How to Use Amazon Affiliate Links Effectively on Your WordPress Website

If you've ever wanted to start a blog or website that's monetized by the Amazon Associates program, then I have a few tips on how to use Amazon affiliate links that may help you.

Or maybe you have a site on which you want to incorporate Amazon affiliate links more effectively.

Or you may want to know the process of inserting your links using WordPress.

I started my online journey with Google Adsense, and that's where I've made a lot of my money in order to quit my job.

However, after conducting a few niche site projects, and starting a few other sites on my own, I've learned how to use Amazon affiliate links quite well over the years.

In fact, over the past couple of months, I've learned some things that I never knew before, and wanted to share.

Making money through an affiliate marketing business, in general, can be quite profitable.

Promoting Amazon products (ex. by doing a product review) is perhaps one of the easiest affiliate programs to join and tends to have a great conversion rate.

Why?

Because everyone is familiar with buying from Amazon. This can result in higher affiliate commissions for you via your Amazon affiliate site.

There's nothing more frustrating than having a problem and not being able to find an answer.

I'm going to teach you how to create an Amazon affiliate account and how to use amazon affiliate links in the most effective way.

Amazon Affiliate Links: How to Insert and Add an Amazon Link

There are a couple of different ways that you can create affiliate links on your WordPress site or other affiliate sites.

First, you can use different options provided directly by Amazon.

You can do this with any theme you've picked. Some WordPress themes have more ready-to-use interfaces for direct linking to Amazon.

Here's a quick summary of the steps needed to get affiliate links directly from Amazon:

1. Login to your Amazon Associate Account.
2. Find the products you want to promote on Amazon and click the option you want to use in the Amazon Associates site stripe at the top of page.
3. Copy the code for the link from the Amazon popup window.
4. Paste this special link in an article, on social media, or another location on your Amazon affiliate website where you want to promote products.

Log into your Amazon associates account and visit ANY page on Amazon.com.

Click the most appropriate option for you in the Amazon Associates SiteStripe at the top of the page. This will give you an affiliate link for that exact page.

Here's what it looks like:

As you can see, you can click either Text, Image, Text + Image, or Custom Native Shopping Ads.

Finally, you can also share directly on Facebook or Twitter by clicking the Facebook or Twitter icons.

I typically will just select the “Text” option and then highlight just the link code itself (as shown in the image below).

Then I can use this affiliate link anywhere I want on my site (with an image, my own anchor text, on social media, or anywhere else I chose).

However, you can explore the various link options to determine what works best for you.

All you have to do is copy that link from Amazon, insert it into your website, and you'll start seeing Amazon affiliate earnings whenever people buy products on Amazon through that link.

You can use this tool to insert links Amazon links in a WordPress site or a custom site. Either way is fine and it ends up working regardless.

However, it's important to note that you have the preferred Store ID and tracking ID selected. Just be aware that whatever affiliate ID you select is where the affiliate commission will show up on your earnings report from Amazon.

I've purchased and sold a couple of Amazon affiliate websites, and it's MUCH easier to find and replace (using a WordPress plugin) the old Amazon tracking ID and replace with the new one when the full link is used.

(The short link doesn't show your tracking id, so it's impossible to find).

Custom Options

You can also click the “Custom” link and get an embed code that includes the price, image, description, and buy button.

You can also use several other options that are provided by Amazon directly for creating affiliate links such as inserting banners, product links, and much more.

For my own niche sites, I don't typically use any of these other options. See the image below for a few options:

However, you should probably explore these options in your Amazon associates account to determine which type of affiliate links are the best for you to use.

You can read more about these options and get a tutorial in our Amazon Affiliate Program review. He covers some uses for all of these options in the affiliate dashboard.

Now that I've covered what Amazon has to offer, I want to share a couple of other tools that can assist affiliate marketers in using Amazon affiliate links on their websites.

Amalinks Pro

Amalinks Pro is the newest addition to the suite of Amazon tools, but I think it's my favorite in the lineup.

I used it on my Niche Site Project 4 to make Amazon links fast and easy for my writers. Instead of giving you a ton of screenshots, here's a video showing how this works:

I think the showcase boxes in particular look great, but they take an extra minute to input compared to AAWP (I review it in a second).

I use Amalinks Pro for all of my call to action buttons on NSP4. Here's a screenshot of what they look like:

All my writers have to do is change the ASIN and there's my button.

Other Settings With Amalinks Pro

Amalinks Pro also allows you to do some neat stuff with their plugin.

