Amazon Niche Store
Amazon
Amazon has a great affiliate program and makes it easy to take advantage of their API to create your own Amazon Niche Stores. Up until now there has not been a truly easy way to create an Amazon Niche Store. I recently had the opportunity to test out a new WordPress Plugin that allows you to create a Niche Amazon store that is really a true store. So far the only options available that we found are CRAP!!! This new WordPress Plugin allows you to have a full blown Amazon Niche Store literally within minutes. I suggest using a WordPress Hosting company to get your WordPress site setup, and then second just simply enable the plugin. The next few steps are just configuring the plugin to have your information and the products you want the store to have. But best of all the plugin is free!
The Amazon Niche Store WordPress Plugin will be available to the public and for free to everyone.
Amazon Associates Program
Amazon’s Associate Program is perhaps one of the most popular ones for bloggers because it is pretty simple to use and has such a wide range of products in their system ranging from books, to electronics, to jewelry, to CDs and DVDs etc. It’s also great because there are many tools that can be used to integrate it into your blog including WordPress Plug ins. Some bloggers even integrate Amazon stores into their blogs (something I need to get set up).
Another beauty of the Amazon program is the variety of ways that they give you to link to their products. Even using just their basic tools on the Associates page you have the option to link to products using text links, pictures, buttons and a variety of keyword triggered techniques.
I personally use Amazon’s program quite a bit on some of my blogs and find it quite effective. While my earnings from Amazon are far less than my Adsense income it’s a nice bonus each quarter (they pay every three months). This quarter (just over half way) my total is just over $900 (USD).
Amazon’s affiliate program pays out in either gift vouchers (to be spent in the store), cheque (check) or direct deposit (if you’re in the US).
Amazon Associates Program Pros:
- massive array of products to choose from
- reliable payment system
- options for different payment types
- reasonably easy to use
- variety of linking tools
- Amazon are fairly well regarded and trusted by consumers
Amazon Associates Program Cons:
- only quarterly payments (many other programs are monthly)
- commissions can be lower than some other programs (although they have an incentive/bonus program that increases the % when you sell certain targets)
- incentive program can be a little complicated to understand
- some of their buttons and link methods are a little dated
- not great on some products internationally (ie while Amazon will send books and some products internationally some of the bigger ticket items will not be sent overseas. So if you have a non US readership you might have to also sign up for other Amazon affiliate programs (ie they also have a UK, Canadian, Japanese one etc this can get a little messy)).
I’ll share more tips to help maximise Amazon earnings later in this series – but in the mean time I’m sure others have a variety of experiences with Amazon and can shed some light on it as a program for us. Share your thoughts on the Amazon Affiliate program in comments below.
SEO Smart Links Plugin for WordPress
SEO Smart Links provides automatic SEO benefits for your site in addition to custom keyword lists, nofollow and much more. SEO Smart Links can automatically link keywords and keyword phrases in your posts and comments with corresponding posts, pages, categories and tags on your blog. Further SEO Smart links allows you to set up your own keywords and set of matching URLs. Finally SEO Smart links allows you to set nofollow attribute and open links in new window. It is a perfect solution to get your blog posts interlinked or add affiliate links to other sites. Everything happens completely transparent, and you can edit the options from the administration settings panel.
WordPress Plugin SEO Links Plugin
SEO Smart Links looks for keyword phrases that match the titles of your posts and pages by default (and you can enable categories and tags matching too). These phrases are then turned into the links. The matching is case insensitive and the original case is preserved. So If I mention Amazing Grace, which is my theme and also the title of one of my pages, it will be automatically converted into a link. Everything happens completely transparent, and you can edit the options from the administration settings panel.
SEO Smart Links allows you to interlink the content on your WordPress site automatically. For example if I mention my wordpress theme Amazing Grace, it will be automatically linked to the matching page on my blog. You can edit the option what you want to be parsed for possible links (posts, pages and comments) and what should the plugin target with keywords (posts, pages, categories and tags). Category Search allows you to add category names to your search results. For example if you have 200 categories and you wanted them to appear in search results, you couldn’t. Now you are able to include those categories as well.
Why use No-Follow Links
- As long as search engines are concerned, on most blogs category pages will carry irrelevant information since category names are likely to be too general to rank for (like my categories WordPress, SEO etc.)
- Category pages are source of duplicate content
- No-follow links allow you to direct the flow of your link equity to the pages or websites that you want to share link value with.
In-site linking is extremely important as it tells search engines what pages have the highest level of importance to you. Its for this very reason that tags are very important for any blog.
You can find this SEO Link WordPress Plugin at WordPress
How to use the WordPress plugin – SEO Smart Links
Just install activate it on your blog. Default options are enough to get you going. If you want to tweak it, you can always edit the options. Be sure to check “ignore” options where you can state what keywords and phrases not to link.
- = How do I enable SEO Smart Links cache?
