- plugin by:
- Chris Guthrie
- Rating:
Summary:
If you use Amazon Affiliate links you know how much of a pain they are to setup and use on your WordPress site. This plugin helps you to easily add Amazon Affiliate links and images to your posts quickly and simply!
If you have an Amazon Affiliate account you know how awesome it is to have the worlds largest e-tailer at your finger tips. Couple that with your Niche site with awesome content? And your talking sales sales sales! But the only thing that completely sucks? Having to do all of this by hand. This is where SimpleAzon comes in. Imagine never having to leave your site again to add content from your Amazon Affiliate account again! Read the article to check out my WordPress Plugin Reviews - SimpleAzon
The Current Method of Adding Amazon Affiliate Links
OK, Lets talk about how we currently have to add an Amazon Affiliate link to your blog today:
- Go to Amazon
- Sign in to Amazon Affiliate
- Find a Product
- Figure out if you want Text or an Image
- Fill in the Anchor Text
- Copy the HTML
- Paste the HTML on your WordPress site
- Format it to work on your site.
And if you want to add text and images from Amazon? You need to do all that work twice and then getting it all to work and format correctly is a night mare.
This is an ENORMOUS WASTE OF TIME
Look at my link: Top Must Have Video Games for the Holiday Season 2012. Now I’m using this just as an example. My point is all of the links on the page are Amazon Affiliate links. If I had done that by hand? It would have taken me all day to get that post together!
There is good news though! With SimpleAzon I was able to literally cut that time in half!
SimpleAzon
This WordPress plugin is a lifesaver for me. Let me go through the install and setup then I’ll show you the good stuff on how it actually all works. It is definitely worth the time and effort to get it work – which isn’t as difficult as you might think!
Installing the Plugin
- This is the simplest part. It is the same method you would use for manually installing any type of WordPress plugin for your site.
- Download the simpleazon.zip file
- Go to your WP Control Panel
- Go to your Plugins section and select “Add New”
- Select Upload, Click on “Choose File”, Browse to where you have the simpleazon.zip file located and click OK
- Click on Install Now
- After it completes click “Activate” and your all set to get started.
Initial Things Needed Before Getting Started
OK, before going to the settings you will need to have the following information ready and setup to go.
An active Amazon Affiliate account.
Setup an API Key and Secret Key through Amazon Web Services and make sure to sign up to allow third party applications to use and search Amazon Affiliates as well!
Amazon Web Services API Key
SimpleAzon Settings
Before you can start using SimpleAzon you need to go through the 45 second setup process. It will take you longer to read this than to setup the plugin!
SimpleAzon Settings Screen
API Keys
Remember I told you to go to Amazon Web Services and sign in to allow third party applications to use and search Amazon Affiliates? This is where you will copy and paste the API Key and Secret Key.
Search Interface
Default Search Locale: This is where you setup the defaults for wherever you are located at. For me I defaulted to the United States. But this plugin has support for everywhere Amazon Affiliates are supported!
Default Search Index: This is where you can select a specific category or you can leave it on the default “All” so it will search all of Amazon Affiliates
Enabled Content Type: You can have it set to Posts, Pages, or Polls. I only chose Posts as that is where I will be mainly using the plugin.
Associate Tags
This is where you will put in your affiliate tag associated with your Amazon account. It is whatever you initially setup with them with the “-20″ at the end (for example: yourwebsitename-20). Place each one you created for the countries you signed up for. I only have the U.S. signed up so I filled it in there.
Now your ready to rock n’ roll! Time to start adding some Amazon Affiliate Links to your site!
Adding Content to Your Site
SimpleAzon Search Window
To add content to your site now is quick and easy. First you will need to either create a new post or pull up an existing one you would like to add an Amazon Affiliate link to. You will see a new search window below:
Type in the keyword or ASIN number of the product you are looking for at Amazon. (example: FarCry 3)
SimpleAzon Search Results
From there you can insert a text link: [simpleazon-link asin="B0050SYV70" locale="us"]Far Cry 3 Example [/simpleazon-link]
SimpleAzon Text Example
Or an image link of that product: [simpleazon-image align="right" asin="B0050SYV70" locale="us" height="110" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51iC8pE%2BABL._SL110_.jpg" width="78"]
SimpleAzon Image Example
Note: If you highlight over the links here you’ll see it popup with additional information. This is due to additional javascript I added from Amazon to allow this. By default you will see a normal “ALT” description popup.
This is what the shortcode looks like that is added to the post:
Text Example:
[ simpleazon-link asin="B0050SYV70" locale="us"]Far Cry 3 Example [/simpleazon-link]
IMG Example:
[ simpleazon-image align="right" asin="B0050SYV70" locale="us" height="110" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51iC8pE%2BABL._SL110_.jpg" width="78"]
What I really liked when adding images to an article now I can easily align them on the page any way I wish. Before I had to do it by hand and it was a real pain and took way too long.
What I Like about SimpleAzon:
- This plugin does what I need it to easily. It was very simple to setup and use after I had the prerequisites setup with Amazon Affiliates and Amazon Web Services that is!
- I really like the fact that it will easily align images I add without me having to make any additional changes.
- Plus I never have to leave my blog to insert links from Amazon ever again!
What I Don’t Like about SimpleAzon:
What I don’t like about this plugin? Unfortunately there are a few things:
- It does not allow for a “NoFollow” link to be added with the standard version of the application.
- “Pro” features need to be unlocked at an additional cost.
- There is no reporting for clicks or performance. This is just a basic search and add plugin.
How to Get It!
You can get it now for only $17.00! This is the Standard version of this plugin that does everything I outlined in this article! If you want an easy way to add Amazon Affiliate links to your site? Then this is definitely the plugin for you! Use the button below to purchase it now!
Also as of today if you use the link above there is a bonus offer as well! This plugin is going to be awesome for those who use Aweber and offer products! But you have to use the big green link above in order to get it! Oh, and this is apparently a limited time offer – so I’d jump on this pretty quick.
Final Thoughts
I’d like to thank Andy Bailey from CommentLuv and the plugin owner Chris Guthrie for providing the review copy of this awesome plugin!
Although this is only the Standard version of the app and you will need to unlock the “Pro” version to get additional functionality it is still a huge times aver. And at only $17.00 I completely think it is worth it! I know it has saved me a ton of time on my own blog here to creating Amazon Affiliate links and images.
And for me Time is more Valuable than Money!
What do you think? Is there a better one out there that can do it for less? Let me know in the comments below!
- $10.00
About the Author
