Adding Amazon Text Links

One of the best places to start generating revenue with your Amazon Associates affiliates program is to add simple Amazon Product Text Links to your blog.

To add an Amazon text link for a product you’ve blogged about,

1. Find the product you want to sell on your blog in Amazon.
2. Copy the URL from the address bar for the corresponding Amazon page.
3. Paste it into the Enter the URL field in the Link to Any Page at Amazon.com section on the Text Links page (Build Links/Widgets > Classic Links; Text Links)
4. Type a descriptive name of the product in the Name Your Link field. For example, type the title of a book here.
5. Click the [Get HTML] button.
6. Click on the [Highlight HTML] button and copy the selected text.
7. Paste the code into the HTML editor for a post on your blog or web site.
8. Save & publish the updated posting.

Now, all you need is traffic, traffic, traffic. Well, qualified traffic of interested buyers.

Selling: Amazon Associates

One of the quickest ways to turn traffic into revenue is to join an affiliate program, where you earn essentially a sales commission by referring customers. You get paid when someone makes a purchase, so everyone comes out ahead. Amazon.com Associates program is a good place to start:

• They offer a sliding scale of commissions, depending on volume.
• They will handle all the tracking, purchase, and fulfillment.
• They sell practically everything.

Read About.com's Review of the Amazon Associates Affiliate Advertising Program for another perspective. To start selling as an Amazon.com Associates - join at Amazon.com Associates Central (secure). Under Account Settings,

• Set up your Payee information. I recommend direct deposit.
• Select a fee structure, Classic or Performance.

Then, start by adding Text Links.

It’s a good idea to read and understand the Amazon.com Operating Agreement so you don’t make any mistakes that can jeopardize your revenue. Also, the Agreement describes ways you can sell Amazon products, including:

• Special (Product Text Links) links
• Search box link
• General link to Amazon
• Car Link
• Easy Link
• Search Results link
• Any Page link
• aStore by Amazon Link
• Omakase Link
• Context Links
• Quick Linker Links
• Your Video Widget Links
• Preview Player Link

Tips

• Read the Agreement so you understand how you will make money.
• Only add one type of Amazon link at a time to your blog. Test to see how this works, and track it against your best keywords and traffic patterns.

This whole process of setting up the account takes about a half hour, not including the time it takes to read the agreement.

Blog Writing Software for the Mac

These are some of the Mac blog clients, or editors, I've tried. A good blog client lets you:

• Blog without a live Internet connection.
• Work with your favorite browser to capture pages you've visited quickly.
• Publish and retrieve your blog posts from the program.

Visit the sites, and read my reviews below.

• MacJournal ($35)
• MarsEdit ($30)
• ecto ($18)

MacJournal I started using this as my preferred writing tool, instead of Word or another bloated word processor. I really like full screen editing. I can drag a URL from my browser's address bar and MacJournal displays the page title with a link to the URL. This is my favorite feature when I'm surfing. I like the WYSIWYG editor, too. Its ability to publish and edit blog posts off line are a plus, making it a legitimate blog editor. Plus, it supports tags for your posts. On the downside, the post downloader isn't completely reliable, so it's really just a good place to start blog posts. I find myself always having to put the finishing touches on the posts using the blog's on-line tools. MarsEdit A cross-platform commercial program, this software excels at getting the latest version of your blog, but the editor is text only. ecto infinite-sushi.com - ecto I like the editor more than MarsEdit, that's for sure. It's got a great WYSIWYG editor, and you can toggle to HTML -- that rocks. Plus, I can drag links in from the browser address bar. Very nice. The biggest problem: Ecto & Blogger.com -- lots of extra hard returns appear in the posts after I upload them to Blogger. com

Blogger.com Setup Checklist

Follow these steps to get your blog ready for prime time:

1. Set up your new blog in Blogger.com. Use the blogspot.com hosting to begin.
2. Post some content. I like to start with something like “Welcome to my blog! It’s about ....” In other words, post your statement of purpose.
3. Test your blog by viewing it. Tweak the layout and settings as required.
4. Move your blog to the “official” URL
5. Insert Google Analytics code into your blog. Test to see if the code is inserted correctly by reloading your blog and selecting View Source.
6. Go to your Google Analytics Settings and [Check Status] of your blog. Be patient -- it may take Analytics a few hours to recognize your site, even if it’s configured properly.

Blogger.com browser performance

I was using the Blogger. com Create Post form in Camino on my 1 GHz iBook Mac, gforce (640 MB RAM), and it was so easy for me to get ahead of the cursor that I had to give it up. My G4 processor kept maxing out, too. It was like wading through Jello. Now, I'm on Firefox running on an 1 GHz Intel Pentium III Gateway, the Goat, with 256 MB of RAM, The Goat is running Windows XP, and the CPU working, but it never gets above 60% or so. This translates into very comfortable performance. So, Blogger.com is basically unusable on the Mac G4. It's fine on my G5 iMac, iFive, also running Camino. Windows XP and Firefox perform admirably on the Pentium III at the same chip speed, 1 GHz.

10 Articles All Bloggers Should Read (at least once)

Links and summaries of important articles all aspiring bloggers should read.

Different Google Listings in Different Countries

This may be obvious when you think about it, but it is still weird to see it in action. I just got back to the States from Montreal, Canada, and Google serves up very different search results. In Canada, one of my blogs is indexed, but not here in the good old USA.