and it was a lost cause.
Today is a new day,and I decided to see if I could find an email from you that would help,and lo and behold I did,and your info on picking out products has already helped to shorten the process.Thanks for the great help you give.
I have a question about the products though,if the page rank totals to 30,then that is okay right?
Thanks
Phyllis
I’m glad it helped Phyllis! Yes, if it’s 30 that’s ok ~ and the lower the better.
Is it just me or is it getting super hard to find products in the $100-$200 price range? Is it because it’s getting closer to the Christmas shopping season? Seems even products with little search volume have high competition.(I use the free adwords tool)
Lisa @ all american pressure cooker´s last [type] ..All American Pressure Cooker updated Sun Sep 5 2010 10-07 am CDT
Hi Jackie,
Here you mention that if you’re comfortable, you can even promote a product in the $10,000 range (gulp – not me), but I’ve been trying through your Search bar to find where you mention, in the Comments section, something about Amazon and their TOS about the higher prices. If you could explain, or direct me to that section, I’d appreciate it, because the Search option is not bringing it up.
Thanks.
I don’t do products that high in price. I vaguely know what you’re talking about, but can’t remember exactly ~ you’ll have to check over at amazon.
Hi Jackie
What do you do if there are already lenses on squidoo on the keywords that you are targetting?
I kept getting a list of them from squidoo.
Thanks you.
Check the search results. Just because there’s another lens targeting your keywords doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing.
Run your targeted kw through Google and see if any other lenses come up. If they don’t come up on the first couple pages I’d say go for it ~ use no dashes between your words and see if you can get that url.
Make sure you’re going really specific ~ and get out of the big niches like electronics ~ there are millions of products people are searching for that no other marketer thought to look at before.
Jackie, I love your lenses and tutorials. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but your IronMan lens isn’t on page 1 of Google. I know it has a lot of links. Do you make any sales with that lens?
I hope you don’t think I’m being a stalker for asking, but I follow everything you say and suggest. I am liking my lenses so far, so naturally I am curious about the lens that you use so often in your tutorials. I’m wondering if you can still makes sales with squidoo even if you’re not on page 1 of Google?
Also, do you have any products or an outline for building links? This is what I need the most at the moment.
Thank you very much,
Lisa
Lisa @ Omega Seamaster 2220.80´s last [type] ..Omega Seamaster 222080 updated Sun Jul 18 2010 2-48 pm CDT
Interesting ~ it was on page 1 a week or so ago. Things will bounce around sometimes ~ I’ll build a few more links to it and see what happens ~ I don’t have ALL that MANY links built to it, so we’ll see what happens. I did sell one so far this month ~ but my guess is it was when it was on page one. Things have been jumping around lately ~ so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Hi Jackie,
I’m still having trouble putting something out for the public to view and make a sale. First I could not download Flash Player. After some trial and error I switched to Mozilla Firefox and had no problem with the download.
Now I am having problems downloading the Christmas video series. When I click on the link to view that you gave me to link the site I am taken to the signup page. I am already a paid member so I was looking for a place for members to sign on to – but, I found none.
I am falling further and further behind trying to get started with Action. I hope you will stick with me until I can proceed on my own.
Thank you,
Arthur
I find I am complicating the product selection process. I’m also not trying to be picky about Amazon, but I would like to try offering products from Share a Sale, where the commissions are better.
This is probably a dumb question, but can I use my other affiliate program IDs (I am accepted into Share a Sale and others, but for other websites I have)for squidoo lenses?.
The squidoo lenses “stand alone”, that is, they are not associated with my other web sites, and they are not linked to them. Do you know if this is acceptable– to use my affilate id to create links to squidoo lenses when the affiliate program has been used solely for a niche website?
So how do I get around this? I’m confused ;(
Lisa @ Visco2 Memory Foam Topper´s last [type] ..Visco2 Memory Foam Topper updated Fri Jul 16 2010 1-49 pm CDT
Yes, you can use products from any affiliate network to create lenses around. I just show amazon because it’s the easiest, and it has the benefit of amazing upsells, and the trust behind the name.
You do it just like you do for Amazon. Pick the product, find a keyword, then get the code (from Shareasale or wherever) and insert it in your links.
Great information, Jackie. The video did flow pretty quickly so thank you for having articles that we can follow. Appreciate the video/article combination as some of us learn best by one media while others (like me) need to read and reread before it all sinks in! Appreciate the continued info you are providing!!!