You can set links to open in a new tab and add nofollow to all links (you should do both of these things with affiliate links).

This sounds a little invasive, but it adds an extra 89-day cookie to that visitor for you. If that buyer purchases the product within 90 days of clicking your link, you get the commission on it.

This can take a bit of the pain out of Amazon's short cookie policy (Amazon has a notorious 24-hour cookie that doesn't feel quite long enough).

Here's what these settings look like in Amalinks Pro:

I love how good Amalinks Pro looks, but I wish that adding a showcase box was a bit easier.

I wouldn't mind some more settings like AAWP has. But overall, this is my favorite way to insert Amazon Affiliate links.

AAWP

Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin (AAWP) is another one of my newer favorites. As EasyAzon fell by the wayside, AAWP rose to take it's place.

This is the plugin that I use for all of my showcase boxes on NSP4. I don't like how they look as much as the Amalinks Pro ones, but these boxes are easiest for my writers.

Don't get me wrong; I think this looks great. I just think the Amalinks Pro one looks a bit better.

But creating these showcase boxes is pretty foolproof. AAWP gives you a shortcode and all you (or your writers) have to do is change the ASIN:

This is about as easy as it gets, so I use AAWP for my showcase boxes and Amalinks Pro for my buttons. I like to leave as little room for error as possible with my writers.

Other Settings For AAWP

AAWP has a ton of extra settings, much more so than Amalinks Pro. Some might like the extra options while others appreciate simplicity.

Here is just a small sample of what you're able to adjust with AAWP:

There are a couple of pages with settings like this.

You can do everything that Amalinks Pro can do (open links in new tabs, set nofollow, add to cart) and more. AAWP takes a little bit more time to set up than Amalinks Pro, but once you're set up it's good to go forever.

This tool is also a little less pricey than Amalinks Pro, so I like that about it.

Using the EasyAzon Plugin to Insert Links

Another option for how to use Amazon affiliate links on your site is to use a WordPress plugin (if using WordPress).

For many of my niche sites, I'm using the EasyAzon Pro Plugin.

So, rather than going over to Amazon.com to find your product and then copy and paste the link, you can have the plugin do it directly for you within WordPress post or page.

Here's an image of the EasyAzon plugin in action:

So, this is located directly below where you create a post in your WordPress text editor.

All you have to do is type in your search query (mine is “tom brown tracker knife” above), then hit search.

This will pull back all the Amazon results using the Amazon Product Advertising API, as you can see in the image.

Using the product advertising API from Amazon ensures that you stay compliant when using images, prices, and other product details.

Then simply select whether you want a text link, image link, info block, or call to action.

I went ahead and selected a “Text Link”, and here is what I get:

In the link text box, you can change your anchor text to whatever you want. You can see that I made it, “Click Here for Pricing, Reviews, and More…”.

Then simply clicking “Insert Shortcode” and your Amazon affiliate link is all set!

I like having a custom anchor text because it can increase clicks, which can then lead to more affiliate sales.

Other EasyAzon Settings

To first get started with EasyAzon, you will need to input your basic affiliate details.

Once you input your Amazon Associate affiliate tag, you can select whether to cloak all links, open links in a new window, make affiliate links “No Follow” and more.

Here are the options you can select:

How to Get More Clicks and Sales from Your International Traffic

You will notice at the bottom of the image above that you can, “Enable Link Localization”.

In order to get paid when a user from the UK purchases on Amazon.co.uk for example, you MUST be approved to the Amazon.co.uk program, which is different than the Amazon.com program.

In other words, you need to apply and be approved for each of the countries for this function to work.

Well, it sounded like a lot of time and effort to apply to multiple countries; so I just figured I'd stick with the US only when I first started creating niche sites.

To be honest, the only reason I hadn't applied to the other country affiliate programs was because I thought it would be too time consuming.

I was definitely wrong about that!

I've now applied to Canada, UK, and others. I now use the EasyAzon plugin to automatically localize the Amazon results for each person that clicks my affiliate links and I can see that I was missing out on affiliate sales from this international traffic.

I mention this in case there is anyone out there just get started with the Amazon Associates program. This is a simple tactic that could definitely increase your overall earnings.

Genius Links

Another great tool to help you monetize traffic coming from all over the world is Geniuslink.

It also acts as a URL shortener, which is how they can track all of your link clicks, where visitors are coming from, and more.

Here's what the dashboard looks like in my account:

I use Genius links on a few of my niche sites and have never had any issues.

