All you need to do is install the plugin, change a few settings, and link your eBay account. On a popular website, you can get a lot more attention on your auctions to help raise the price, especially if the item relates to the website’s theme.

Today, I will demonstrate how to use Auction Nudge in WordPress.

Why Display an eBay Auction in WordPress?

I think the real question is why not?

Putting an item up for auction on eBay is risky business. You could easily end up selling it for less than you expected if not many people see it. Instead, the best outcome is to have a lot of people see and interact with the auction.

However, unless someone is specifically looking for the item during its auction time, you might not get a big turnout.

One way to fix this problem is to showcase the auction on a dedicated website. For instance, let’s say you collect vintage video games. If you have a website dedicated to it, adding an auctions page with your latest listings will get enthusiasts looking.

And hopefully bidding. After all, if it’s an item they want, and it’s hard to find, people are willing to pay especially if they are beating someone else.

How to Use Auction Nudge

Step 1: Install Auction Nudge

Auction Nudge allows you to display an auction or listing from eBay in WordPress. It works for select international eBay sites, so be sure to check the plugin page to make sure your country is supported.

Not only can you view eBay listings, but you can also see feedback from the seller. This helps with customer trust as many try to avoid sellers with bad feedback and ratings. It’s one of the most comprehensive eBay plugins for WordPress.

Note: If you use adblocker, you will see a warning message that Auction Nudge will not load all information.

Let’s start by clicking on Plugins and selecting the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.

Search for Auction Nudge in the available search box.

Scroll down until you find the Auction Nudge plugin and click on the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.

Step 2: Settings

The first thing you need to do is go through the settings. This is how you connect your WordPress website with your eBay account. You will need access to the eBay user name and password before going any further.

And yes, this means you cannot list other sellers on your website.

On the left-hand admin panel, click on Settings and select the Auction Nudge option.

Enter your eBay username into the appropriate textbox. Underneath it, you can check the box to automatically update it in case you change your username.

Next, you need to pick which eBay site your username is for. Again, not every eBay site is supported, so if you do not see your country, this plugin is not for you.

Below this, you will find a text box that allows you to enter CSS rules. You can do some pretty cool things with this plugin and for more information, I highly suggest checking out the plugins information page for CSS.

Finally, you can choose the caching options, which essentially means turning on or off the WordPress cache.

Click on the “Save Settings” button to finish.

Note: You might have noticed the “Within Your Theme” tab. This tab allows you to edit the PHP of your theme and is only recommended for advanced users. It is also highly recommended to create a backup before doing this.

Step 3: Adding eBay Listings in WordPress

With the settings taken care of, it’s time to add listings in WordPress. The good news is that this is pretty simple to do, but just remember if you do not have any listings, you won’t be able to see anything.

Go to any post or page that you want to embed eBay listing on your website. Scroll down to the bottom to view the Auction Nudge section.

Here, you will find even more settings to configure. It’s broken down into feed options, display options, and advanced options. Feed options simply contain your username and eBay site. This was selected in the last section and can be left alone.

Click on the Display options to view more settings.

Here, you can select which theme (layout) to use, the display language, category display, the number of items displayed, and quite a few other options.

Go through these settings and pick the best options for your website.

Click on the Advanced Options. In this section, you will find sorting options, listing types, keyword filters, and category ID filters. Fill in the information as you see fit.

You might have noticed some other tabs at the top of this section: Your eBay Profile and Your eBay Feedback. These have more settings to configure, and I recommend you do so.

This is to give the section a more personable feel while offering clarity of who you are as a seller.

When you are ready, add a shortcode block to the post or page and paste the following shortcode:

[auction-nudge tool=”listings”]

Note: This shortcode does not work in a text widget.

If you save the changes to the post and view it, you should now see the listings. Just keep in mind that you need to have a listing for the plugin to actually display them.

Adding the shortcode without a listing on eBay will result in a “No items found.” message.

Note: If you are running an adblocker extension through your web browser, it may be interfering with Auction Nudge. You may need to whitelist the website to see the results. And yes, this applies to visitors as well.

Congratulations on setting up the Auction Nudge plugin.

Match Listings With Your Website’s content

Adding an eBay listing to a WordPress website can have some amazing results, but it could also do nothing if the two are not related.

For instance, if you run a blog about lawn care and decided to add an eBay listing for a computer, that probably won’t go over well. It has nothing to do with the subject matter of the blog. Thus, there’s no reason for an average visitor to care.

Now if you decide to sell some homemade fertilizer through eBay, that might catch the audience’s eye.

However, at that point, you might just want to create your own online store to sell products to customers. After all, asking customers to buy something on eBay through another website isn’t the most popular option.

Make Sure Visitors Know About eBay Listings

Even if the listing matches your website’s content, you still need to make sure they know it exists. Be sure to add it to your navigation menu, mention it on social media feeds, or even make a blog post about it.

That said, don’t go overboard. It’s easy to scare visitors away from a blog if they think you’re just trying to sell them something.

Have you noticed more active auctions on eBay since adding the listing to WordPress? Do the listings match your website’s content?

The post How to Boost Sales Using Auction Nudge for eBay in WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

What is the Amazon Affiliate Program?

The Amazon Affiliate Program is the way Amazon pays its affiliate marketers for running and displaying their products on outside websites. These website owners get a commission payment sent to them every time a product is purchased through an affiliate link. The trade-off is commission payments for sending traffic and/or sales.

How Does the Amazon Affiliate Program Work?

Essentially, it is a referral program that pays a commission to the referring website owners. When you send Amazon a customer using a link on your website (your affiliate link), then you get a percentage of the sale of whatever they purchase for the next 24-hours.

The amount you make through the commission payment is based on the type of item you sell, as well as the amount. Certain products give a larger percentage back than others, so your income will depend a lot on not only how many referrals you can send, but what type of products are being bought.

Pros and Cons of the Amazon Affiliate Program

As is the case with anything, there are always pros and cons. There are a lot of great things about the program, and other not so great things. Here are the pros and cons of the Amazon Affiliate Program.

Pros

• It is easy to register and become an Amazon Affiliate Partner.
• Amazon is an eCommerce giant and they are trusted.
• There are countless products to sell (over 3 billion).
• Affiliates earn commission on all products bought in 24-hours when referred from a link, not just the product in question.
• Amazon is skilled in conversion and upselling, so this means more for you.

Cons

• The commission percentages in several categories are very low (1 percent).
• The Amazon Affiliate Program agreement can be difficult to understand and it is constantly updated. You may find yourself out of compliance.
• If you don’t already have a website built and ready for products, then building one can be time-consuming.

So, with all this information in place, you now want to figure out what it takes to sell affiliate products directly from your website. To do this, we are going to take a look at a smooth Amazon WordPress plugin that helps you set this all up quickly and easily.

Let’s take a look at the plugin and see what it has to offer.

Shortcodes for Amazon Affiliate

Shortcodes for Amazon Affiliate is a lightweight, yet powerful Amazon Affiliate WordPress plugin that allows you to easily embed products from your affiliate account directly on your website.

It does this by allowing you to add products and then use a series of shortcodes that are generated. You simply take the shortcode of the product you want to display and add it to any post or page that is published on your WordPress website.

When you add a product and save it, a WordPress shortcode for Amazon is automatically created. That shortcode contains every bit of info needed to display the product properly on your site.

You don’t need WooCommerce or any other eCommerce integration running on your site. All you need is this plugin installed and configured.

