The newest version of the Search-2-Post plugin has been released, and as promised, I will cover some of the new features that are different from the older version my previous tutorial covered. I make no bones about it – I really thing S2P is one of the top wordpress plugins available for people using EPN as a monitization method.
Templates
The biggest difference is the template system. The good thing is, Search-2-Post will still function like the old version without having to do too much work on the template, and there are all kinds of enhancement options now. If you’re just starting out, here’s what I would suggest:
Open up the default template provided with the plugin. Delete the first 2 table rows that have the PHPOStock tags. To keep it simple starting out, let’s just show PHP results. For the text at the top, the default stuff in there is a little light on words. I suggest you go back to my previous Search-2-Post tutorial and use that block of text I provide as a starting point, then customize from there. The more text the better, so I highly recommend adding to it, but also keep it general so you can use it for a lot of your sites without having to go back and change it.
Below the big block of text, display your Ebay results. I usually display as many results as possible, but I’m also in a lot of small niches that don’t usually have more than 40-50 products for searches. I usually use 1000 as the default amount of products to display, but this is something you should test and tweak yourself.
Another key thing here that I really like is the ability to put some more text below the auctions. What I did was pretty much leave the default text in the template in there. All I added was a link to the home page wrapped around the %%keyword%% tag. I think this is a great feature because every time a new page is made, it will up your internal links and also give you a ton of relevant new keywords pointing to your home page. Another thing you can do here is periodically go in and change the page you’re linking to. This will help get more of your site indexed over time.
There’s obviously a lot of potential for using the templates and this is just a start. You can experiment with showing PhpOStock and PHPZon results, additional adsense and other affiliate offers, as well as finding more ways to add additional content and links throughout your new pages.
Compulsory Words
This is truly a great feature. In the previous Search-2-Post I was using, I had to manually add this in, so it really saves a lot of time. This is pretty much self-explanitory as far as use goes – just insert your primary keywords as the compulsory words to avoid irrelevant auction results. Probably one of the best overall enhancements.
Analysis
There’s no real reason to go too far into the other additional improvements as they are all pretty self explanitory. The above 2 are by far the most important. Overall the new version of Search-2-Post has exceeded my expectations. I’m also really looking forward to using the PhpOStock and PhpZon plugins in conjunction with this plugin and seeing how well it works out.
The only negative is that the new plugin breaks the search bar layout in the top sidebar on my WP Commerce Steel theme. As a workaround, you can place a blank text widget in the top sidebar and move the search bar to the left.
Popularity: 40% [?]
Tags: phpostock, phpzon, search-2-post
Great idea about the homepage link using the keyword tag in the ending paragraph. I’m implementing that right now!
>>I’m also really looking forward to using the PhpOStock and PhpZon plugins in conjunction with this plugin and seeing how well it works out.
Sam, hope you’ll give us some guidance in this area as well. I’ve heard of these plugins and it seems that there are certain situations when it is good to use them and some where it is not. Also, there seems to be 2 types of commission structures to choose from with Amazon and some question as to which is best. Would also be interested in seeing how you set these up in conjunction with the regular ebay lilstings.
Yeah I plan on going into that a lot further. I haven’t done much with either at this point, but one thing I know for sure it it’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket.
Hi Sam,
I cannot find out how to change the header to a banner I created with the WP Commerce theme, would you know how to do that?
First you need to upload the banner to your website and find the exact URL. Then open the header.php file and look for the H1 and H2 tags. They should be right next to each other. Just delete both of them, and replace them with an img tag using your exact URL to the banner. That should do it for you. You can do it all from within the WP admin.
Thanks Sam, worked a treat.
God dag! Kan jag ladda ner en bild fran din blogg. Av sak med hanvisning till din webbplats!
Hi,
I’m really enjoying your articles and have a quick question about S2P plugin.
I saw a site that used the plugin and had a “Recent Searches” feature in a column of the template that would display the KW searched hyperlinked to the S2P created page.
I think it’s great for SEO and was wondering if you had any experience or ideas how this was done or implemented?
Thanks and great stuff.
Hey Bobby,
That is an excellent question. I use that technique on sites that I do not use a blog with. Basically instead of using a Blog on the site, I create a new page called Recent Searches, or something to that effect. Then I go to Settings->Reading and set Recent Searches as my Posts page. I tell Search-2-Post to make posts, and thus the Recent Searches page is created.
Then, do get it to work in the sidebar, just use the Recent Posts widget that comes with the standard WP install and change the name of it to Recent Searches.