I absolutely love success stories – especially those that come from Cloud Living readers.
Today, I have the pleasure to share with you the story of how Luqman Khan has built a very successful Amazon affiliate website in just a short amount of time using only white hat link building methods.
His success really proves what I teach here on Cloud Living really works, and anyone can achieve success with hard work and dedication.
Your $10k challenge is worth a million if people take it seriously and follow the strategies that you've shared. This site's success is something that I achieved after reading your case study. I would never start an authority site and always go for small micro niche sites if I never stumbled upon your case study !!
Luqman KhanMore...
Here's Luqman...
1. What is your name? Can you tell us where you’re from and what you do?
My name is Luqman Khan and I live in Lahore, Pakistan. I'm a student taking up "BS in Computer Science" in Lahore Garrison University. I do Amazon affiliate marketing.
2. How did you get started on building amazon affiliate websites? How long have you been building websites?
It’s a long journey. Back in 2013, I was browsing GSMArena and found an ad there which practically said "Make Money By Clicking". That brought me to a scam PTC website.
Although I never received the money I made there, it’s what gave me the idea that making money online might be possible.
With that in mind, I researched and found various freelancing platforms. Since I knew WordPress, because it belongs to my field, I signed up on Fiverr.com and started providing WordPress services.
One day, I got an order from a client who required some fixes for his site. After reviewing the task, I found out that he was promoting products and referring his visitors towards Amazon. I quickly realized that he must be making money out of it.
So, I searched for "how to make money with amazon" and landed on "Cloudliving.com". It’s where my journey with Amazon affiliate marketing started.
My first niche site was a failure and so was my second. My third site was my first successful site. I generated $900+ in 5 months and sold it for $2750.
After that one successful site, I never failed again. In fact, things got even better after that. I found Backlinko, Quicksprout, Marketever and few other sites which helped me a lot in my career.
3. Tell us a few things about your successful websites. What is the URL and what niche are you targeting? If you are not willing to publicly share your domain or niche, that’s just fine.
Well, I don't want to completely disclose any of my niche sites since I'm using PBNs and I don't want to receive any threatening emails.
However, I’d like to share one of my authority sites, which I've been working on for the past 4 months using white hat stuff only.
Most of the "Cloud Living FB group members" already found my site, so there’s no reason to hide it anymore. It’s 10Beasts.com
For the niche, it's not really specific. It’s a "TOP 10" list type of site, but I mostly write about "Technology and Gadgets" there.
BestProducts.com was the inspiration for me to launch 10beasts.
To be honest, 10beasts is the only site in which I am not doing any kind of BlackHat link building. However, I did buy a web 2.0 service from BHW for it and the guy submitted spun content on all of the links. I will surely get that fixed soon.
It is also the most successful website I have ever built and I strongly believe that the WHITE HAT LINK BUILDING is the reason behind its success.
4. How much money do you make from this successful website(s) each month? Feel free to share your traffic stats as well.
I launched 10beasts.com in April and posted 8 articles only in the last 4 months.
I strongly believe that the Google Sandbox is not a myth. For my first 2 months, I were not that successful. It took me 2 months to get out of the sandbox and drag my targeted keywords to the 2nd and 3rd page of Google.
I generated $16.5 on the first month (April) and $34 on the second month (May). For the third month, most of my keywords were ranking in the 2nd and 3rd page of Google. I was able to generate $170 for that month (June).
Now let's talk about the traffic I received in the first 3 months from Google.
- 29 unique visitors in the first month.
- 197 unique visitors in the second month.
- 679 unique visitors in the third month.
Behind these digits, I was working on link building and writing new articles. All of those hard work paid off in the 4th month.
Since there was really a short time to get all of my 8 articles to rank on the first page, I decided to focus only on 2 articles. Surprisingly, both 2 articles ranked on the first page of Google.
So, here are the results of my 4th month with 10beasts.
I have generated $4,680.67 this month (JULY), which is only the 4th month. The reason behind this huge bump came from the traffic I received. As I said above, all of my targeted keywords for those 2 articles are now ranking on the first page. Crazy, right?
Here are the traffic analytics of July:
Well, if you implement new stuff and techniques, you will surely see the results.
5. What is the main reason for this website’s success?
There are a number of reasons for the success of this website.
First of all, you need a plan. Starting off without a proper plan is like going on a war without a gun.
Other than planning, I write lengthy and user-friendly articles. The average word count of my articles is 5000. I believe in QUALITY rather than quantity. I include everything in my articles, like tables, detailed reviews, suggestions, tips, buyer’s guide, and pros and cons.
When it comes to content promotion and link building, I use web 2.0 and Guestographic.
Not to forget that I provide scholarship as well, which gets me a huge chunk of links from reputed universities. But since you asked me for the MAIN reason, I would definitely go with my white hat link building efforts.
6. How did you find the niche? What’s your criteria in determining your winning keywords?
As I mentioned above, I am not targeting any niche. I just pick up a product category and write a “TOP 10” article based on it. When it comes to choosing a winning keyword, I always go for “BEST [PRODUCT CATEGORY] [YEAR]”.
Example: “Best Treadmills 2016”
7. What’s your content strategy for the sIte? Do you write the content yourself or do you outsource?
No, I don’t write the content myself, but I let my writer know the content structure I prefer.