The plugin comes with several really great features that make displaying products easy to do. Some of the highlights include:

• 100% compatible with the latest Amazon Product Advertising API
• Products will appear as normal content
• AdBlockers will not block the content
• Auto-update old products
• Search Amazon products by keyword
• Two layouts available (row or grid)
• Show or hide the title, description, and price of the product
• Custom post types available
• Manage products like you manage posts and pages
• Spanish and English support available

All-in-all, the Shortcodes for Amazon Affiliate plugin gives you everything you need to display affiliate products quickly and easily across your WordPress website. Let’s take a look at getting it all set up and running.

Add Affiliate Products to Your WordPress Site

In order to get everything up and running, you need to complete a set of steps. From installing the plugin, to configuring it, to adding products. Let’s take a look at the process together and you will have products going on your site before you know it.

Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin

In order to start displaying and selling Amazon Affiliate products on your WordPress website, you first need to install and activate the plugin. You can do this by heading over to the Plugins page of the WordPress admin dashboard.

Just use the search field to find the plugin name and then install it directly from there.

Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you need to access to main settings and configuration area for it. To do this, click on AMZ Shortcodes > Settings in the left side menu area of the dashboard.

You see this is now an available option after you activated the plugin.

Step 2: Configure the Plugin

At this point, you should be on the main configuration page for the plugin. This is where you add in your Amazon Affiliate keys and other info. It is a one-off page, so will not take you too long.

Go ahead and fill out the access key and secret key info, as well as the other relevant info to properly attach your account.

Now scroll down a little and fill some other relevant product and product display info.

Finally, scroll down just a little more and fill out the last little bit of info. This includes some button label info and product layout info.

Click on the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page and you are all set. Your products will display on your site according to the settings you added here.

Step 3: Add a Product

Adding an Amazon Affiliate product is very simple when using this plugin. Click on the “Add Product” link located in the left menu area.

This will open up a new product editor where you can quickly and easily add a new product.

Go ahead and add a product title and any additional description info you want. You can always add more or less later.

From there, all you have to do is scroll down a little and add three key things, the product price, product link, and product image URL.

Once that information is in, simply click on the “Publish” button, and your first product is ready to be placed.

At this point, you simply take the shortcode that was generated and place it on whatever post or page you want that product to show. Repeat the process above for as many products as you want.

Final Thoughts

Adding products to your WordPress website from your Amazon Affiliate account does not have to be difficult. Sure, you may spend some time getting a website built and adding the products, but having the right plugin and the steps in place definitely makes it much easier.

I hope this tutorial was able to show you how easy it really is to add affiliate products to your website and start getting some commissions payments.

Have you ever worked with any affiliate programs before? Did you find the plugin above was easy to use and setup?

The post How to Add Shortcodes for Amazon Affiliate in WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

Why Create Popups on Click?

Popup Anything on Click

• Link, HTML, Button, & Image Popups
• Image and Captions Titles
• Manage Width of Popup
• Set Popup Positions
• Customize Look of Links and Popups
• Create as Many Popups as You Want
• Works With Contact Form Plugins
• Display Shortcodes
• Custom Animations
• Popup Effects
• Popup Location Choices
• Full-Screen Popup Available
• Popups are Responsive

Basically, you have everything you need to build dynamic, interactive popup boxes that will open whenever the links are clicked.

Note: The plugin works perfectly in the Gutenberg block editor as well. You simply use the “shortcode” block and insert your popup box shortcode where you want it.

Let’s take a look at how to get the plugin installed and activated before we go over it together.

Install and Activate Plugin

In order to create your first popup on click box, you first need to install and activate the plugin. You can do this by going to the Plugins page in your WordPress admin dashboard. Simply search the plugin name and install it right from there.

Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you want to access the main settings page before you start adding any popups. To do this, click on Popup Anything > Settings. You will see this located on the left side menu of your dashboard after the plugin has been activated.

Note: You may be automatically bumped to the “Here’s What to do Next” page after you activate the plugin. You are more than welcome to click on that. You will be taken to the main website home page for the plugin. They will offer you the pro version of the plugin.

However, this tutorial is based on the free version, which gives you everything you need to create dynamic popup on click boxes.

Let’s go ahead and set the plugin up and build a popup box together.

Add a Popup Box

At this point, you should be on the settings page for the plugin. Before we add our first popup box, let’s take care of the single item in settings. The only setting you choose is whether or not you want to disable or include the Manage Polyfill JS.

Go ahead and make your choice and save it. Now, let’s add your first popup box together. Click on the “Add a Popup” selection that is located on the left side menu.

You will be presented with a text or visual editor (your choice), where you can now build and design your first popup box. Think of it as adding a new post or page. The concept is the same, except when you are done, you grab the shortcode and add it to wherever you want the popup to show on your website.

Go ahead and give your popup box a name, and then build and design the content however you want.

Now scroll down some and start on your popup box settings. Go ahead and choose what type of popup you want to build, and then start filling in the rest of your settings from there.

Continue filling in all of the popup box screen, effect, and positions settings to your liking. Choose true or false to “Enable Overlay.” and you are about done.

You can continue to scroll down some. However, the rest of the settings will be greyed out unless you are running the pro version of the plugin. So with that, go ahead and click on the “Publish” button to make your popup box go live.

Now that the popup box is published, you will see it in your Popup Anything list. This is where all of your boxes will display when you build them.

You can copy and paste the shortcode generated into any post or page you want. That is where your popup box will display based on the way you built it.

That’s it! You have successfully installed the plugin and built your first popup on click box. You can repeat this process as many times as you want in order to add more boxes.

Final Thoughts

The post How to Make Anything Popup on Click in WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

If your blog or website runs on WordPress, you can become your own ad network by installing the AdRotate plugin. I’ll show you how to install and set up AdRotate in this tutorial.

But first, let’s talk about why you might want to sell advertising directly rather than using an ad network.

Selling Ads on Your WordPress Site

There are advantages to using an ad network. Set up an account, insert some code into your site, and you’re displaying ads. You don’t have to find advertisers; the network takes care of that. You just set it and forget it, and the ad revenue shows up in your bank account.

Who would turn down a sweet deal like that?

But what if your website is just getting started and you don’t yet have a lot of traffic? Some ad networks have minimum traffic numbers that have to be met.

Or what if your website contains material that isn’t allowed by the ad networks? Most ad networks steer clear of content they feel their advertisers might find objectionable. For any reason (and those reasons can change without notice).

When you apply to an ad network, they evaluate your site and decide whether they can do business with you. That’s fair enough; they have to keep the advertisers happy after all. But if they do find a reason to decline to work with you, you’re out of luck.

Ad networks are in business to make money. They sell to the advertisers and break off a piece of that sale to send to you. The size of the piece that makes its way to you is different for every network (and type of ad). But the fact remains, it’s still just a piece of what the advertiser is paying.

When you keep your ad business in-house, 100% of the revenue from the ads goes into your pocket. If you really want to make money running ads on a WordPress site, it’s best to eliminate the middleman.

Convinced? Good! Let’s get started with the plugin.

Installing the AdRotate Plugin to Manage Ads in WordPress

Log in to your WordPress admin panel.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Plugins” link and click the “Add New” link.

In the “Search plugins…” box, enter, “AdRotate.”

Once you have located the plugin, click the “Install Now” button.

Finally, click the “Activate” button.

Before We Go Any Further

If you use an ad blocker in your web browser, you’ll have to whitelist your site to manage ads with AdRotate.

For example, if you use AdBlock, click the AdBlock icon and select “Don’t run on pages on this site.”

