There are over a dozen Amazon stores around the world selling your books.
An Amazon Universal Link will automatically transport your visitors to THEIR country site.
I’ve seen numerous author websites where the author has painstakingly created separate links for all the available Amazon stores. It looks really ugly and very few visitors are prepared to comb though a long list of sites.
A Universal Amazon Link will automatically direct visitors to the store for their country. For example, if a visitor lives in Germany, they will automatically be directed to Amazon.de. Anyone living in Canada will be directed to your book on Amazon.ca.
Here is a list of the Amazon Stores:
United States: US – .com
Canada: CA – .ca
United Kingdom: GB – .co.uk
Australia: AU – .com.au
Mexico: MX – .com.mx
Brazil: BR – .com.br
France: FR – .fr
Germany: DE – .de
Spain: ES – .es
Italy: IT – .it
Netherlands: NL – .nl
Japan: JP – .co.jp
India: IN – .in
Though Amazon OFTEN automatically detects WHERE you are located and takes you to the proper country site, you can play it safe and create your own re-direct link. The added benefit is that some of the re-direct link websites also provide you with visitor stats.
Using Amazon Universal Links will result in MORE SALES for you.
Here are several websites where you can create a Universal Amazon Link. Some of them are really easy to use, while others require more set-up time . . . but have more to offer. Try them out and then create a Universal Amazon Link for each of your books.
Depending on how you intend to use your Universal Amazon link, you may want to create a really SHORT version of your link using one of the link shortening services such as ow.ly or bitly.
authl.it
This site is ultra easy to use. All you have to do is put your AISN into a panel and it will generate a short code and a long code for you. Your visitors will be taken to an “intermediate” page where they can click on their country flag. So while the link is ultra easy to create, it is a two step process for your visitors. You could end up losing some traffic. Test out the link below to see what I mean.
relinks.me
This is another easy to use site.
Enter your AISN and you will get shortened code AND a QR code you can use on a bill board, on your car or a T-shirt. The possibilities are endless!
If you just have one book you can just grab the links on the fly. If you have more than one book, create a free account and keep all your book links in one place.
BookLinker.net
BookLinker is tad bit more complicated than the first two on my list. You MUST register your name and email and choose a password.
The few minutes it takes to do this is well worth it for three reasons:
- You can use your own Amazon affiliate code.
- You can create your own unique link that includes all or part of your book’s name
- You can track the number of times the link has been clicked AND you can see what countries are doing the clicking.
NOTE: while you may be tempted to use your whole title in the link, remember that SHORTER is better especially for tweets or social media linking.
Here are a few others you might want to check out. Setting these up is more involved than the services listed above, but depending on your needs, may do the trick for you.
SmartURL This is for creating universal links for MORE than books. You can use this for itunes and classified ad sites.
Here is a nice tutorial.
Let me know if you use, or recommend any other link creators. I’ll add them to the list.
Original Chain Link Image courtesy of PIRO4D on Pixabay
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