Linkmafia's free Affiliate Tool for WordPress!
Searching for interresting affiliate tools? This is the official project page for my WordPress plugin zxProductSearch. (This page is written in English - sorry to all Linkmafia blog readers from Germany)
A WordPress Plugin for Affiliates: zxProductSearch!
Latest Release: Version 1.5!zxProductSearch plugin integrates product offers from zanox affiliate programs into WordPress blog search! It basicaly works like this:
The search query is handed over to zanox webservices API via SOAP network communication. Product search results are formated like normal posts and hooked into the blog search results.
Use the plugin to add more content (good for search engines) and extra value for the reader to your blog. And the best thing is: You earn money with your blog! Start monetizing your blog with this free affiliate tool now.
Take a look at the screenshot. It gives you an idea of what you can do with the plugin.
Let's say you write about Wii games in your blog. Readers will use your blog search to find games they like.
Why not showing them some relevant products?
The plugin is highly adjustable. You can edit the number of product search results, choose the position (under or above blog posts) and select the search fields.
Besides: The plugin works with all wp-themes out there!
This affiliate tool gives you free access to product offers from houndrets of online shops in twelve countries and nine languages! You may implement offers from all shops in one country or pic only a few shops that fit better to your blog topics and your audience.
System Requirements
I recommend the following minimum system requirements:
- PHP 4.x or higher
- PHP minimum memory size 32 MB for LITE and 64 MB for FULL version (!!!)
- WordPress 2.3.x or higher
- A free zanox account to get access to product offers from different affiliate programs.
Notice: This plugin will not work if you don't have enough memory size for PHP enabled! The default for this is 32 MB. Providers for web-hosting or blog-hosting often reduce this value even more. Please check with your provider before usage! Those of you who own a root server or virtual root server will get no problems on that.
Installation Instructions
Just unzip the downloaded folder and upload it to the plugins directory of WordPress, for example:
{WP_BASE_DIR}/wp-content/plugins/zxps/
Notice: If you have root access to your webserver check the file php.ini (should be in some directory like etc/ or usr/ under linux). Set the memory_size for PHP to a minimum value of 64 MB.
I set it usualy to 256 MB, cause I wanna show alot of search results (20++)! (-;
Now login to WordPress admin area and activate the plugin. Afterwards you find a new tab in the options menu to configure your plugin.
Configure Your Plugin!
Follow the following four short steps to completely configure the product search:
1. Get a free API ticket. Enter your zanox account information to get permission to use the API. Your accountname and password is needed once only and will not be saved.
2. Select AdSpace and Program Language. Choose one of your advertising spaces. You have to register for one or more of the Shop@ programs in the zanox interface to get access to product data via API. It takes only a minute and is completely free.
3. Include or exclude online shops. (FULL version only) Choose exclude and uncheck all boxes to search withing all shops or check some of them to take'em out. Or choose include and check only a few advertisers that fit best to your content to implement only their offers.
4. Edit layout of search results. At last you can edit the presentation of the product offers. I think this step is self-explaining. (-;
That's it. Now enjoy using the plugin and show me some of your blogs!
Some Tipps for Best Practise.
Select only a few Advertisers in full version! To increase speed of API communication you should choose "include" and then select only some of the online shops available during configuration. This also increases
the quality of search results dramaticaly! The API returns alot of product offers for books if you search within all advertisers. Choose your shops carefully and you get the best results!
Another way to increase search quality and relevance would be excluding only the advertisers that mess up the results with irrelevant offers. This way you have more product data within your search.
Use the plugin: search & replace! Download and activate this additional plugin to perform search and replace actions on your database. Use it to link from posts into the blog search! If you write about Wii games, then search for " Wii " and replace it by " <a href="/?s=Wii">Wii</a> " in all your posts. Readers and search engines will follow these links and your blog search gets more traffic.
Use the plugin: automatic keyword insertion! Download it and read the instructions! Users find your blog on certain search strings at Google. The search string is read by the plugin and can be turned into a link with inserted keyword! For example you can take the search string and make an ebay search link out of it. Or better: Turn it into a link to the blog search in order to make it more prominent on your page!
License and Disclaimer
This plugin is published under GNU license terms for free software - do whatever you want with it! But: I do not guarantee for anything. (-;