Most other adblockers will have a similar setting to whitelist your site.

Getting Started With AdRotate

There are more configuration options available to manage ads than we can hope to cover in this article, so we’ll stick to the basics. We’ll talk about inserting an ad, scheduling it, and how to use ad groups.

You can use the AdRotate ad manager plugin to manage ads from advertising networks. But since we’re focusing on running ads that you sell yourself, those are the features we’ll cover.

There are a lot of “standard” banner sizes. Which sizes you can sell depends on your WordPress theme or your site’s layout.

I’m using a default WordPress theme with a sidebar for this tutorial, and the sidebar is about 325 pixels wide. So if I’m selling ads for that sidebar, they can’t be more than 325 pixels wide.

So let’s assume I’ve sold a standard size 300 x 250 pixel ad to be placed in the sidebar. The advertiser sent me a graphic (which I uploaded to the WordPress Media Library) and a target URL.

Now what?

Creating Your First Advertisement

1. Open Manage Adverts

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “AdRotate” link and click the “Manage Adverts” link.

2. Add a New Advertisement

Click the “Add New” link.

First, we’ll give the ad a name. That can be anything. It’s for your reference.

Then we’ll enter the “AdCode.”

The ad code is HTML, so it can include anything you can wrap in HTML. For our purposes, we’re going to have the ad image without any text. Clicking on the ad should take our visitor to the advertiser’s site.

So we’ll enter this HTML:

[ht_message mstyle=”info” title=”” show_icon=”” id=”” class=”” style=”” ][/ht_message]

That’s an image (the “img” part) inside a link to the advertiser’s site. We use target=”_blank” to make the browser open a new window or tab to the advertiser.

We don’t want our visitor to leave us!

You’ll notice that the image tag uses a variable, %asset%. The plugin will insert the image URL in place of that variable.

If you need help constructing the AdCode, there is a generator available. Go to Manage Adverts > Generator.

3. Choose Your Image

Next, we’ll select the ad image from our Media Library.

On the “Banner asset” line, click the “Select Banner” button.

The Media Library will open.

Click on the ad image to select it, then click the “Choose Banner” button.

4. Save the Advertisement

Now the image URL will be in the “Banner asset” field.

On the “Statistics” line, check the box to “Enable click and impression tracking for this advert.”

On the “Activate” line, leave the drop-down set to “Yes, this ad will be used.”

Click the “Save Advert” button.

Scheduling the Ad

When we saved the ad, we were brought to the “Advert Management” page. Now, I’ll click the link for the ad we just created.

Scroll down to the “Schedule your advert” section.

The “Start date” and “Start time” should be set to the date and time we created the ad. That means the ad will be visible as soon as we add it to the site.

If you want to schedule an ad to appear at a future date, enter that date here. Pay attention to the end date, and make sure it’s set to a time after the start date.

The “Maximum Clicks” and “Maximum Impressions” settings are used to manage ads with click or impression limitations.

If you make any changes to the schedule, click the “Save Advert” button.

Since we want to see the ad right away, I’m going to leave all the scheduling fields as-is.

Placing the Ad on the Site

There are a couple of options for placing the ad on the site. It can be placed on a specific page or in a post. Then it will only be seen on that page or post.

The second option, which we’ll use, is to place it in a universal spot that shows up on every page, like the sidebar, footer, or a widget.

Placing the Ad in a Post or Page

To place the ad on a specific page or post, you’ll need the ad shortcode. You can find that in the “Usage” section of the “Advert Management” page.

So as you can see, for the ad we created, the shortcode is:

[ht_message mstyle=”info” title=”” show_icon=”” id=”” class=”” style=”” ][adrotate banner=”4″][/ht_message]

If you paste that into a page or post, the ad will show up right where you put the shortcode.

But we want the ad to show up on every page of the site, so we’re going to place it in the sidebar.

Placing the Ad in the Sidebar (or Any Widget Area)

To insert our ad in the sidebar, we’ll use the AdRotate widget.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Appearance” link and click the “Widgets” link.

Next, we’ll drag the AdRotate widget into the Blog Sidebar area, dropping it between the Search and Recent Posts widgets.

The widget will open to the settings.

The “Name” field isn’t required, and since it displays text above the ad, we won’t use it.

We’ll also skip the “Description,” since we only have one ad at the moment.

The “Type” line chooses whether to display a single ad or a group of ads. (More on groups in a minute.) We’re showing a single ad, so we’ll leave it set to “Advert – Use Advert ID.”

The “ID” field is where we place the ad ID. Remember when we looked at the shortcode? The ad ID is in there. So our shortcode, [adrotate banner=”4“], tells us the ad ID is 4. You can also find the ID on the “Advert Management” page.

Finally, we’ll click the “Save” button.

Now when we view the site, there’s the ad in the sidebar.

Since we wrapped a link around the image tag, clicking the ad image takes us to the Really Cool Products page.

Or I should say that it would take us there if such a page existed.

Ad Groups

Groups are a great way to manage ads, and can be found in Manage Groups > Add New.

Groups can hold one or more ads. If you put multiple ads in a group, the ads will rotate. The “Mode” determines how often the ads are displayed.

• Default: On every page load, a different ad from the group will be shown.
• Dynamic: The ad changes every [number you provide] seconds, cycling through the ads in the group.
• Block: Displays a grid with all of the ads in the group.

The rotation is “semi-random,” and I’m not sure what that means, but the ads don’t repeat in the same order.

We add a group to a page, post, or widget the same way we added a single advertisement. Either as a shortcode or a group ID.

There are a lot of configuration options for groups, so take some time to read up on them and experiment.

How to Decide How Much to Charge for Ads

Now that the mechanics to manage ads are out of the way, we get to the nitty-gritty. Monetizing your blog.

So how do you know much to charge for an ad on your site?

The rate that blogs charge for ads varies quite a bit, as you might expect. But generally speaking, ad rates are usually based on visitor numbers, the type of advertisement, and placement.

If you’ve never thought about the subject of rates, I have an excellent resource for you. It’s a site called BuySellAds, and you can use it to see what typical prices are in your general niche.

Let’s take a look at a site listing on BuySellAds

To take a site at random, WE AND THE COLOR in the “Design and Art Inspiration” category.

As I write this, they are listed as having 130,000 monthly impressions. That sounds like a lot, but impressions are not visitors. They are page loads. So whenever a page loads with an ad on it, that’s an impression. One visitor who loads ten pages equals ten impressions.

You see two types of ad rates here, “sponsorship” and “CPM.”

The sponsorship rate is the rate to have a particular sized ad visible in a specific location for 30 days. The ad has that location exclusively; no other ads appear there for those 30 days.

The CPM rate is the cost per thousand impressions. The CPM ads may rotate with other advertising. Since they may not appear on every page load, the rate is lower than the sponsorship rate. The advertiser pays you for every thousand impressions, whenever those impressions happen in the ad rotation.

Doing some research on the BuySellAds site can give you a pretty good idea of what you can charge. Look for offers from websites that are similar to yours as far as the topics and visitor numbers.

If you have trouble finding advertisers, you can also list your site on BuySellAds. But of course, they are an ad network. Not exactly the same as the big ad networks we talked about, but an ad network all the same. Which means – you guessed it! They’re going to take a share of the ad revenue.

What Happens if You Uninstall the AdRotate Plugin

If you uninstall the plugin, pages and posts that used the plugin will be affected.