Edie from Elder Care Cafe´s last [type] ..Healthy Diet Best Defense against High Cholesterol
Oh for crying out loud. I just saw the comment above mine. How stupid do I feel? I thought I had something new to inquire about.
Geez, time to go crawl back under my rock. LOL
Mark Sierra´s last [type] ..Josh Spaulding is Calling it Quits
Hi Jackie,
I was doing some research on Amazon and came across something I’d like to know if you had any experience with.
A product I found on Amazon was only available on other external websites. It’s not that they were out of stock; they had a comment that said either “available from these sellers” and “these sellers” was a link, or it said “Only available at external websites.”
Do we still get commissions on these products when the purchases are made somewhere else but with the help of Amazon sending buyers there?
Thanks!
Yes, you will still get paid a commission if they buy through an external website. I say go for it!!
Hi Jackie,
I’ve found a product that meets all the criteria and I love it, but only one of the models is available at Amazon. They do have info and say that it’s available through an external website.
Do I still get a commission if the customer goes to Amazon, then to the external store through my link?
Or do I just choose another product.
I’ll choose another if necessary, but I totally love this one.
Melody
I suggest you choose another affiliate network. There are plenty. Some of my favorites are shareasale, linkshare and commissionjunction (my least favorite) there are more ~ but those are the three I use most often.
Jackie,
I live in Colorado and now that Amazon has “cut us off” what would you suggest as the next places to look for products? I am at a place where I can’t be messing around and must find something that works! Thanks for all your help.
Richard
Yeah… I’m sure squidoo does a lot more testing of this stuff than I do. I generally just leave the default.
Jackie,
I’ve noticed that Squidoo is now placing hyphens in the lens url as a default where I don’t believe it use to be that way. There is still and option to remove those hyphens but I was wondering if you had any opinions on whether one way ore the other was better for the search engines.
I know that with your own domain you want to avoid hyphens. But if Squidoo is now making it the default, maybe when Squidoo is the platform for the site, hyphens are a good thing. ???
Thanks.
.-= Jo from Aero Pilates Reformer´s last blog ..Aero Pilates Reformer updated Fri May 21 2010 11:19 pm CDT =-.
Yes Jackie, traffic is key and if you have many products too. Since each lens is a product, you can imagine the more products you have the more squidoo and hub pages and more visitors. The key is not to target the adsense clicks, the primary objective remains to sell your product, that focus should not be lost both in hub pages and Squidoo.
.-= Ndasika´s last undefined ..Response cached until Mon 7 @ 13:24 GMT (Refreshes in 22.77 Hours) =-.
That’s a great idea if your product has some adsense value. I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble if you don’t have a lot of traffic and the click value was small ~ but if you’ve got those elements in place it’s a great idea to multiply your earning via adsense with hubpages. Nice call, and good luck!
Jackie, I like your way of making things simpler. I have seen wonders in picking a product from Amazon, writing about in Squidoo and hub pages and the way search engines picks product names keywords quite fast. I picked a product called vuvuzela the other day and made a lens and a hub page with vuvuzela as the keyword and the traffic have been great. I picked vuvuzela because they will be sold in millions because of the coming FIFA World Cup in South Africa, so I know people are searching for vuvuzela. Squidoo drives traffic to Amazon and the hub pages give you clicks at Google Adsense as well clicks to Amazon. If you have selected a product that has good reviews you make some cash not only by selling the product but clicks too. The adverts on your hub page will be targeted to the people searching for that specific product, who may not be buyers but people looking for more information on the product, so they will click on the adverts. Try it, write about the product you have selected on Squidoo and without duplicating the post with write another post for the same keyword to your hub pages, following Jackie simple rules on the Christmas Cash Blueprint and you will see results. Do not copy and paste the same post from hub pages to Squidoo, make different posts but for the same product and it will work. Jackie, Thanks a lot for all the tutorials.
.-= Ndasika´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
I get that the video was a bit quick. But where most people get stuck is in trying to find the “perfect” thing ~ there’s no such thing as perfect and this can be a quick process.
If you check out the articles page: http://internetmarketingformommies.com/articles/ you will find there are in depth tutorials on how to do everything I did in the video. This video was meant for another purpose other than to teach you how ~ it was to show you it can be done quickly and not to get mired down in all the details.
.-= Jackie´s last blog ..Start Your Own Food Revolution =-.
Hey Terry,
congrats on getting started!! I don’t really worry too much about how many are in stock. I don’t really go back and check either.
lol. If you find you’re getting a bunch of traffic to one of your lenses you might want to be a little more aware of those things, but in the beginning it’s best to keep building until you get some that take off.
