Erica Stone WILL be Using Azon Stock Checker Plug-In for WordPress

Published: Mon, 06/04/12

I know, "Erica, where have you been?"

Well, for the most part VERY busy with a great group of coaching students!  I knew when I launched the coaching program that it would be a lot of work but I had no idea just how rewarding it would be, too.  The exchange of ideas, the amount of creativity I'm seeing, and the great sites and lenses that people are building - I consider myself very fortunate to get a chance to meet and work with such an amazing group of people!
AZON STOCK CHECKER PLUG-IN

I've also been updating pages on my sites and doing a little cleanup. This is a recurring task because, when you're not looking, stuff happens over at Amazon that makes your pages less profitable than they once were. Retailers remove products, products become discontinued, and products go out of stock.



I learned this lesson the hard way when, one Christmas shopping season, one of the most popular products on one of my largest sites ran out of stock the first week of December.

And I didn't know it right away.

I lost hundreds of dollars in commissions in just a week because while I was pointing my site visitors to Amazon's page with no product on hand, Walmart had plenty in stock but I didn't have that link on my page.  

So, when I heard there was a new plug-in available that checks Amazon for all the products on your site and TELLS you when an items is out of stock, it got my attention.  

Yes, I'll be using this WordPress plug-in on all of my sites:  Azon Stock Checker

The plug-in checks all of the Amazon product links on your site and displays the stock status of each of on a management page right in your WordPress dashboard.  

I use two criteria for deciding when I'm going to buy a plug-in - will it help me sell more or will it save me time?  This plug-in is going to do both.

I'm sure you're going to hear about this from everybody but most of you know by now that I don't jump on the "everybody" bandwagon.  I only share the things I'll actually use and believe in.  This one is simply a great idea.  The creators have a history of great service and technical knowledge.  I use several of their products and have never been disappointed.

(Plus - if you buy the MultiSite license in the first 48 hours, you get the developer's license free of charge!)


COACHING PROGRAM

As I mentioned, I've had so much fun with the training program that I've decided to extend the offer.

One group is just wrapping up which means I have room for a few more students.  If anyone is interested, please email me at erica@extremereviewer.com for details.  There's a package for starting a new Amazon review site ($297 for 2 months), a package for those who already have a site but need help ($147 for 1 month), and Squidoo Niche Blaster training ($77 for 2 weeks).


CDN SERVICE TO SPEED UP YOUR SITE

I've got a couple of very large, sites still sitting on shared hosting.  Some of the posts have a great number of photos.  Several times over the past couple of years I've considered using a Content Delivery Network to help speed up the load time for those sites.  Every site speed test I ran (plus Google Analytics) would tell me the site was below average when it came to response times.  

A CDN service hosts your images and files on their own servers which are optimized for faster delivery.    

The last time I got part way through the process and it was just too technical for me so I backed out.

A few days ago, though, I tripped across this article from Yoast on setting up a CDN.  He made it sound so easy and this time, it really was!  CDN for WordPress

I had the service up and running on my site in just a few minutes.  They have an instruction guide that walks you through using the free WordPress W3 Total Cache to install the service.  I had no trouble following the steps.  

I then used this guide to finish the rest of the W3 Total Cache settings:  W3 Total Cache Installation Instructions

This isn't for everyone but if you've ever been concerned with the load time of your site, this is an easy fix.  The response time on my site - with the combination of W3 Total Cache settings and the CDN - is lightning fast.  (I spent an hour playing around on my site and even showing my husband how much faster it was.  Click, click - Look!  Instant page delivery!) 

Scroll to the bottom of the Yoast post for a 25% offer from the service (not my affiliate link but I'm sure it's his). 

That's all I've got for now.  Hope you're all doing well and certainly feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Erica Stone
erica@extremreviewer.com