• The ads you created will be deleted (though the images will remain in your Media Library).
• The plugin widget will be deleted.
• The plugin shortcodes will stop working, so the shortcodes themselves will be displayed anywhere they were used.

You Put Effort Into Building Your Website; You Should Reap the Rewards

Ad revenue fuels the web. That’s a fact. Without it, we’d live in a very different world. There’s no reason the hard work you put into your website shouldn’t earn you a profit. Rather than settling for a small piece of big ad network revenue, sell your own ads.

We’ve gone over everything you need to manage ads. Yes, it’s (yet) another thing you’re going to have to put your time into. But if you do, the payoff can be well worth the investment. As your site becomes known as a good place to advertise, you’ll spend less time selling.

The ad dollars are out there. Go get some of them.

Have you ever used an ad network on your website? Do you have any fresh ideas for selling ads directly that you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments.

The post How to Manage Ads in WordPress to Monetize Your Website appeared first on GreenGeeks.

If you’re not an author, you can still make money selling Amazon best sellers with an Amazon affiliate account. Amazon calls its affiliate program Amazon Associates, and it’s free to join.

If you’re an author you should also be an Amazon Associate. That way when you link to your book using your affiliate ID, you can get paid twice. For the book sale and the affiliate referral fee on the book sale.

The great thing about the Amazon Associates program is your referral link applies to whatever your referred visitor buys. So if someone follows your book link to Amazon and buys your book and a pair of shoes, you get the referral fee for the book and the shoes.

You’re even paid a referral fee for the shoes if they don’t buy your book.

So whether you’re an author or not, you can sell books on Amazon using your WordPress site. The company will pay dividends.

There are a lot of Amazon Associates plugins for WordPress. But since we’re focusing on books, we’ll use the Mooberry Book Manager plugin.

Installing the Mooberry Book Manager Plugin

Log in to your WordPress admin panel.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Plugins” link and click the “Add New” link.

In the “Search plugins…” box, enter “Mooberry Book Manager.”

Once you have located the plugin, click the “Install Now” button.

Click the “Activate” button.

Creating a Book Grid With Mooberry Book Manager

Mooberry displays books in two ways, in a grid on a page or post, or in a widget. We’ll start with a grid.

It may seem odd to add a grid before we have added any books. But when we add a book, you’ll see why we’re doing it this way.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Book Grids” link and click the “Add New” link.

For now, we’re just going to give the grid a title. But you can see there are a number of configuration options to control how books are displayed in a grid.

Give your grid a title and click the “Publish” button.

Now copy the shortcode.

Create a new page, or edit an existing page or post. In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Pages” link and click the “Add New” link.

Give the page a title, paste the Book Grid shortcode into the page and click the “Publish” button.

At this point, there won’t be anything on the Book Grid page but a “Books not found” message.

Adding Books

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Books” link and click the “Add New” link.

The only field required to add a book is the title. But we’re going to add a couple of other elements.

Enter the book title and description.

In the right column, there’s a “Cover” section. Click the “Add or Upload File” button to upload a cover image.

Scroll down to the “Book Details” section.

Since the book has a subtitle, I’ll add it here. There’s also a field for a Goodreads link, which you’ll want to add if you’re adding your own book.

Since I’m trying to sell books on Amazon, I’ll keep the other links to a minimum.

Now scroll down to the “Retailer Links” section. This is where you’ll add your Amazon Associates link to the book.

Select “Amazon” from the “Retailer” drop-down.

Paste your Associates link to the book in the “Link” field.

Click the “Add Retailer Link” button.

Scroll back up to the top of the page and click the “Publish” button.

When the book is saved you’ve done two things. Created a separate page for the book:

And added the book to your grid:

The book page is where the Amazon book sale link (with your Associates code) appears:

Wait, How Was the Book Added to the Grid?

The book was automatically added to our grid because we created the grid with the default “display all” setting.

Let’s go back to the “Book Grids” section and take a look.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Book Grids” link and click the “All Book Grids” link.

Now click the “Edit” link for the grid.

The first setting is a “Books to Display” drop-down. The default is “All,” but as you can see, there are many options.

You can choose which books to go onto the grid. If you create multiple grids, you’ll likely want to use this feature.

From the “Books to Display” drop-down, choose “Select Books.”

Now you can see that it’s possible to select which books appear on the grid. Since we’ve only added one book, it’s the only option. But when you’ve added multiple books, you’ll be able to select them here.

Additional Book-Entry Fields

I realize we’re bouncing back and forth here, but I want to address the sections as you might encounter them on your first use of the plugin. So let’s go back to the book entry page.

In the left column navigation, mouse over the “Books” link and click the “All Books” link.

Now click the “Edit” link for a book.

Since we’re only covering the basics, we didn’t complete many of the available fields when we added our first book. Here’s a rundown of what the sections that we didn’t previously touch on do.

In the left column:

In the Excerpt section, you can add your own excerpt or select the Kindle preview. The Kindle preview is only available for books that you have published on Amazon.

You can add multiple Reviews for each book. Each review has to include the review text and one or more of the other fields:

• The “Reviewer Name” is the name or username of the person who reviewed the book.
• “Review Link” is the (valid) URL where the review can be found.
• “Review Website Name” is the name of the website where the review appears (e.g., Amazon, Goodreads, etc.)

Formats and Editions is where you enter the data specific to each edition of a book. So if you have a paperback version, a hardcover, epub, Kindle – each of those is its own edition.

Additional Information is a freeform field where you can add anything that isn’t covered by the predefined fields. It appears at the bottom of the book page.

In the right column:

Genres, Series, Tags. These all work the same way tags do in Posts and Pages. So you can add multiple genres, series, or tags to each book. Multiple books can be in each genre, series, or tags, and a book does not have to belong to genres, series, or tags. New genres, series, and tags can be added to Book Manager by adding them here on the book page.

Tags may seem redundant when you can already assign genres, but tags are a good way to identify characteristics of a book that aren’t genres. Like “Strong female lead,” or “Takes place in Iceland.”

Download Links can be added if you are letting readers download your book for free.
You can add one download link per format for each book. Download links have to specify the “Format” and the “Link.” Which should be a direct link to download the book in the specified format.

Cover Artists, Illustrators, and Editors work the same way the genres, series, and tags sections do, like regular WordPress tags. They can belong to multiple books or no books.

If you want to dig deeper into these sections, the Mooberry developers have written excellent plugin documentation. A tip of the hat for that, because it isn’t always the case with WordPress plugins.

If You Use a Caching Plugin for WordPress

Mooberry Book Manager works with both W3C Total Cache and WP Super Cache, but there are things you should be aware of.

If you use W3C Total Cache, you have to activate “Object Caching” in the W3C Total Cache settings for Mooberry Book Manager data to be cached. Book data cache is automatically cleared when a book is updated, added, or deleted so your book pages and grids will stay up-to-date.

If you use WP Super Cache, the cache for the entire site is cleared when a book is updated, added, or deleted. WP Super Cache does not seem to have an option for selectively clearing part of the cache rather than all of it.

What Happens if You Uninstall the Plugin

If you uninstall the Mooberry Book Manager plugin, pages and posts that used the plugin grid or widget will be affected.

• Book Grids created by the plugin will be deleted.
• Book pages created by the plugin will be deleted.
• Plugin-related pages that you created yourself (like the “Favorite Books” page in this tutorial) will have to be deleted manually.
• The plugin shortcodes will stop working, so the shortcodes themselves will be displayed anywhere they were used. This creates a bit of an unsightly appearance on those pieces of content.

