This is a guest post by Areej from WinkPress.com.
When most people hear WordPress, they think “blog.” But WordPress is more than a tool for making blogs. If you understand how WordPress works, you know that it can make any type of website–even a website like Amazon.com!
Two different types of Amazon Associates can both use WordPress effectively.
Bloggers who’re using WordPress have a plethora of Amazon Associate tools at their disposal. WordPress is their best choice. Similarly, affiliate marketers who’re building Amazon niche stores also have access to tools that could transform WordPress into an Amazon.com replica. That’s why WordPress is also their best choice.
Here’s why WordPress’s flexibility makes it the best choice for the Amazon Associate blogger and affiliate marketer.
The Amazon Associate Blogger
WordPress (mostly) makes blogs, right? If you blog, you can complement your posts with related Amazon products–it could be additional reading, a movie, an instrument, an electronic gadget, what have you. Log-in to Amazon Associate Central and handpick products to promote. Take the embed code and insert it in your post.
If you don’t want to handpick products for a post each time, you can still make money with Amazon. Use Amazon’s Omakase widget. It’s contextual, like AdSense. Amazon knows who your visitor is because they have cookies in her browser. They also have robots that scan your post content. Based on this data, Amazon displays relevant ads your visitor is most likely to buy!
Use Amazon contextual ads any where on your blog–WordPress won’t mind. Inserting ads in posts and the sidebar is easy. But for other spots you may find yourself limited by your understanding of WordPress templates. It’s not hard to understand, though.
There are plugins that make product insertion even easier. Choose a frequently updated and improved Amazon plugin, like WordPress-Amazon-Associate or Amazon Product in a Post.
At any rate, displaying Amazon products in WordPress posts is not a feature that will impress many people. Don’t get me wrong, WordPress does this better than any other blogging platform. But the beauty of WordPress is in its ability to transform itself into something very different!
The Amazon Associate Niche Store
You can use WordPress to build money-making Amazon niche stores that look nothing like blogs–and who wants to make an online store that looks like a blog? Nobody. Yet, people still do. I guess they’re unaware of WordPress’s flexibility.
Just because it is WordPress, doesn’t mean it has to display a chronologically ordered list of posts on the front page.
“Posts” — in WordPress — don’t have to be blog posts. A “post” can be anything: a personal profile, a product page, an image, a song, a podcast, or any other digital entity. Posts are the building blocks of a WordPress site. For an Amazon Associate who is building a niche store, a post is a product.
Product title is post title. Product description is post description. Product image is post featured image. Additional product images become a WordPress gallery. Your affiliate link is in the clickable image and the “Buy from Amazon.com” button.
So, fill up WordPress with products in this way then arrange them in online store layout and you’ll have yourself a proper Amazon niche store–powered by the most versatile and search engine friendly CMS.
If you’re discouraged by the seemingly tedious process, don’t be. There are plenty of Amazon WordPress plugins whose sole intention is helping Amazon Associates build niche stores filled with products in a matter of minutes!
But a good plugin alone will not change how WordPress looks–WordPress also needs a magazine theme. Haven’t you noticed this? The front page of magazine themes look a lot like online store layout. Next time you’re building a online store with WordPress, use a magazine theme.
You know — you could choose a web script that only does Amazon niche stores, and such a script does exist. But it won’t do it as well as WordPress combined with a good plugin and theme. Or you can choose a blogging platform that just does blogs, but I hope by now, I don’t have to tell you that you’re better off with WordPress.
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Areej is the coauthor of WinkPress.com–a web resource about leveraging WordPress and its tools for online publishing. She enjoys anime and dreams of becoming a pianist.