phpZon is a unique Amazon plugin that is lean and simple, yet powerful. Unlike other Amazon plugins, phpZon doesn’t create WordPress posts based on Amazon products. Instead, you are responsible for creating the posts manually and then you utilize the powerful search capabilities of the plugin to either display a single product or lists of products that are based on finely tuned search criteria.
Ease of Use and Installation
phpZon installation procedure is as simple as could be. You can use the built-in WordPress plugin installer or manually upload the files via FTP. Then activate the plugin. And you’re done!
All of phpZon’s settings are contained in a single screen. Navigation of the settings screen is made easy with cool JavaScript-powered menus
With phpZon, you insert a single product and product lists from the WordPress post edit screen. Even custom widgets are inserted there. This makes phpZon very easy to use.
Support and Documentation
phpZon is backed by solid support through the community forums and personal one-on-one emails with the plugin developer.
phpZon ships with a detailed user manual which I found to be sufficient for getting me intimately acquainted with the plugin. Additionally, there are a few video tutorials for the phpBay script. These can also shed some light on using phpZon.
Search and Bulk Import
Other WordPress Amazon plugins have search screens that let you add Amazon products in bulk as WordPress posts. phpZon works differently.
With phpZon, you use the Search Results Page screen to define the general criteria for a list of products that you want to display on your post.
When you click Submit, phpZon will insert a WordPress [shortcode] in the post edit screen. Now to fine tune the Amazon products displayed, you can manually modify the shortcode according to the instructions provided in the phpZon user manual.
Automatic Scheduled Product Posting
phpZon is intended to allow you to build handcrafted and supervised Amazon stores with WordPress. It’s not made for autoblogging and mass website production. That’s why it doesn’t support automatic and scheduled product posting.
Inline Single Product Import
Adding a single product to a WordPress post with phpZon is easy. All you have to do is go to the WordPress post edit screen, click on the phpZon menu and choose ASIN Page.
Click Submit and you’ll get a shortcode like this:
[phpzon asin="B00166DR9S" country="US" trackingid="ms084d-20" templatename="asin"]
This is how the shortcode will look like in the actual post
phpZon will make sure that the product information is always up to date. You can also modify the template to include a full description of the product from Amazon. Or you could simply write the WordPress post content yourself and have this block displayed some where in the post.
Template Support
phpZon supports user-created templates and the manual includes sufficient documentation on creating new templates that display certain values. phpZon includes a variety of %%variables%% that are placeholders for product information and can be used within templates. You can learn all about these %%variables%% in the user manual.
3rd Party Plugin Integration
As stated earlier, phpZon is a lean, mean, Amazon store creating machine. It wouldn’t interfere with 3rd party plugins for eBay, OverStock, Commission Junction, etc. If you have some of these installed, you can include their codes in your WordPress templates or as you’re writing your posts and they would work nicely with phpZon. In fact, the author of phpZon has his own very popular eBay auctions plugin for WordPress, phpBay.
Sidebar Widgets
phpZon has powerful sidebar widget capabilities. You can add a custom sidebar widget per each WordPress post you create. Just like with single product and multi product display in phpZon, the sidebar widget is added using the phpZon menu that appears in the WordPress post edit screen, which helps you generate the WordPress shortcode for the widget.
Caching
Being the premium Amazon store plugin that it is, phpZon of course supports caching.
The caching options are straightforward — just set the expiration date for your imported data from Amazon and you’re set!
Click Reporting
Unfortunately, phpZon doesn’t provide any click reporting functionality.
SEO Options
phpZon can improve the SEO of your website in several ways: it can make the URLs in your images appear as if the images were hosted on your own website. It also supports friendly URL redirects where you can add a customized keyword prefix to your Amazon URLs.
For example, instead of the long usual Amazon URL, you can have a more friendly URL that looks like:
http://example.com/hotkeyword-product-title_ASIN.html
And that link would redirect to the appropriate product page on Amazon while embedding your associate ID.
phpZon doesn’t support other SEO features such as integrating with All in One SEO Pack plugin or adding rel=”nofollow” to outbound affiliate links.
Pricing, Licensing, and Refund Policy
The license for phpZon allows you to install on as many sites you own as you like. It costs a one time payment. You can also get an unlimited site bundle that includes phpBay and phpZon WordPress plugins for a discounted price
The plugin is backed by a solid, 7-day, no questions asked refund policy. And at his discretion, the developer has accommodated requests for refunds after the 7 days period.
To check out the price for phpZon or to download it, click here >>