It Makes Sense to Sell Books on Amazon Through Your Website

For authors, the ability to sell your book in WordPress is a no-brainer. The largest book retailer on earth, check. Get paid twice for each book sale, check. Get paid even if your referral doesn’t buy your book, double-check.

For non-authors, the benefits are all the same, minus the book sales, of course. And the worldwide acclaim and glory that you achieve when your book becomes a bestseller.

But for a book site in general, the Mooberry Book Manager plugin is a great way to organize and control the book data on your site.

Have you ever used a book plugin on your WordPress site? What about a plugin that adds affiliate links? Let me know in the comments!

The post How to Sell Your Books from Amazon Using WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.

Picking a website archetype that makes money is not easy in 2020. You have a lot of options to choose from, but a very popular option is setting up an Amazon affiliate website. This entails advertising Amazon products on your site, and when visitors click on the item and purchases it, you get a cut of the profits.

It’s similar to many other affiliate programs, but having Amazon, the biggest name in online retail has a lot of value behind it.

What Will You Need?

Traffic

It is important to note that you will need a lot of traffic to succeed with this method. As Amazon will remove you from the affiliate program if you don’t make a sale within a certain amount of time, it’s more difficult for a new website to stay afloat. So, you want to make sure you drive as much traffic as you can to make a sale before time runs out.

Become An Amazon Affiliate

This is probably the most obvious prerequisite, but it needs to be said. You need to sign up for the Amazon Affiliate Program. The process is short, but it can take a few days to be approved. Luckily, it is very difficult to be refused unless the nature of your website is…questionable.

A Reason to Advertise A Product

Let’s be honest; no one is going to visit your website just to see Amazon products. They would just go to the source. Instead, you need to have a reason to advertise them. For example, if you run a video game blog, it makes a lot of sense to add affiliate links for video games and gaming accessories. The people who visit your website are interested in a specific topic or topics, so advertise products they will like.

How to Set Up A Website

You are going to need to pick out a few things before you begin your website. Specifically, you will need a web host, domain name, and a CMS to quickly establish your presence.

Webhosting And Domain Name

Luckily, these go hand in hand. A web host is a company that maintains the web server your website runs on. Picking one out can be quite challenging. You should look for one that has amazing uptime, quality support, strong security, lightning-fast speeds, and that doesn’t leave a carbon footprint. Like GreenGeeks!

The domain name is the name of your website. When you sign up with GreenGeeks, you get one for free for the first year!

Why You Should Install WordPress

WordPress is the perfect CMS to build any type of website. It is extremely customizable and easy to approach as someone with zero experience. However, it has the depth that makes veteran web developers love the platform. This is largely why WordPress dominates the competition with a whopping 35% market share.

Good Themes To Choose

If you want to be an Amazon affiliate website, you need to look the part, and that is exactly where WordPress themes come into play. These decide how your website looks and there are thousands to choose from. Here are a few I can recommend:

Affiliate Marketingly

The Affiliate Marketingly is a theme that can fit almost any type of website from blog to affiliate review site. What makes this perfect for an Amazon affiliate website is the incredible amount of ad space available. It has a lot of customization options to explore.

Hoot Business

The Hoot Business theme is a great choice for affiliate content. It is optimized for SEO and offers support for multiple big-name plugins like Contact form 7 and Jetpack. The design can complement almost any type of website including affiliate and product sites.

Online Bazaar

The Online Bazaar theme is built to be a highly customizable, e-commerce centric theme. This is a great choice if you are looking to have a pure affiliate website. And as you might expect from an e-commerce layout, it is fully compatible with WooCommerce.

Stoready

The Stoready theme is another e-commerce focused theme that has an eloquent design that is perfect for an Amazon affiliate website. The theme makes it easy to create grids to display products and their images. And of course, it is optimized for SEO.

SEO Writers Blogily

If you are planning to also run a blog, the SEO Writers Blogily theme is a great choice. It has greatly redesigned some of the blog post areas to make it as simple as possible. It is responsive, SEO friendly, and is perfect for any type of writing content.

Plugins That Can Help

Plugins add features to your website, just like apps do for your phone. If you want to have an Amazon affiliate website, or any other for that matter, you need the right plugins. Here are some of the ones that can help you out the most:

ThirstyAffiliates Affiliate Link Manager

It goes without saying, you are going to need to manage your affiliate links, and ThirstyAffiliates is the perfect plugin for the job. Its simple to use and can help you keep track of every affiliate link even if they are not from Amazon. Instead of having to copy and paste that affiliate link, you can add it to the plugin, which will generate a shortcode you can use instead.

This means you can simply change the data in the shortcode itself without having to edit every page you placed it on when you need to make an adjustment or add a new affiliate.

WP Product Reviews Lite

Reviews are a big part of any product driven website. The WP Product Review Lite plugin is a great way to add them. This plugin allows users to leave a rating on products using a star system and leave feedback on why it got that rating.

Testimonial Slider

Much like reviews, testimonials are a great addition to any product driven website. The Testimonial Slider is a great way to display them. You can pick how many testimonials to display and do so in a small space versus having them in a list or grid view.

Amazon JS

You are going to need a way to add Amazon products to your posts and pages, and that is exactly where the Amazon JS plugin comes into play. It allows you to add products to any page or post in WordPress. The JavaScripts allows you to customize the appearance of the products you display as well.

Akismet Anti-Spam

Every website deals with spam, and Akismet Anti-Spam helps control that nuisance. It is a great way to guard your website against troublesome and annoying messages. This includes your comments section and user reviews. This is particularly useful from stopping bots from posting their own affiliate links on your website.

How to Engage Your Audience

There are many ways to engage your audience while advertising Amazon products. Here are some of the best suggestions I can give:

Social Media

It wouldn’t be a list without social media. Social media is without a doubt the best way to engage with any audience. It can also help you move affiliate products. For example, make a Twitter post about how helpful a product is with your affiliate link in it. And all you need to do is wait for the results.

Relevance

Let’s be honest, it would be pretty odd to go to a fitness website and find an affiliate link for a pie plate. Engaging with your audience also needs to make sense. Cater to your audience and advertise the products they would be likely to use. Again if it has nothing to do with your website, you’ve made a mistake at some point.

YouTube

Video content is an amazing addition to any website. You can go above and beyond advertising products by making product demo videos. This is extremely common, and many people tend to look up what a product can do before purchasing it. Thus, making a video kills two birds with one stone. You have video content and you are showing visitors what it can do.

Reddit/Quora Answers

Years ago, many people use to flock to Yahoo answers, but now that traffic has all moved to either Reddit or Quora. If you can manage to build a good reputation on those sites, anytime you recommend a product, will be another chance you can get a sale. And in the process, you may expand your traffic.

Make a Free Ebook on Amazon

Think of it as creating a magazine for your followers to read your opinion on a product. By putting a $0 price tag on it, visitors feel like they are getting a deal. And since you are advertising Amazon products, “selling” it on Amazon just makes sense. This is a great way to promote products and boost sales.

What to Do With Your Website

If visitors are looking to purchase products on Amazon, they go to Amazon. Your website needs a way to actually draw in traffic. Here are some ideas to get started:

Start A Blog

Blogging adds a tremendous amount of benefits to every website from an SEO perspective. Not to mention it is the perfect way to advertise specific products to a target audience. Creating a blog about a specific topic is the perfect excuse to add affiliate links to products related to that topic.

