Selling Amazon items via Wordpress

I recently wanted to set up a page on my website for advertising specific books that I recommend, and then earn income from any sales. I wanted to do this on wordpress, and I did. It took me a little while to crack it, so I thought I would share my technique with others:

The idea is to allow Amazon items to be shown within a Wordpress page or post, where you can discuss/review the item being show. So to do the dynamic advert insertion, I found a Wordpress plugin called "Dynamic Text Replace" by Scott Reilly.

Once installed, head over to the options page, and then the "Dynamic Text Replace" tab. Here you can edit strings and keywords to allow you to dynamically insert words into your posts and pages on the blog. Here's the line I created for Amazon (must be on 1 line, or it fails).

amazon => <iframe src='http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=[B]littleearner-21[/B]&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=%text%&nou=1&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000ff&bc1=ffffff&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr' style='width:120px;height:240px;padding:10px;padding-bottom:20px;' scrolling='no' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' frameborder='0'></iframe>

Code (markup):

Where littleearner-21 should be replaced with your Amazon Marketplace ID, so that you get the money from any sales, not me.

Then on your post or page, put this line of code inside it

::amazon("0750651997")::

Code (markup):

The number is an amazon ASIN or ISBN that uniquely identifies a product you recommend. With a number of items on a single page, you'll get something very similar to this:

http://www.spyreview.co.uk/security-related-books/


As I say, it took me a while to crack it and make it easy to update, but its useful!

 

Thanks for sharing your technique with us. That is quite useful and I'm glad you shared it.

But did you also know that there is a wordpress plugin that does what you mentioned here not only with your amazon affiliate ID but with ANY affilaite program you belong to... automatically for you?

It's called Jeromes Keyword Plugin and I believe this is a download link:
http://vapourtrails.ca/wp-keywords

I just love automation, don't you?

Regards,

Sunshine

 

Thanks for the feedback. From what I can tell, the plugin that you suggest achieves slightly different things. What I wanted to do is to include an amazon item at a specific place using a pre-defined bit of HTML to render the item in that way.

I use the same plugin to create a mini-wordpress eShop. Just look at the site again, and look at the shop. All the Paypal add-to-basket buttons are created dynamically using 2 parameters!

 

Hi...I took a little time to read through your post again and to check out the link you gave in your example.

And since there were no other responses to your post so far, I don't know if anyone realizes this but this is a super idea! You can basically set up a mini bookshop/page on your blog and earn a little money from it.

I think I'm going to give it a try and then report my results back here on this thread....would appreciate if you could just watch this thread just in case I have another question or two.

Also, one more thing. You said: "Here's the line I created for Amazon (must be on 1 line, or it fails)."

....where would I generate that code from? I assume of course I need to login to >Amazon > Build Links. However, to use your example which kind of link would I need to use? i.e.

# Product Links
# Recommended Product Links
# Banner Links
# Text Links

Thanks for your anticipated reply.

Regards,

Sunshine

 

Hi Sunshine,

Thank you for the positive feedback. With the HTML code, I got that from the Amazon Associates (the thing you sign up to as a private affiliate)

http://associates.amazon.co.uk/gp/associates/join/main.html

I then generated it from a product link for a medium image (I think). But it doesn't matter unless you don't like the style that I use. If you read the plugin documentation and the code below, you'll see that I use the %text% variable to insert the ASIN/ISBN directly into the IFrame URL, which calls some script on Amazon's servers.

The %text% variable is set to the number within the quotes and brackets in the post, e.g. ::amazon("0750651997")::. So %text% = 0750651997, and then put into the URL. If you replace the "littleearner-21" text in the code string with your Amazon Associates id, so "sunshine-123" or whatever, then you will earn the money on that id, but using the style I used for SpyReview.co.uk

amazon => <iframe src='http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=littleearner-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=%text%&nou=1&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000ff&bc1=ffffff&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr' style='width:120px;height:240px;padding:10px;padding-bottom:20px;' scrolling='no' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' frameborder='0'></iframe>

Code (markup):

The above code must be on 1 single line in the plugin options settings page (i.e. no line brakes in the source), this is because it uses the new line character as a separator for all text replacement strings.

Hope that helps!


Simple as that! I can post the Paypal shopping cart code if interested too? That's only another 2 lines!

 

Hi

Thanks for the great information.

I was wondering if there is a way to set up a Paypal type shopping cart on a wordpress generated site to sell physical goods rather than affiliate items?

Cheers
Tony

Head lice Natural Treatment

 

If you look at SpyReview, there is a shop that I have made using the Paypal shopping basket system. It's not a particularly advanced system, but works well for a few items. If you want a more complete shop, I would suggest you look at a proper ecommerce solution, as hacking Wordpress is not the best way to do it.

If you are going to install your own ecommerce solution, I suggest trying:

CubeCart - http://www.cubecart.com
ZenCart - http://www.zen-cart.com

(both are usuable for free)

If you want to use a pre-installed system, where you just add HTML for the shopping cart to your site, I suggest:

Paypal's shopping basket (see their extensive help system for info)
Mal's eCommerce Solution - http://www.mals-e.com (which supports other payment systems, including Paypal).

HTH!

 

thanks L.E

I will do a bit of homework on these

Tony

vasectomy reversal

 

Hi

I am using a little php to auto populate the search results while
using the Amazon Associates "Recommended Product Links" banner. The
search variable $searchentry is generated by a users search on my site
(Code is at the bottom of this post).

This works fine and delivers reults based on the value of the
variable.

Is there any way of replacing "&mode=books-uk" with something that
will use all the amazon categories?

I would like my results to show anything at amazon relating to search,
not just books

I tried removing "&mode=books-uk", but the results are still all books
(by default it would seem).

I have tried "&mode=all" and such like; with no success.

Any help would be super

Many thanks

Mr M

My code:

<iframe src="
{php}
print "http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?
t=mytrackingid-21&o=2&p=48&l=st1&mode=books-uk&search=";
{/php}
{$searchentry}
{php}
print "&fc1=000000&lt1=&lc1=3366FF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr";
{/php}
" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="728" height="90" border="0"
frameborder="0" style="border:none;" scrolling="no"></iframe>