amazon and advertising block

[Vitis]

Hi,
I want to be able to add a different amazon book of my choosing for sale in each category.
I'm hoping to simply add this to each category by modifying the footer file since that controls the blocks on the right hand side of the pages in my cleandex theme.

I'd also like to be able to have a block for announcements that I can use on each of these category pages.

Right now I don't know the easiest way to do this...such as if I should modify an existing block, create a new one, use one that's already available somewhere or what....
Can anyone guide me thru this?
Michel

[Bruceper]

You happen to be in luck. I recently made an addon that allows a block to have different data depending on what category a user is in.

Yes it may be hard to use it if you have a lot of categories. But I think it's worth it in cases like this.

You can find it at http://www.nicecoder.com/community/b...cks-addon.html

[Vitis]

Can you show this in action somewhere Bruce?

[Vitis]

Hey Bruce!
How hard would it be to have a simple block on my homepage like the current blocks on the right hand side that is entitled "Grape Grower Tools", which simply has a list of websites that I can recommend....such as a growing zone finder website, variety chooser website, find your appellation area tool website, etc....?
Michel

[Vitis]

Bruce,
Just to get some amazon income started again I thought it might be easier at least for now to have a block where I just feature a book every month and place that block on all the pages using the footer file? This would be easier than having different content for every category, wouldn't it? Since I opened vitisearch.com my amazon sales have dropped to almost zero and I want to try to at least cover my hosting from it.
It sure is hard starting the new directory and adding all the links by hand...and getting around to every single piece in the template admin to rewrite the poor english that comes standard with IndexU. I mean no offense because my English is poor enough and my French and German are worse! (grin)
Michel

[Bruceper]

Can you show this in action somewhere Bruce?

I have a demo of many of the databases I sell for IndexU at A-V Tronics DBDEMO - Live demo's of most databases we offer for sale and that site uses the category specific blocks but in a slightly different way.

You will see that when you click on a category the upper left block text changes. Whenever you browse in that category (regardless of category number) you will see that specific text. If you choose a different main category you will see something specific to that category.

Viewing anything that is NOT a category (links, index, hot, new etc) simply shows some default text.

Hey Bruce!
How hard would it be to have a simple block on my homepage like the current blocks on the right hand side that is entitled "Grape Grower Tools", which simply has a list of websites that I can recommend....such as a growing zone finder website, variety chooser website, find your appellation area tool website, etc....?
Michel

It would be simple really. That's what blocks were designed to do. A few lines of code in two files and adding the <%block%> string in your header/footer/index and your block would be there.

Just to get some amazon income started again <snip to save space>

Depending on what theme/template you use, many of the blocks are global, meaning they show up in each and every page. You just need to add your Amazon block there and it will show on all pages. You could use the typical amazon code and receive random books, or use code for a specific book, but I think they also work like Adsense in that they will check your pages and return a book that is relavent to the information on the page.

If that is correct then you're all good because you could show a book about wine grapes in one category and a book about growing or soil quality in another category and show users books that are more than likely to sell because they are related to what they are looking for.

Yes it is hard starting a new directory. Buying a database or dmoz slice is really the way to begin as that will get you a lot of links. Then you add on your own links to what you just got and you have yourself a nice, customized database of links and information.

Don't forget, add ebooks! and articles! Lots of articles if you can get them. Many article sites will give them to you for free because you have to link back to them. This way they get free links and you get content.

Don't forget it works both ways. You can write some articles and submit them to article sites and then they link back to you. Whoever else uses those articles then is supposed to link to you as well. Articles are basically a way to add content, and backlinks.

Also, add a blog and you could write your articles there as well. Then people with other grape sites can use your RSS feed to add content to their sites.

Additionally don't forget to use affiliate sites/links in your own directory and don't be afraid to put those links up at the top of the list in it's category! Simply from one site that has an affiliate link at the top of the categories I make hundreds of dollars per month. Yes they are recurring affiliate payouts (I get paid for each month the customer is signed up) which makes it better for me, and no, it's not porn. Not many places do recurring income, but even if you can make an extra $20 per month on affiliate income it's $20 you didn't have before.

Of course first make sure that the affiliate sites you are signing up for are decent and not filled with crap. Try and find affiliate sites that run their own program and try to stay away from affiliate aggregators like cj.com. Those affiliate programs pay so little it's not even worth the time to put in. I had an ebay affiliate site using cj.com links that at one time had hundreds of uniques daily and dozens of clicks daily. A decent CTR but payouts were pennies on the dollar.

Don't worry about your english. I can understand some french but can barely speak it and don't know any german at all. You've got me beat in that category for sure.

So if you want to take a stab at making some of your own blocks let me know. It's not hard at all and in fact will make your life easier by displaying the data that you want to display.

[Vitis]

Bruce,
You inspired me from this thread to try to make my own blocks and I've got something working now at least so I can place hard links on one block and an amazon search box in the other block for now.

I used block.whos_online.php and whittled away at it but I think theres a lot more I can remove. Can I post the .php and the .html files for this block here so you might suggest what I can remove?
Michel

[Vitis]

Regarding articles....and RSS

My partner is renouned viticulturist, so I have enough stuff for at least a years worth of articles if I post one per week and we'll have a handful of other authors. I plan to use the mailing list feature of indexu to mail out the articles and I plan to create a page at vitisearch within indexu for each article which would be linked to as such:
http://www.vitisearch.com/page.php?i...ultureglossary (this is an actual page).

Is there a way I can allow users to subscribe to these pages using rss? I think I only need to know how to format the rss url, but I'm still basically clueless when it comes to all of this.

[Vitis]

should have read page.php?id=viticultureglossary
....and "a renouned...blah blah...".

[Bruceper]

Sure you can paste it, or you can look at the following which is the bare minimum that a block needs to function.

Remember that the .html part of a block doesn't require any code, so it can have anything you want in it.

<?php

function block_ads($params) {

  if (!$params['template']) {
    $params['template'] = 'block.ads.html';
  }

  $tpl = new Template;

  $tpl->display("blocks/" . $params['template']);
}
?>

Remember to change function block_ads and 'block.ads.html' to correctly identify your block name.

As for the RSS you would need to code a new function in rss.php. I suppose it's not that hard to do as you could copy what is already there and modify it for your needs, but I haven't tried something like this before.