During our blogging journey, my buddy Staingirl Kaye and I occasionally have had this thing about spinning our wheels trying to figure out some blog process. And then, we would discover that whatever we were trying to do was really quite simple. We’d like you to benefit from our many hours of cogitating on some or other blog thing, so that you won’t go through the head banging. So from time to time, we will publish brief “how to” articles that will help you.

Our most recent challenge was the Amazon Affiliate button. We haven’t discussed this in depth in our blog, but it is our dream to one day have this burgeoning blog site that makes all sorts of money for us. We are starting off with the Amazon affiliate program. We had already figured out how to insert a pretty link into our blog posts (a future how-to post), but I could not for the life of me see how we could possibly place a stand-alone Amazon button on the right hand sidebar for our readers.

We use the Wordpress blogging platform and Atahualpa theme. I had looked through what I thought was the pertinent Wordpress documentation, and had checked out the menu completely. We were stumped. Somewhere I came across reference to a forum at bytesforall.com, the company that created the Atahualpa theme. I found my answer in one of the posts when I punched in “Amazon”.

1) In the Admin toolbar, click on Appearance.

2) Click on Widgets

3) On the right hand side, you will see several available widgets. On the left hand side, you will see several sidebar categories.

4) Drag the box marked “Text” in the “Available Widgets” section to the specific sidebar referenced on the left where you want to place your widget. In this case, I dragged it to the “Right Sidebar”.

5) A box will open. Copy the script of your widget into the text box. Click here to learn how to create an Amazon Affiliates Widget for your website.

6) If you want your widget to have a label, write that label in the title bar. I chose to leave the title bar blank for the Amazon Affiliates widget.

7) Close the box. You will find your widget on the right sidebar.

VERY IMPORTANT: Before this process, the right sidebar of staingirlz.com already had a couple of items, which had come standard with the platform (blogroll, recent posts, etc.); however, after placing the Amazon Affiliates widget there, those links were no longer available in the drop menu of the right sidebar. It appears that by manually inserting my Amazon widget, I had overridden the default because they all disappeared from the sidebar. The fix was simple. I dragged the “available widget” to the “right sidebar” button, and voila! Everything was as it should be, including our Amazon Affiliates button.

Whether you are blogging for money or for pleasure, there are costs involved in maintaining your website. The Amazon Associates program offers a relatively simple vehicle for bringing in some cash to cover your costs, assuming you have readers who will buy through your website. The process of getting the widget is not rocket science. But if you are a middle-aged non technical blogger like me, it can take you a while to figure things out the first time. Staingirl Kaye and I hope that the instructions below make the process easier and faster for you. NOTE: These instructions assume you have already established an Amazon Associates account.

1) Once you have signed into your Amazon Associates account, click on the “Widgets” tab above.

2) Click on the “Add to your Web page” button of the widget you select.

3) On the left hand side, review your display options as well as the color and design to see whether you wish to accept the default display. Most of the options are self-explanatory. This article will discuss the changes most likely to affect your blog: size and color.

4) First, select the desired design displayed toward the bottom in the “Color and Design”.

5) The last option within the “display option” portion is size. The drop down menu for “Select size” contains standard widget sizes.
6) If these standard sizes do not fit within the space, click on “Custom size” Select. Select the desired width by moving the arrow on the line in the “width” section or by writing the desired width in the box provided. The widget will appear in the preview section to the right in the selected size. As a matter of reference, the ideal width of the widget for our sidebar is as of this writing 180. You may have to paste the widget more than once into your webpage to verify the appropriate size. Select the desired number of columns and rows.

7) You may change some color options for your widget by clicking on “Customize it….” in the “Color and Design” section. Click on the color boxes for each area available and select the correct color in the spectrum.

After accepting the widget as is, or making your preferred changes, click on “Add to my web page”.

9) A new screen pops up, click on “copy”.

10) Paste script in the appropriate place for your blog or website.