Money Making With Amazon Context Links

I've started a trial to see if Context Links can help me have more success with earning money with Amazon.

I've always stayed away from this sort of thing because when I read a blog myself I don't like boxes popping up all over the place. I'm actually trialling the Amazon Context Links on my Celebrity Insider - Photos & News blog.

On first look it doesn't look too evasive but first, in case you are not sure what context links actually are, this is how Amazon briefly describes them:

'Context Links - You create the content. We'll link it. Earn referral fees without having to manually build links. Context Links automatically identifies and links relevant phrases to Amazon products in the content you create.'

As you can see below the link, in this case 'Amy Winehouse', looks exactly like any other link on the blog. The only difference is that when the cursor is held over the link a box pops up, as shown in the example, giving details of an Amazon product relevant to the link - in this case an Amy Winehouse CD.

The pop up box can be styled and there is a choice of colours etc. The maximum number of links per page can also be specified.

It's all straight forward to set up with a simple code to enter within the blog's HTML immediately before the "/body" tag.

Of course the real nitty gritty is to whether this can earn any money. I must admit to having reservations about this.

The draw back with Amazon, as I see it, is that there are several websites i.e. USA, UK, German, French, Japanese and Canadian. As I'm with the UK website prices are in UK £ pounds so this will put off 75% of visitors and reduces greatly the potential.

I'll see how I get on and if the number of Amazon clicks I get weekly increases and, more importantly, if the clickers actually order.

We shall see.

Good luck,
Mike.

Amy Winehouse CD's

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Amazon's New Money Making Features

Amazon have introduced a couple of new features today (June 4th) for affiliates - which are no doubt welcome by many. I haven't had much success with making money via Amazon to date. I've only earned £2.70 (about $5) so far and I'm not going to get rich on that! So any new aids are worthy of consideration.

Okay, the new features are:

(1) Context Links.
Context Links are for people looking for an easy way to generate money from the content they write. Bloggers, review sites, and people that have archived pages that are currently not monetized are excellent candidates for Context Links.

Context Links automatically identify and link relevant phrases within your page content to Amazon products, unlocking new ad inventory and saving you the time from having to manually create links. You can add the links to your pages in minutes, and we provide a wealth of options to customize how they are displayed.

(2) Product reviews.

Product Previews are a portal into Amazon.co.uk – directly on your Web site. When users hover over a preview-enhanced link, either a text link or image link, a small window appears containing valuable content and information about the product you're advertising, including an image, new and used price, average customer review and availability.

This links therefore give visitors to your site more information about the Amazon product you merchandise without taking up space on your site. As Product Previews give your visitors the ability to add the item directly to their Amazon.co.uk shopping cart, these links help you keep visitors on your site until they are ready to buy.

So, in Amazon's own words, they are the two new features. My first thoughts aren't too enthusiastic, I'm afraid. I personally don't like blogs and websites where lots of things are underlined and boxes pop up wherever you move your cursor.

What I want to do is simply read what's in a post, without interuption. I'm perfectly capable of clicking on a link, in the normal way, if something interests me. I don't want info on things that are of no interest popping up - this just makes me niggly. Of course, that's me wearing a non money making hat.

For some, the underlined words and information boxes make extra money and, if that's the name of the game, I suppose this is okay. I don't think, however, that I'll be going down that route but, of course, you can never say never in life!

What has interested me more is the fact that it's now possible to have up to 100 Amazon aStores. This means you can tailor these to the niches of several blogs with differing subject matter.

You can see an example of my aStore here.

I may give a few more aStores a try and forget Amazon Context Links and Product Reviews. I feel this could be more productive. Only my opinion - you may well think differently.

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. Nearly forgot again Big Brother and Charley Uchea! I watched BB last night. Oh dear, oh dear! Charley Uchea doesn't come across as very special. In fact she has difficulty stringing a few sentences together and sounds like some comedy take off. I can see why she's supposedly 8/11 on to be the first housemate evicted. It's all a bit sad actually.


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