Amazon

Triggit allows you to add links to Amazon, photos and video on the fly

Well I’m back from visiting Vegas.

I was really sick while I was in Vegas so I must say that I only went to Bl0gworld for two hours! However I did take in quite a bit of information during that time. I also attended part of P0stiecon (I was still sick and even missed my speaking engagement there!) and I learned quite a bit there as well.

At Blogworld I learned about a cool application/widget called Triggit. The site is in Beta right now and is only accepting people who are lucky enough to have an invitation a key. Of course I managed to get and I’m currently trying the system out.

Once you log into Triggit your given a code to put in your sites template just under the body tag. They’ve automated the system for Blogger and Typepad users, but as a WordPress user I had to manually add the coding to my site.

Once the code has been added to your site you can easily use the Triggit bookmark that can be dragged into your Firefox browsers tool bar to quickly add links to Amazon products, Commission Junction or add photos from Flickr, videos from Youtube or wine links from Wine Zap and Wine searcher directly into your posts.

As you know images often make a post a little more interesting so you can use the Triggit bookmarklet to add photos to your existing posts on the fly. Like any of the features all you have to do is click on the drop down list in the toolbar that is activated across the top of your page whenever you click on the Triggit bookmark when you are on a page with the Triggit coding and a list will appear which will allow you to pick which kind of link, image or video you’d like to add to your post.

In this case I tried adding a Flickr image. I clicked the Triggit drop down list and a Flicker search bar appeared. I typed in laptop computer and I was shown a number of thumbnails that had been tagged on Flickr with the word laptop. Once I picked a photo I clicked preview and I was then able to place the photo where I wanted it within the post. Once the photo is in the post you can move it around to align it as you wish.

I’ve mainly worked with Triggit adding Amazon links to some of my sites. All you need to do is pick Amazon from the drop down list, choose a word or phrase within your post that you’d like to create an Amazon link for and click search. Often a list of about 5 to 7 choices comes up and if I’m not totally satisfied with the choices I can always change the term to find a more appropriate link. Once I’ve found an Amazon item that I’d like to link to the word or phrase I select it and hit save. The next time I load the page the link is present within the post.

For example to link to an Amazon item for the word Ipod I followed the steps I’ve listed above and you should now see the word Ipod linked to an Amazon item. I also linked to a cool notebook accessory when I used the word laptop computer. Check it out.

I’m certain that you’ll enjoy Triggit.

I don’t have an invitations, but if you like the idea of the Triggit Tool, which is free to use BTW, go to the site and request and invite.

UPDATE: The folks at Triggit liked my post and the feedback I’ve been giving them and they granted me an access key to give you folks so you too can become Alpha testers of this great application:

I’ll tell you more about other interesting applications and companies that I discovered shortly!

Promote your site with a Squidoo lens

by Tricia

Have you heard of Squidoo? I’ve been a member of Squidoo since 2005, shortly after the site opened it’s doors to those who wanted to promote their websites in a very different way.

Squidoo allows members to make what they call a lens. A lens is a window to promote perhaps another sites or a number of similar sites on the internet. You can add as much information to your lens as you like in order to point others towards your website.

I made my first lens, as I said, back in 2005. It was for my reptile and amphibian care website
. I have information on that site about a lot of different reptiles but the majority is for one type of lizard – the water dragon. So what I did was to add snippets of care information to the lens that I created that lead to specific pages on my website where my lens visitors could learn even more in depth information about the care of the water dragon lizard. I did the same thing on another lens for iguana care.

I was also able to add modules to my lens that allowed me to select items from online stores like overstock.com, Amazon and many others for which, if I sold any items through my lens I’d get a percentage of the royalties that Squidoo made off the sale. Profits from a lens can also be donated to a number of charities as well.

I didn’t do much with my lens over the last year, but I’ve recently gone back and given them an overhaul adding new modules and updating the information.

As I said you can do as much or as little to your lens as you’d like. If you were to create one for your website you might add your RSS feed so that visitors could see your latest posts, as well as write a summary of what your site is about. You can also add link modules in order to link to similar types of sites.

I’ve now created lens for all of the blogs that my husband and I run. Each one has a summary of the blog, RSS feeds, links, shopping modules and I’ve added as many tags to the lenses as possible that describe the site accurately so that people will be able to find my lens easily on Squidoo or perhaps even via a search engine.

Visitors to your lens can rank your lens from one to five stars, so if you create a lens try to do a good job so that you’ll get a good rating. I believe the rating system helps with a lens popularity on the site as well.

The people as squidoo also send out newsletters telling members of popular lenses each day and you can apply to have your own lens promoted in order to get more visitors and ratings for your lens.

Check it out for yourself. At the very least it’s another way to promote your website and at the most it’s a way to make a little bit of extra money if your lens does well!

Visit Squidoo to make your own Lens.

Making Money with affiliate programs

by Tricia

If you are looking for good ways to monetize your website or blog you might try the following affiliate programs:

I’ve been using Amazon since 1998 or so. I have Amazon banners and buttons on a few of my blogs but the majority of sales that I make through Amazon are on my main website. My earnings have slowed in the last few years, but I’d say that I’ve probably sold about half a million dollars worth of merchandise for Amazon in the time I’ve been working with them and I’ve made several thousand dollars as a result of those sales. Amazon has worked fairly well for me.

Chitika on the other hand is something that I only started to try on my blogs about eight months or so ago. Over all it has not been all that successful for me. Perhaps if I put it on my large and busy website I’d do better. Certainly Chitika works well for many web site owners. In fact I’ve heard many state that it brings in as much or more as Amazon or Google Adsense for them. It does not for me.

As far as affiliate programs go Google Adsense is fast becoming my best money earner. Now, compared to A list bloggers I’m not making thousands each month or anything, but I am making enough that I get paid by them each month. I can’t say how much I’ve made because that is against Google Adsense’s terms of agreement.

I use Google Adsense on all of my websites and blogs. Perhaps that is one reason why I earn the most from them as affiliate programs go.

I’ve found that blending the ads into the site, and not over using Adsense works best. Glaring ads turn people off. For some, the amount of Google ads that I have on this site might be too much, but there are many sites out there with huge ads in their posts, that to me, just seems to ruin the reading experience. My suggestion is to not have ads obstruct the flow of your post or article.

Give these affiliate programs a try for a month or longer. More than likely one will work better for you than the rest.

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