Always Add New Content

Regardless of the website type you choose, you need to give visitors a reason to come back often. The more times they come back, the better the odds you will be able to entice them with a product. This could be as simple as adding a new blog entry or offering a special promotion. In either event, just give customers a reason to come back

Add User Reviews/Testimonials

If you go onto any trustworthy site, there is always a review section, and even Amazon themselves has one. But adding one to your website can do wonders. It adds credibility, can grab the attention of someone, or be the deciding factor in a purchase. Reviews and testimonials are a great addition to any website that sells products.

Just A Start

The tips here will help you start a website on the right track, but it is just the beginning. Web development changes every year, and keeping up is a lifetime job. However, as long as you make sure your website is responsive, easy to use, and has a lot of content, you can definitely build a great Amazon affiliate website.

The post How to Build an Amazon Affiliate Website to Make Money appeared first on GreenGeeks.

There are several ways to make money with a blog or website. Running ads and agreeing to sponsored posts are two great ways. However, building affiliate websites may be the most lucrative if handled correctly. Let’s go through the process of building an affiliate website so you can make money as an affiliate website publisher.

Affiliate websites are platforms that essentially promote another company’s product. These products can be both physical and digital in nature, but more often than not, it is a physical product.

When you are an affiliate, you are not selling your own products. You are actually selling other people’s goods and services through “affiliate links.” These links earn you a commission on the sale when a website user clicks through it and makes a purchase.

However, these purchases need to be made through your affiliate link in a certain time period for you to gain a commission. Usually, this is a 30-day or 60-day window, but times can vary depending on the requirements of the company.

Having an affiliate marketing website can provide you with extra income or can make you a lot of money if handled well. Let’s take a look at the steps to take in order to create one of your own and make money as an affiliate website publisher.

What You Need to Build Affiliate Websites

Every website needs to have a few things in place before you actually start to build. Here are a few things to consider before you build an affiliate website.

Choose a Niche

Most affiliate websites concentrate on a specific thing or find a certain niche. This is important for a number of reasons. It is better for overall SEO when putting the site together and it leads to getting the right people visiting your content. So, choose a niche to focus on before you do anything else.

For instance, you could create a website about electronic reviews and then affiliate yourself with companies that sell those goods.

Find Affiliate Products

After you choose your niche you want to go about the process of finding appropriate products to add to your affiliate site. There are a number of places to find these goods and a number of ways to go about getting affiliate links. We will talk about this more below. Finding relevant products will help you make money as an affiliate website publisher.

Create a Catchy Name

If you want your affiliate website to stand out even more, then create a catchy name. This will help people not only find your site online, but remember you as well. A catchy name is always something site visitors remember.

Where would we be without “Google” or “Yahoo?”

Steps for Building an Affiliate Website

Now that you have the above things in place, it is time to take the steps needed to build your affiliate website. Do the following in this order to make it the smoothest process possible for you. If you complete these steps below in the order they are described, you will be on our way to making money as an affiliate website publisher.

Domain Name and Web Hosting

The first two things to do is to choose a domain name for the website, and then find a good web host. There are a lot of different domain name registrars to choose from, so pick your favorite and go get the name you want.

If you try to get the domain name you want and it isn’t available, then just try another version of the name, or try using a different extension. There are so many available domain name extensions today that you are bound to find something you like.

Now that you have your domain name picked out, it is time to choose a web host provider. Again, there are a lot of choices out there, and a lot of them are not good. Make sure you get a web host that will give you everything you need to start building affiliate websites easily.

If you use GreenGeeks web hosting, you can get your site and domain name all in one account. This means you don’t need a third-party domain registrar should you choose.

Now that you have a domain name and have chosen a web host, it is time to pick the right CMS.

Use WordPress and Here’s Why

When it comes to building websites these days, there are a lot of different CMS choices available for you to use. I recommend using WordPress for a number of reasons.

WordPress is now powering over 40% of all websites that are online. Furthermore, it is very user-friendly and easy to install whether manually or by using a one-click installation.

WordPress is also an open source project. This means that anyone can contribute to it and there are thousands of developers that have. You will never be short on people to talk to, resources, or tutorials to learn from.

Finally, WordPress is very secure, which is key today. Sure, there are always steps to take to secure a website even further, but WordPress itself offers a very secure CMS.

Choosing the Right WordPress Theme

There are thousands of different WordPress themes available that will help you create a fantastic layout. Let’s focus on some that are actually perfect if you are building an affiliate website.

Genesis Framework

The Genesis Framework is actually one of the best WordPress themes to use for affiliate websites. With a ton of security and functionality, you can use the framework to build a dynamic affiliate site. You also have a selection of child themes you can choose from to add and build.

Kupon

The Kupon theme is the perfect theme for affiliate marketers. It is specifically built to allow you to provide daily deals and coupons through affiliate links. It has a very easy to use back-end interface, and you will not need to install any third-party plugins to get the functionality you need. The Kupon theme has it all built-in.

Marketing Pro

The Marketing Pro theme is an all-purpose WordPress theme that comes pre-packaged with 9 different layout templates. You can use these easily to manipulate the templates and build a fantastic affiliate site and start making money. It has an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop page builder included as well.

Steady Income

With a name like Steady Income, this WordPress theme was practically built to create affiliate websites. It comes with a powerful subscription tool, the ability to easily add affiliate marketing links and ads, and has a very responsive design. All of these work together to boost your online earnings.

MoneyFlow

The MoneyFlow WordPress theme is a modern style blog appearance that is built specifically for those who are trying to make money online. It has an easy monetization process built-in, and it is mobile-friendly and responsive. On top of building your affiliate marketing site, you can also easily add Adsense, and support for WooCommerce is already built-in.

Choosing the Right Plugins

Now that you have your theme picked out, it is time to review some plugins that are a must-have for affiliate marketing websites. There are certain plugins you want for specific elements, so here are some to consider while building your site.

ThirstyAffiliates

ThirstyAffiliates is an affiliate link manager that allows you to organize all of your links in a single area. What this means is that you can be making money on affiliate links as a publisher using different affiliate accounts, but you can manage and track them all in one singular space. The plugin is lightweight and can be easily used from your WordPress admin dashboard.

Pretty Links

Pretty Links does a lot of things that will be useful for your website, including giving you the ability to setup shortlinks to share over social media. It also has as the ability to set up both permanent and temporary redirects. However, for an affiliate website, Pretty Links will allow you to cloak the affiliate links you have on your website. This gives them a more professional look and makes it less obvious that you are trying to earn a commission.

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is a WordPress Google Analytics plugin that will track anything you can think of. This will include any type of data imaginable coming from your affiliate link clickthroughs. It ties right into the backend of your affiliate website and gives you up-to-date data in an easy-to-read way.

RafflePress

RafflePress is a WordPress plugin that will help you get traffic to your affiliate site by allowing you to easily do viral giveaways and other types of engaging content. It is a drag-and-drop giveaway builder that is a sure-fire way to get your affiliate marketing website noticed.

MailChimp

MailChimp is an email list building and marketing plugin that will help you create ready to roll emails, newsletter, coupons, incentives, and affiliate links. This is a great list builder and perhaps the best part about it is that MailChimp has a very good free plan to get you started.

Sharing Your Affiliate Website

Now that you have your affiliate marketing website built and live, you need some different sharing options. Here are a few suggestions on how to share your website and get the name out there.

Create a Contest

Since you should be using RafflePress, you can create a contest or a big initial giveaway. Then get the word out and let the content or giveaway run for a while. This is a great way to get the name out there and also build your email list.