- Make sure you have enabled WordPress cache by adding this line to your wp-config.php
- define(ENABLE_CACHE, true);
Please be careful when editing this file and always make a backup!
SEO Smart Links Installation Instructions
- Upload the whole plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
- Go to the Plugins page and activate the plugin.
- Use the Options page to change your options
- That is all. You can check your posts for new links.
All-In-One-SEO for Joomla
As most of you know I love WordPress and am a fan of one of the plugins called “All-In-One-SEO”. Unfortunately their hasnt been a lot of solutions that are similar to the All-In-One-SEO but for Joomla. I came across www.artio.net and I have to say it is about the best solution I have found for Joomla. Joomla is less constrictive for some applications and purposes.
- rewrites original Joomla! URLs to be Search Engine Friendly (SEF) and human understandable
- improves your overall Joomla site SEO rating
- capability of meta-data auto generation
- provides support for multilingual sites using JoomFish
- URLs internationalization (translated URLs)
- support for multiple formats of URLs when using multiple languages – domain based: en.yoursite.com, de.yoursite.com, … or path-based: yoursite.com/en, yoursite.com/de
- wide range of editable meta-tags for any URL in your Joomla!
- fully customizable URLs, many configuration options for automatic URL generation
- customizable 404 page
- helps you handle 301 redirects, allow custom 301 redirect definitions
- support for Google News URL format
- duplicate URL prevention and management
- .htaccess file easy editing
- works with Apache and IIS, platform independent
- online free! updates (free updates also for the paid versions)
- caching system for improved performance
- automatic updates of existing URLs on configuration change
- modularity – supports 3rd party modules
- adjustable parameters for add-on extensions to customize way of URL appearance
- plug-in system – easily add more extensions for your components
- support for sef_ext.php files written for OpenSEF or SEF Advance (since v1.4.0)
- easy URL imports from sh404sef and AceSEF components
- Joomla 1.0.x (JoomSEF 2) and 1.5 support (JoomSEF 3)
- and many more…
Expandibility, Modularity, Advanced
3rd party Components Support
JoomSEF includes built-in support of all core Joomla components and JoomFish. 3rd party components are supported via a modular and open API. Currently there are about 60 available JoomSEF SEO extensions which include support of AdsManager, AlphaContent, Datso Gallery, DocMan, EZ Realty, iJoomla Magazine, JEvents, JoomlaBoard, JoomSuite Resource, Mosets Tree, Mosets Hot Property, Marketplace, ReMOSitory, RSGallery2, Seyret Video, SMF (Simple Machine Forums) Bridge, SOBI2, VirtueMart and other Joomla components. If you are interested in support for your component, please contact us.
Some of the extensions are provided for free, either as part of JoomSEF installation package or in downloads section of our website. Others can be purchased from our E-Shop or delivered by 3rd parties.
The Pope tells Priests: We Must Blog
Pope Benedict XVI has demanded in a recent message that the Priests start using Social Media outlets including Blogs. As the Catholics 265th Pope, Pope Benedict XVI has been a very surprising and extremely supportive advocate of Social Media and Social Marketing. After the support and momentium gained by social media for the now President Barack Obama it appears as if many of the world leaders has chosen to start using the internet to help them gain and retain followers.
It looks like even though Pope Benedict XVI is a fan of Social Marketing and Blogs, he does not have a Twitter account yet. Last year, he launched a YouTube channel, and six months ago, he released Facebook and iPhone apps to spread the Church’s message. It looks like that he hopes Catholic priests will follow his digital example. It is going to be very interesting to watch the evolution of the Catholic Church’s Social Strategy.
Here is a very small excerpt from the Popes message:
“The spread of multimedia communications and its rich “menu of options” might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different “voices” provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”
Amazon Store WordPress Plugin
WordPress Plugin for your website that lets you have a complete Amazon Store
Up until now the only Amazon Store Plugin for WordPress has been a crappy snippet of I don’t know… All I know is that it sucked and looked bad, and didn’t include a cart, and ooohhh that’s right they called themselves a Amazon Niche Store but it doesn’t have a shopping cart. To me that makes the other plugin is ‘NOT a Amazon Niche STORE‘. Im trying to lay the sarcasm & frustration on very thick because I have been looking for a solution like this for years. But it looks like my wait has finally paid off. Now you can have a completely functioning WordPress Niche Store without much effort at all. And since it uses Amazon’s API it automates the entire plugin once it is setup. And of course since it is a plugin it can work with any template. And if that wasn’t enough it also includes a default template if you don’t want to take the time to find one or use your current WordPress template.
This is the real Deal – not a cheap wanna-be Fake Amazon Niche Store. But as it goes I can only tell you that it is here & I will be posting a link within a few days, so be patient with me as I test this thing out to the max.
Amazon Store WordPress Plugin
Link will be posted in a few days.
WordPress Amazon Niche Store plugin
