Consistently ranked as one of the most frequently visited websites in the world, Amazon.com has long been synonymous with online retailing.  What began in 1995 as an online bookseller has slowly and steadily morphed into a Fortune 500 e-commerce powerhouse with merchandise falling into 35 distinct categories and 6 international specialty sites.

Amazon.com has always been a leader in affiliate marketing and operates the largest affiliate program on the internet.  And as Matthew G. Nelson reports for ClickZ, Amazon's affiliate program just got a whole lot better.  According to a press release issued yesterday, Amazon's affiliate program has been enhanced with three additional features.

aStore allows affiliate members the opportunity to build completely customizable storefronts of merchandise with all the bells and whistles of Amazon.com built right in.  In fact, aStore keeps shoppers at your website until the final checkout process (which must take place at Amazon.com).  Omakase Links give you the opportunity to offer Amazon's famous personalized shopping experience on your own website with product displays that change according to a visitors browsing habits and/or previous Amazon purchases.  Finally, Product Previews allow visitors to your website the opportunity to view the merchandise information, previously only available at Amazon, on your website.  Combine the three new features, and customers are spending more time at your site and less at Amazon's.

If you have a site with content relevant or related to something Amazon.com sells this could be huge.  The newly updated affiliate program is a terrific opportunity for you to cash in on the Amazon brand and make a nice commission… all while letting Amazon do the work.  With all of the customizable options available, it's next to impossible to not find something that would work for your site.  And Amazon is doing a good job of keeping shoppers at your site for as long as possible.  A lot of affiliate programs operate in the exact opposite way.

But even if you're not ready or able to join Amazon's affiliate program, there's still something to learn from the largest such program on the web.  Anyone selling a product, a service, or simply looking for ways to increase user traffic can take a page or two from the Amazon book.  Read the press release and company information available at Amazon's website.  Spend some time browsing Amazon.com, not as a customer, but as a researcher.  Pay attention to how they've designed their site, how it operates, and how the layout practically leads customers along the path to final purchase.  Look at how far they've come.  They did something right.

Perhaps you can follow in their footsteps…