Publish Blog Posts

It never hurts any site to have a blog section. This includes affiliate websites. Post blogs about your site, your products, what you are about, and more. Then share these posts on social media and drive people to your affiliate site.

Social Media

Social media platforms are probably the quickest way to get the name of your affiliate marketing website out there to the masses. You can post your site link and some information on it, or even post ads that will gain you clicks and traffic.

YouTube

Since YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, it only makes sense for you to make use of it. Publish video content that directs people to your website. Make it fun and interactive and you will start to see the benefits.

Get on Quora

Quora is a question website that provides users the ability to ask any questions they want and have people answer them. Direct affiliate links are not allowed, but links to websites and blogs with relevant content are. Try getting on there and answer some relevant questions to direct people back to your site.

How Can You Use Your Affiliate Site?

You can change up the niche or process of how you choose to use your affiliate marketing website. Here are some suggestions on how you can use it.

Amazon Affiliate Site

This is perhaps the most popular option because you can easily access thousands of different affiliate links in one place. Setting up your affiliate site and running it through Amazon products is a great way to make money.

Other Affiliate Programs

There are other very popular affiliate programs available for you to join. You can look through these, see which ones offer the best items, and pick what you want from there. Some of the most popular affiliate programs include ShareASale and CJ Affiliate.

Specific Product Affiliate

While many affiliate websites have a specific niche, they also offer several different products within that niche. If you want to be even more targeted, offer one main product only. If you are able to get to a point where your site is getting a lot of traffic, then you will start making some decent money on one product, because you will be a main supplier.

Conclusion

Affiliate websites are a fantastic way to either make some extra money on the side or even replace a full-time income. There are all sorts of ways you can build an affiliate site, but the steps above will give you a great starting point and get your site online fast.

I hope the information above was helpful. Let us know how it went if you use this guide to build an affiliate website. Following everything above in the order it is given should lead you to success.

The post How to Create Affiliate Websites that Make Money as a Publisher appeared first on GreenGeeks.

An eBay feed displays products you are selling or products being sold on a sponsored account. It can be a great addition to websites that have a strong presence on the platform and in turn, can boost sales.

Today, I will demonstrate how to add an eBay Feed to WordPress to help drive sales.

Why Display An eBay Feed in WordPress

Running an online website is just like running a business. Your goal is to please your customers (visitors) and to make a profit. And adding an eBay feed can help you significantly.

If you are an active seller on eBay, it can be hard to get noticed since there are plenty of other sellers on the platform with the same products. Advertising your personal eBay products on your website can be a great addition.

For example, it is very common for trading card stores with physical locations to do business on eBay. If you have a business website that has your store hours and contact information, adding an eBay feed is a perfect fit.

Just make sure that any feed you do add is not intrusive to your visitors.

What If I’m Not an eBay Seller?

While the above makes perfect sense if you are an eBay seller, how does this help non-sellers?

Displaying someone’s eBay products is a form of affiliate marketing.

The more popular your website, the more appealing it is to potential marketers. This is a great opportunity for both parties to turn a profit.

For example, let’s keep with the trading card theme. Let’s say you have a blog that covers modern card strategies in Magic the Gathering. Your fan base is clearly interested in the card game. Thus, displaying an eBay feed of someone who actually sells Magic the Gathering cards makes perfect sense.

You can get some affiliate sales while the seller can advertise his wares to an audience that is interested in them. This makes it a win-win situation.

Installing WP eBay Product Feeds

The WP eBay Product Feeds is a great plugin to add an eBay feed to WordPress. The plugin makes it easy by place feeds directly into blog posts, add it to a widget, or place it directly into the theme. This gives you a host of customization options to choose from.

On top of this, the plugin adds a new Gutenberg block called eBay Feed and a new widget called WP eBay Product Feeds. This makes it simple to add the feed into any post, page, or widget area.

Let’s start by clicking on Plugins and selecting the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.

Search for WP eBay Product Feeds in the available search box. This will pull up additional plugins that you may find helpful.

Scroll down until you find the WP eBay Product Feeds plugin, click on the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.

Setting Up WP eBay Product Feeds

On the left-hand admin panel, click on Settings and select the WP eBay Product Feeds option. This will pull up the main settings page.

Here are where all of the plugin settings are located. This will determine how the eBay feed will look and behave on your website.

The first thing you need to do is add a default eBay feed. Simply paste the URL into the text box. If this is an affiliate deal, make sure you paste the link that was provided for you. Otherwise, you will not earn anything!

Underneath this, you will have an option for how many products should be displayed in the eBay feed. The default option is 3, but you can select any number. You may want to come back to this option after you see the feed in action. This way, you can get a feel for what it looks like on your site before committing to a certain number of items.

The next three checkboxes have to deal with how links work. Go through each of them and select the best option for your website.

Underneath these boxes, you will find more settings that need to be filled out accordingly. They are based on your preference and can be changed at any time by returning to this page.

When you are done click on the “Save Changes” button.

Now you are ready to place your feed on your website.

Placing an eBay Feed in WordPress

You have multiple options for placing your eBay feed within WordPress. The first option is to place it directly into a post or page.

Go into any post or page in WordPress, or create a new one for testing purposes. Once on a page or post, click on the “+” button and type “eBay Feed” into the search box. Select the eBay Feed block.

That’s it, there are no settings to change. The eBay feed will appear where ever the block is located. Simply save the changes and view the eBay feed on your website.

Alternatively, you could use the widget method. Go to the widget section of WordPress, locate the WP eBay Product Feed, and place it into the appropriate widget section.

You will need to enter a title, text, how many items to display, and the URL to the eBay feed. Click on the “Save” button when you are finished.

Note: The images should resize themselves accordingly, but if the product name is very long you could see some display issues. If this is the case, you may need to adjust those settings from the eBay account.

You can now view it on your website.

Congratulations on successfully adding an eBay feed to your WordPress website!

Advertise Quality Products

One thing to keep in mind is the quality of the products you advertise or recommend. The moment you recommend a product, the quality of that product will reflect your brand as well. That’s even when you have nothing to do with its production.

For example, let’s say you recommend a kitchen knife. However, the knife isn’t very sharp and makes it very difficult to cut with. The customer will not only remember who made the product but the person who recommended it.

Thus, I strongly recommend making sure the products you choose to advertise or recommend work correctly. If not, it will cost you visitors and damage your brand’s reputation.

Target Specific Audiences

The advantage of displaying an eBay feed on a WordPress blog is that it allows you to target a specific audience that is interested in your product line.

For example, let’s say you run a cooking blog. Clearly your readers must be interested in cooking if they are coming back for more. Thus, displaying an eBay feed that offers pots, pans, knives, and other cooking accessories to your audience will be a big hit.

Just make sure it will connect with your audience. The last thing you want to do is advertise knitting kits to football enthusiasts.

How easy did you find the WP eBay Product Feeds plugin to use? Did you display your eBay feed by using the Gutenberg block or widget?

The post How to Add an eBay Feed to WordPress and Sell More appeared first on GreenGeeks.

Let’s take a closer look at what FOMO is and how you can use it as a marketing technique for your brand. Adding some plugins here and there on your WordPress site will allow you to use FOMO to create anticipation for your brand product or service.

What is FOMO?

Have you ever had a fear of missing out on something that you thought everyone else was already into? That’s FOMO, which is the abbreviated term for “fear of missing out.”

FOMO developed into a psychological term that is used to describe people who have anxiety because they think they are missing out on something that is exciting, trendy or popular.