I insist on a good introduction because it’s the main thing that controls the bounce rate and visitor’s average time on that page.
After a great introduction, I include a table, which lists down the top 10 products I am going to include in my article.
After the table, I review each product one by one and include a buyer’s guide. That’s all I do and that’s what works for me.
8. Do you use WordPress to set up your website? If yes, what hosting, theme and plugins did you use? How did you structure the site?
Yes, I use WordPress as a CMS for all of my niche sites as well as for my PBN sites.
I am using GoDaddy hosting for now. While most people believe that GoDaddy sucks , I believe it’s only with their US servers. Their Asians and Eu servers are great.
However, I still don’t want to take any kind of risk, so I am planning to shift either to SiteGround or WPEngine.
There are a number of plugins I’m using, but there are 3 plugins which I can’t live without.
- Yoast SEO: Who don’t want to install this plugin? I can’t imagine my career success without this big beast.
- Shortcode Ultimate: For someone like me, a website’s beauty matters a lot! And this is where this plugin comes in. It helps me with inserting buttons, laying out my content structure and a lot of other things.
Now, there is also another plugin called “thrive content builder” that does almost the same thing- but I don’t really like it. Why? Well, because I am not used to that. I’m quicker with the Shortcode Ultimate. - Tablepress: Well, this one is love. It helps me with creating tables in minutes.
As for the site structure, like the home page, I believe in authority. I don’t prefer showing all of my blog posts on the homepage, since we have a blog page option for that. So, instead of having all the posts on the homepage, I use a few widgets, an Optin box and 2 latest posts featured images. That’s all what my homepage is.
For the blog page, I only show the 5 latest posts per page. I also prevent Google bots from indexing my archive, category, and tags pages to avoid any kind of internal duplicate content issues.
On the top menu, I show the blog page and my 3 main categories. In the footer menu, I have the legal pages, such as the privacy policy, terms of services and my contact page.
9. What’s your strategy to drive traffic to your website? What link building tips can you offer?
Well, I believe Social Signals has the same worth as the link building process.
For the social signals, I always head towards addmefast.com. I do retweets and repins for each of my newly published posts to get a kickstart and, trust me, it works. I started receiving traffic from Google the very first month, just because of these social signals.
When it comes to link building, I always do PBN. But I saw Tung’s $10k challenge, I realized that if his site can succeed without PBN, then why can’t I?
I made a proper plan, including how I can take this site to the next level even before I chose a Domain name. I got 3 of my articles ready before launching the site. After publishing the first article, I created the legal pages and submitted my site in Google webmaster.
After submitting all of those 3 articles, I created my scholarship program and started reaching out to universities and got a chunk of links from there. I submitted articles to various article directories and created few Web 2.0 links. As an addition, I bought a service for this job from BHW.
10. How well does your website convert? Did you do anything to increase the conversion rate?
Unbiased reviews are enough to convert. If your reviews are genuine and you’re not exaggerating on value or plus points to every product you are reviewing, then you’re doing it good.
As I mentioned above, write a great introduction. Your visitor might not even get down to read the rest of your review if your introduction isn’t good enough. So, at the end, a great introduction and an unbiased review are all you need to get a decent conversion rate.
11. How has the success of this website impacted your life?
Well, I have just started this website and I have to work on another 6 articles to get it to rank on the first page of Google before this Christmas. So, I can say that I haven’t seen success yet. It’s just the beginning.
But if there’s one thing that changed, it’s the kind of respect I’m now receiving from the Cloud Living group members- which isn’t less than any kind of success. I receive messages from group members asking for tips and guides. They often address me as “Sir”, which is already a huge success, if you see it my way!
12. Do you have any additional tips or advice for others that would like to replicate your success with their own websites?
When it comes to choosing keywords, you are actually choosing your competitors. So, always choose your competitors wisely.
Always start with a plan. Whenever you start a new niche site, make sure you plan your way first. Never settle for anything with less quality. Google doesn’t like contents that won’t provide any value to the users. So, there is really no reason to write hundreds of articles. You can focus on one article a month, but make sure it’s unique and written well.
For your content, make sure to provide value to your visitors. Don’t create walls of texts. Try to include pictures, videos and illustrations to enhance user experience. If you’re planning to do PBNs, make sure that you can hide the footprints. If you’re in doubt, just stick with whitehat link building.
Whitehat is hard, but it will surely put a smile on your face, especially when you see the results. Even if it’s just receiving a reply to your email outreach, you’ll find yourself smiling. So, it’s a win-win deal, isn’t it?
Don’t do a scholarship if you can’t afford it. If you will fake it, you will surely ruin this method forever. If your pocket doesn’t allow you to create a scholarship program, don’t do it yet. There are techniques like Guestographics, Skyscraper or Guest Posting you can try (you can actually learn all these inside AMZ Affiliate Bootcamp)
13. Do you have a blog or other place where people can follow up with what you’re doing?
I have just started my own personal blog, Nichepie.com. I am currently writing its very first post entitled “Case Studies of 10beasts.com”. I will publish it sometime in August. Until then, I’m working on its theme, plugins and few other essential things. Stay tuned!
Thanks Luqman for the great interview. Congrats on your success!
(Want to share your success story? Shoot me an email)
If you're reading this and you want to have a step-by-step plan to achieve the same success, check out AMZ Affiliate Bootcamp.