When I look at where my traffic is coming from, you can see that people from 165 countries have clicked on my Amazon affiliate links.

So, even though I've applied to the largest Amazon countries, I'm likely still missing out on a little bit of commission each month.

Amazon OneLink

Another option to localize your links is through a relatively new option directly through Amazon called, OneLink.

Amazon OneLink does the same thing as the EasyAzon Pro Plugin and GeniusLink.

To set up Amazon OneLink, just follow the directions that can be found in your Amazon associates account as shown in the image below:

Where and How to Use Amazon Affiliate Links

Now that you know step by step how to get your Amazon affiliate links, you may still have some questions about exactly where or how to use Amazon affiliate links.

In other words, how do you effectively implement your Amazon affiliate marketing strategy?

Here are some of my favorite places to use my Amazon product links…

In your blog posts as text links

This might include your WordPress blog, but could also be Tumblr blog, Blogger, Medium Blog, Weebly Blog, or any other blogging platform.

The concept of inserting your Amazon text links is essentially the same on each platform.

In your in-depth “buying guides”

Review Amazon products and insert your affiliate link.

You can see some great examples of effective use of Amazon links and in-depth buying guides at theWireCutter.com.

In your WordPress sidebar

Highlight a special offer or favorite product in your site's sidebar.

Use Amazon native ads and banners

If you strategically place ad and/or banners within your content, you can drive traffic through your affiliate links.

Consider using the Ad Inserter WordPress plugin to have the same Amazon native ad show up at the end of each of your blog posts for example.

In product comparison tables

I recently did an in-depth tutorial of how to create product comparison charts that you might find useful.

Or if you are looking for a great software tool that automatically creates great looking Amazon product comparison tables for you, consider the software I created TableLabs.com.

On Social Media

You can do well by including affiliate links in Facebook posts, Instagram Posts, and Twitter posts.

As mentioned earlier, Amazon has no problem with you posting affiliate links on Facebook and Twitter.

In fact, they have the Facebook and Twitter linking tool built right into the Associate SiteStripe.

However, I've found that my own experiments with posting links on social media haven't worked that well.

YouTube video description

If you're building a following and review products, it's a no-brainer to add an affiliate link in your video description.

You could even mention a pretty link or other short link in your video that people could type into their browsers.

Store pages

You can create a “store” page on your website and create your own product listings that are all just your affiliate links.

Fresh Store Builder is a tool that makes this SUPER easy and turns out great looking pages. It'll make you look like the legit affiliate marketer you are.

Pretty Links

If you want to create your own custom affiliate link you can use a free WordPress plugin called Pretty Link.

This plugin simply makes really long links short (it's a link shortener). I use Pretty Links all the time.

For example, NichePursuits.com/earmuffs, is now my Amazon affiliate link. (Goes to the earmuffs page I was taking screenshots of earlier in this post).

Frequently Asked Questions

Still have questions about the Amazon Associates affiliate program? These are the most common ones.

What Does Adding To Cart Do For The Amazon Affiliate Program?

Adding a product from the Amazon marketplace to your user's cart will give you an extra 89 days on your cookie length.

This means that if a customer buys your product within 90 days, you get the commission on it.

Some users do this to offset Amazon's affiliate program short cookie policy.

Most Amazon cookies last just 24 hours. If your user doesn't buy within a day after clicking your affiliate product link, you end up with nothing.

If you add a product to your visitor's cart though, you get 90 days instead of just one. This could be a little bit invasive, but it's worth trying out on your site.

You will need a plugin to do this. I recommend Amalinks Pro or AAWP.

How Do I Insert Amazon Affiliate Links Into WordPress?

That's what this whole post is about 🙂

If you want to add a link, you can highlight text and click Ctrl + K on Windows or Cmd + K on a Mac.

This brings up the option to add a link.

This method doesn't require any special plugins, just Sitestripe.

Do I Need An Amazon Affiliate Link Checker?

You might.

If so, I recommend Genius. They can help you know which products you've linked to are out of stock.

Conclusion

If you're getting started using the Amazon Associate program, hopefully some of these tips I've shared about how to use Amazon affiliate links will be useful to you.

Amazon provides lots of different options for inserting links into your site that can help you be a successful Amazon seller.

However, I suggest using tools like Amalinks Pro, AAWP, EasyAzon, GeniusLink, or even Table Labs to help you effectively add links to your site.

These plugins and tools allow me to get things done a little bit quicker and provides some advanced options that I may not be able to accomplish otherwise.