It is not that FOMO is a new marketing strategy, as people have been using the technique long before the Internet was ever in existence. But it is newer to the online community, and it is becoming one of the most popular marketing techniques around.

You can increase FOMO conversions in WordPress a number of ways. Some of the more popular methods to do this include:

• Sales
• Limited Time Offers
• Social Proof
• Discounts
• Word of Mouth

You can also use FOMO to build an email list for your business and to boost traffic to your website. If you have an app, you can increase conversions on there as well. You can increase downloads using FOMO.

It is easy to add FOMO tools to your WordPress website. Here are some easy ways to use this phenomenon to increase conversions on a WordPress site.

Use Social Proof to Add FOMO

Maybe the most effective way to use FOMO to increase conversions is by adding social proof to your WordPress website. Social proof immediately shows other potential customers that people are buying your product or service and how they are happy with it.

There is a great free plugin called WP Real-Time Social Proof that allows you to quickly and easily add social proof to your WordPress website. The plugin is compatible with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.

It can be integrated with Google Analytics as well.

To add social proof to your WordPress website and use FOMO to increase conversions, you want to install and activate the WP Real-Time Social Proof plugin.

Once the plugin has been installed and activated, click on Settings > Social Proof and you will be taken to the setup area for the plugin.

From here you can simply add as many social proofs as you want by clicking on the “Add New Social Proof” link on the left of your WordPress admin dashboard.

Fill out the settings how you see fit and you’re off and running. Adding social proof to a WordPress website is a great way to use FOMO to increase conversions and is a great customer retention strategy.

Add Countdown Timers to Specific Areas of Website

Countdown timers are used for so many things on a website. They are perfect to increase FOMO conversions in WordPress as well.

A countdown timer will show a site user that there is limited time to act on something. Buy a product, get on a list, get a free download or opt-in for a future discount are all things countdown timers can be used.

They trigger a real sense of urgency in a visitor, and more often than not that user will act on the feeling. In order to add a countdown timer to your WordPress website, we are going to use a plugin.

For this particular example, I have chosen to use Countdown Timer Ultimate. It is a simple plugin that allows you to create multiple timers and use shortcodes to place them where you want.

Install and activate the Countdown Timer Ultimate plugin from your WordPress admin dashboard.

When the plugin and been installed and activated, click on Countdown Timer > Add Timer to add your first countdown timer. You will see a few different options. Fill those out how you see fit and publish your first timer.

Use that shortcode wherever you want to display the timer on your website.

If you want to dig in and look for some other free countdown timer plugins, then checkout the list WordPress provides right from their home directory. You may prefer a different style of the countdown timer.

Either way, they will all be useful for creating FOMO conversions in WordPress.

Use WP FOMO Plugin to Increase Conversions

If you want to use FOMO to increase conversions on your WordPress website, then why not use the actual WPFomo plugin? It is a very simple tool that creates a viral effect on your website when used.

To use the WPFomo plugin, install and activate it from the WordPress admin dashboard.

When you activate the plugin, you will see a link titled “WPFomo” in the left menu of the WordPress admin dashboard. Click on it to get to the WPFomo setting’s page.

Setup the WPFomo template here and add it to your website. This will create a FOMO effect on your site and help increase FOMO conversions.

Final Thoughts on FOMO

Using psychology in marketing efforts is not a bad idea. People use color schemes in marketing to relate to customers in an attempt to be more personable.

Using FOMO to increase conversions on your WordPress website has potential as a system to increase revenue and brand awareness. There are several effective and easy ways to accomplish this for free.

Which use of FOMO have you found works the best for you? Have you implemented all of the above FOMO techniques?

The post How To Use FOMO to Increase Conversions on a WordPress Site appeared first on GreenGeeks.

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to increase profits in WordPress and it is easy to do. Thus, having an easy way to create and manage affiliate links is essential to maximizing your website’s potential.

Today, I will demonstrate how to add affiliate links in WordPress using the ThirstyAffiliates plugin.

Why Add Affiliate Links In WordPress

It is no secret how most websites make their money: advertisement. Affiliate links are another form of advertisement website owners can use to increase profits. However, there is a key difference.

A normal advertisement is not reliant on your visitors actually purchasing what is being advertised. Affiliate marketing is.

If your visitors do not make any purchases by following the affiliate links, you will receive no money. Thus, it is important to advertise products that your visitors will actually be interested in.

For example, if you run a sports website, having an affiliate link to a knitting kit makes no sense.

However, if you had an affiliate link to sporting equipment, there is a good chance a visitor will follow it.

If you are looking to increase your website’s earnings, affiliate marketing can help you greatly.

Installing ThirstyAffiliates

This tutorial will cover the features available in the free version. The free version will make it easy to add affiliate links and allow you to properly test the plugin before making a purchase.

However, the premium version of the plugin has a lot of additional tools and features that can improve your experience.

With that in mind, let’s start by clicking on Plugins and selecting the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.

Search for ThirstyAffiliates in the available search box. This will pull up additional plugins that you may find helpful.

Scroll down until you find the ThirstyAffiliates plugin and click on the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.

On the left-hand admin panel click on ThirstyAffiliates and select the New Affiliate Link option. This will pull up the main settings page.

Creating Affiliate Links

This plugin makes it a breeze to add affiliate links in WordPress. At the top of the page, you can add a title. The title is how you will add the affiliate links later, so make sure they make sense. It’s a way to track the link and its use.

The first box you will see is for the Destination URL. This is where you paste the actual affiliate link.

The next section allows you to add an image. In many cases, the website you are advertising for will provide an image to display in addition to the link. The plugin allows you to select an image from the media library or to add it externally.

The last option you will find on this page is the Link Inserted Scanner. This tool will search your website for every post and page that has this specific link in it. This may not be useful when creating an affiliate link, but it helps tremendously later.

Normally, you would need to manually check where the link appears, but not with this tool.

Once you have entered all of the information, click on the “Save Link” button.

Your affiliate link is now ready for use. However, you can still add a category.

Affiliate Links Categories

Categories are great for sorting your post content, and they work similarly well for affiliate links. Let’s say you have a lot of affiliate links on your website. It would make sense to categorize them by the website they are from.

For example, if you have a lot of Amazon affiliate links, creating an Amazon category just makes sense.

Click on Link Categories.

By default, all of your links will be in the Uncategorized category. Simply fill out the necessary information and click on the “Add New Category” button.

Now if you enter any of your existing affiliate links, you can change them to the category you want. You can also do this when creating them from now on.

Make as many categories as you need.

Adding Affiliate Links

Open any existing post or page where you would like to add an affiliate link. You can also create a new one for testing purposes.

Go to the block where you want to add the link. Click on the “More Rich Text Controls” button to reveal more options. Click on the Affiliate Link option.

A small box will appear. Type in the title of the affiliate link you created and select it. Click on the “Apply” button when you are done.

Alternatively, if you have the Gutenberg editor disabled, you will find an “Affiliate Link” button in your visual editor’s toolbar. Repeat these steps on as many posts or pages you want to create more affiliate links.

Maximize Your Profits

Everyone has a particular reason why they start a website. Regardless of the reason, it’s technically a business. The goal of any business is to generate income, and affiliate marketing is a great way to do so.

Make sure to have affiliate products that your visitors will be interested in. Just make sure you’re not advertising competing products on the same page.

How easy did you find the ThirstyAffiliate plugin to use? Will you be upgrading to the premium version?

The post How To Use ThirstyAffiliates to Add Affiliate Links In WordPress appeared first on GreenGeeks.