Pixelrage.net

I used to make the worst mistake possible when I first started affiliate marketing. I’d promote a product, and hyperlink every instance of that product’s word with the affiliate link. Either that, or I’d put the affiliate link on the top, middle and bottom of the page. As I ‘grew up’ and learned more about affiliate marketing, I saw how big of a mistake that was, and quickly edited all of my old pages.

When it comes to affiliate marketing, there are a few things you really need to keep in mind. First and foremost, the kinds of people you want to visit your page are the ones who are ready to buy – not the ones who are shopping around. Once you get that select few to your page, you want to design the page so that it catches their interest and takes them where they need to go in order to whip out the credit card or click the PayPal button.

Strategic Affiliate Link Placement > Link Quantity

When somebody wants to buy something, they’ll FIND the link for it. Think of a time you really wanted to purchase a software package. You searched Google for “(software name) review,” found a great page, but couldn’t find a link to the actual product anywhere. No, wait – there it is. You had to scroll to the very bottom of the page. It was difficult to find, but you found it. This is a typical scenario of what people do when they are interested enough in buying something: they’ll do whatever it takes to find the purchase link, even if it isn’t easy to find. You don’t have to resort to overkill by placing it twenty times, or hyperlinking the brand name every single time – just one link will do the trick.

All you have to do is create good, honest, bullshit-free content and stick an attractive “View Demo” button (or a less desirable “Buy Now” one). Make it non-threatening. When you review a product, talk about the PRODUCT, don’t talk about how awesome it is, or how it’s the best thing ever. Don’t force your opinions on someone, let them make their own decision. Make recommendations, not ultimatums. If the product fails to provide customers with something, be honest and talk about it. There once was a study that showed how customers will still buy products even after hearing the most negative of reviews, because they expect “mostly good” and “some bad” reviews. If they don’t want or need something, then they shouldn’t buy it, and that’s totally ok – you’ll make your sale, eventually. Perhaps your cookie will even lead to another entirely different product being purchased.

One of the biggest issues that affiliate marketers face are those dreadful affiliate links themselves – they almost always look like crap…especially the ones that CJ.com provides. You’ll want to mask your affiliate links in any way that you can (speaking of which, check out my other post about affiliate link cloaking). The poor man’s method is to use URL shorteners, but most people are now wise to bit.ly and Tiny URL. Some even distrust them the instant they hover over them. The best way is to find an affiliate link cloaker for your CMS, to make your URLs look more friendly, and provide more information about where the visitor will go after clicking them.

So…be honest, use only one (or two, the most) affiliate link per product review, and mask those ugly affiliate links. Once I learned about this, my conversion rates skyrocketed!