Why Using Your Affiliate Link Is Not A Good Idea
I still can’t believe when I see people using their affiliate links for their website address in forums, articles, and classified ads. It is a issue that can be very easily resolved, but if ignored can also cause marketers to lose over 60% of their income. In this blog post, I will provide a quick overview of the problems and solutions to using affiliate links.
The Problems
- Affiliate links are too long, confusing and hard to remember
- Most people avoid clicking on affiliate links
- Potential buyers only remember the main url, not the numbers or letters that precede
- You will lose commission from internet thieves that change your affiliate ID to theirs
- You lose SEO value because your link is not unique
The Solutions
- Cloak your affiliate ID
- Buy a domain name
The Results
Cloaking your affiliate ID with a free cloaking tool such as viral url will help you in several ways.
A cloaking tool will:
- hide your id from thieves
- make your links more appealing to click
- give you an address that is easy to remember
- give you a better chance of showing up for search results
Purchasing a domain is by far the best solution to hiding ugly affiliate id’s and giving you the best chance if promoting your affiliate website. For better results it is wise to choose a domain name with either the similar variation of the merchants site or use a highly targeted keyword. After purchasing a domain name, you can simply do a permanent redirect.
The advantages of using this technique are:
- You create a unique web address that is yours only
- You can place your link on sites that do not allow affiliate sites…ie Ezine Articles
- You can build backlinks and show up for natural search engine rankings
- No one knows that you are marketing an affiliate product
- You increase your income dramatically
As you can see it doesn’t make any sense to continually use your affiliate id’s with all the advantages you can get by using a free cloaking tool or buying a keyword rich domain name for $10. Ignorance is never an excuse, so if you did not know the importance of hiding your affiliate status, now is the time to make some changes.
There is no doubt in my mind that being able to cloak your affiliate links is a key to successful Internet Marketing and being able to increase affiliate commissions.
What I do not understand about other marketers is why they would change the affiliate link if they were going to make a purchase of a product recommended by one of their peers. I know that Clickbank frowns upon you purchasing products through your own affiliate links. But to buy a product that someone recommends and to change the link it unethical.
If I find a product that I like and someone I follow is reviewing the product and I decide to buy it, then I want to make sure that person gets credit for the sale. Anyone that does that is very unethical and I hope others are doing that to their affiliate links.
There are some really good techniques listed here to help prevent this from happening.
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