Hi Jackie,
Love your information and inspiration. I’m working on my first Squidoo lens and am going to be using Amazon products for my lenses (already an affiliate). My question is about the quantity available for a particular product. Do you have a rule of thumb about how many should be available and do you monitor to see if the item is still in stock periodically? I look forward to using your review service when I have a couple of lenses up. Thanks for your help.
PR 3 was just the most occuring number
Hello, Jackie
I have found jewelry products on amazon, centered around a famous person there is a local search volume of 2,900 and global 1,900 exact keywords PR total 15 average 3 but there are no reviews on amazon.
Found another person-Jewelry (amazon has whole store on this person) 2,600 local, 1,600 global PR 15 average PR3 no reviews on amazon
Since there are no reviews on amazon should I shy away from building a lens around this area
IF the total PR of the top ten sites is 15 how can the average be 3? If you divide 15 by 10 it does NOT equal 3. I suck at math but of this I’m pretty sure.
The point of having the reviews is for social proof. You can show others what other people who own the product are saying about it ~ and that they like the product. It helps you not have to create as much content and helps you not have to sell the product ~ the reviews from other people do that for you.
If YOU have the jewelry and can talk about it from that perspective that would be fine. If you can find other reviews online about the jewelry you might be able to pull those in as well.
The numbers look good otherwise so if you want to try it go ahead ~ it will just be a little more difficult to come up with content and provide social proof.
Google will only pick two lenses to rank on any given topic (generally) so if there are already 2 lenses showing up ~ especially on the first page it will be difficult to overtake them.
Hi Jackie, this is very helpful and the video to.
I must have missed something, if Google shows 98,000 sites for whatever I’m looking at say “Ironman 4400″ then what difference does it make whether anyone has made a squidoo lens about it? What is the advantage of having no squid competition if the Google competition is 98000?
Thankyou
Thanks Jackie for the advice. The Seo for Firefox is very informative which i did not before. By the way i will getting MNF from your link to start-off making some lens and money too.
As you said “Keep doing it for 6 months and you will see the fruits”
Thank you Jackie
Nice knowing you
james samy
download and install it ~ it will show up down there. Also if you want certain info to show up below each listing you’ll need to go into the settings ~ which you can find under tools –> seoquake
hth I’m not super clear on what you’re asking.
Hi Jackie, thanks for all info you given. I learned alot by reading your post.
I have a question on how to install the seo for firefox to the right side below to
check the keyword page rank.
Need your help
Thank you
james samy
singapore
Welcome ~ glad you found your way here. You’re not looking at the number of sites for your targeted keyword though.
Check out the tutorials available for this strategy ~ you can find them all (in order) on the articles page of this site. They are all under the first section on that page. If you read the tutorials in order and take action on each post you should be in good shape. Feel free to ask specific questions in the comment sections of the post.
Hi just want to say that potpiegirl referred me to you and I appreciate your training.
Went to amazon and found that the least number of sites for any product I looked at was 5oo or more most were in the thousands.
Did I miss something?
I’m going back and reread your the free download you gave me.
Hi Jackie,
Today is my first day following your steps, I have chosen a product. Thank you for putting your time to guide us.
got it! thanks.
not sure exactly sure what you mean, but this post should answer your questions: http://internetmarketingformommies.com/creating-a-visual-call-to-action-step-by-step/
Also if you have a question make sure you check the articles page (it’s the last link on the right in the navigation bar at the top of any page of this blog) it outlines the process and links you to all the relevant blog posts for each step.
Jackie,
Thank you for going above and beyond to help.
My question. How can I make a link with an image of the product on squidoo?
Thank you
Tim
google “seo for firefox”
Hi Jackie, I just watched your video on finding a subject quickly on Amazon. I am impressed with your speed. I got very confused when you went to google to check on the product I guess, then you were saying, “one, one, nothing, nothing, great” then you clicked out of it very quickly with no explanation of what you meant or what you were looking at. For us newbies, speed is not what we need. That comes with experience.
I am trying to locate the Firefox add-on that puts all of the info under each search result, including page rank. I downloaded niche watch, but it is a separate screen search. I want the page rank right under each. What is it called?
Thanks so much for all of your info. I am having so much fun! I was Clickbank freak for so long and I am having fun with Amazon.
P.S. Your daughter sounds so cute on your last video blessing you when you sneezed. You need to save that. She sounds adorable.