Amazon ads within blog post - text link

Here is an easy way to add advertisements withing a blog post. Apply to be an Amazon Associate (you will need to have a website. A blog like this will do. If you are new to blogging, Dummies Guide to Google Blogger will help you quickly set up a blog. When your application to be an Amazon Associates is approved, sign in, at the left sidebar, click "Build links/widgets", select "Text links", click "Add to your webpage".



There will be 3 choices - "Link to favorite destinations", "link to search results", "link to any page at Amazon.com". I normally select the second, "link to search result" as this link will not have a "shelf life". What I mean is, if you link to a specific page that is, say, a specific book, there is every possibility that one fine day, that book will be out of print and you will be linking to an unproductive page. Of course you can update "expired" link but it is too much hassle. Linking to search results ensure that this link will never expire as the search results will always show products that are current.

In the section for "Link to search results", type in the keywords or phrase for the search, type the text you want displayed for the link, click "Get HTML". Click "Highlight HTML", copy and paste it anywhere within the post while in the EDIT HTML mode of the post editor.

For example, I want a link to Amazon products about earning online with Google AdSense, so I type the word AdSense in the box "Enter Keywords", then type the anchor text "Earn with Google AdSense" in the box "Name your link":



Below is the resulting Amazon text link "Earn with Google AdSense. Click on the link below and see what you get

Earn with Google AdSense

Note that clicking on the link above opens a new window or tab. If you do not edit the script given by Amazon, clicking on the link will result in the search result displayed in this same page/window. What I did was to add the attribute target="_blank" (in red below) to make the search results displayed in a new tab or window:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=adsense&tag=bloggerfordum-20&index=blended&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank">Earn with Google AdSense</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bloggerfordum-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />