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I love using Amazon widgets to monetize my blog posts. These interactive mini-applications (as Amazon describes them) display high quality images and add color to my blog. From my experience, readers click on Amazon widgets more than other ads. I think that’s because of the displayed images and the fact that I’m linking to Amazon.

The only thing I despise about Amazon widgets is the process of inserting them to my blog. It only requires copy-and-paste, but going back and forth between Amazon and WordPress is very frustrating. So, I started testing plugins that would at least automate part of the process. Luckily, I found one helpful plugin. It’s called WordPress-Amazon-Associate (WAA).

WAA is free and easy to use. It lets you add widgets right from your post edit screen — eliminating the need to visit Amazon Associate Central. But with certain widgets, you still must visit Amazon Associate Central. I’ll tell you when to use WAA and when to use Amazon Associate Central.

When to Use WordPress-Amazon-Associate (WAA)

WAA is a great choice when you frequently use these widgets to monetize your blog posts:

• Carousel Widget
• MP3 Clips Widget
• My Favorites Widget
• Omakase Widget
• Search Widget

All the widgets’ customizations that are available at Amazon Associate Central are available with WAA — customizing widget’s color, size, title, etc. Actually, WAA is even better. When inserting widgets through Amazon Associate Central you flip from one page to the next to customize and tweak the widgets. But with WAA, all the customizations are shown in one small pop-up window that you reach with a click of a button on your WordPress post page.

When to Use Amazon Associate Central

WAA only supports five of the fourteen Amazon widgets — since Amazon provides the source code of these five widgets only. So, Amazon Associate Central is your only choice for adding the other nine widgets.

Also, WAA won’t work for you if you prefer hand-picking the products displayed on the Carousel, MP3 Clips, and My Favorites widgets.

With Amazon, you are capable to search and select products displayed on the three mentioned widgets. But with WAA, you can only enter the search keyword and it’ll select the displayed products. So you get more customized widgets when using Amazon Associate Central.

To sum up, you are forced to log into Amazon Associate Central if you want to use nine of the Amazon widgets or prefer to hand-pick products displayed on the Carousel, MP3 Clips, and My Favorites widgets. But if you prefer to conveniently insert the widgets from WordPress post, then WAA is your best choice.