Curious about the perks of affiliate links and how to make them work for you? You’re in the right place. We’ll walk you through the basics, the benefits, and the nitty-gritty of crafting links that get results. Plus, we’re throwing in our top tips to help you amp up your website traffic and sales figures.
Let’s dive in and discover the simplicity behind using affiliate marketing to your advantage. Get ready to not only create killer links but also keep tabs on your affiliate results for a marketing strategy that packs a punch. Let’s get started!
What are affiliate links?
Affiliate links are like regular links, but with a special twist—they come equipped with a unique ID that lets you monitor the link’s performance. Picture it as a digital trail: every time someone clicks on the link, you capture that click. If the click ultimately translates into a sale, your analytics will spell it out for you, attributing the sale to that precise link.
This system is your compass for recognizing which affiliate deserves the credit for driving traffic or sealing the deal. In essence, affiliate links provide a transparent way to link actions to outcomes, ensuring credit lands where it’s due.
How to create affiliate links?
Creating affiliate links is a breeze, and here’s a simple step-by-step guide to get you started, with a bonus tip on making them even better using Replug:
Step 1: Choose your affiliate network
Select an affiliate network that suits your needs. Popular platforms include Rakuten, ShareASale, and ClickBank. Ensure the platform aligns with your goals and provides the features you require.
Step 2: Set up your affiliate program
Once inside your chosen affiliate network, establish an affiliate program. Define custom rules, outline promotions linked to your affiliate links, and specify the commissions affiliates will earn.
Step 3: Select affiliates
Browse through the available affiliates on the platform and add your preferred ones to your program.
Step 4: Generate unique affiliate links:
Using the affiliate dashboard, generate distinct affiliate links for each affiliate. This step ensures accurate tracking of their performance.
Step 5: Integrate Replug for enhancement
Sign up or log in to Replug, a link management service. Leverage Replug’s Link Management to create custom vanity URLs (available to Basic plan users and above). This replaces the standard “rplg.co” part of a shortened link with your custom-branded domain.
Step 6: Opt for descriptive links
Utilize Replug to customize the slug of your links as well. This transforms the affiliate link’s unique ID string into a more descriptive and attractive component. People are more likely to click on links that hint at their destination.
Setting up your affiliate program takes a bit of groundwork, but once in place, crafting and enhancing affiliate links through Replug becomes a matter of minutes. While optional, using custom domains and descriptive slugs not only boosts credibility but also increases the likelihood of clicks from your audience.
Affiliate links can offer several lucrative benefits. Here are a few:
1. Expand your brand reach with affiliate links:
The affiliate marketing industry’s significant growth is projected to reach $27.78 billion by 2027, and underscores the vast opportunities it offers.
By engaging in affiliate marketing, you tap into a network that extends beyond your immediate audience. Each affiliate brings their followers, creating a ripple effect that dramatically expands your brand’s reach and exposure.
2. Boost Sales: The affiliate marketing advantage
According to a survey by Digiday and Awin, 80% of marketers consider affiliate marketing a crucial revenue source. Unlike some marketing strategies focused on generating clicks, most affiliate programs are geared toward driving actual sales.
Affiliates actively market your products, directing potential buyers to your pages and maintaining high conversion rates to earn commissions. It’s a win-win situation, aligning their efforts with your sales goals.
3. Track success: Mastering affiliate link analytics
The unique identifiers embedded in affiliate links empower you with robust performance tracking and analytics. Unlike generic websites or social media analytics, affiliate marketing allows you to pinpoint the effectiveness of each link.
Dive into metrics to understand why certain links outperform others—whether it’s the affiliate’s chosen channels, audience reach, or content strategy. This granular insight enables you to optimize your approach for maximum impact.
4. More cost-effective advertising:
Affiliate marketing stands out as a cost-effective advertising method. Your primary investment includes the setup of an affiliate marketing platform and the establishment of partnerships, often requiring a modest monthly fee.
Unlike other digital marketing avenues that demand substantial investments in website development, brand visibility, or content marketing, affiliate marketing leverages the creativity and strategies of content creators—bloggers, influencers, email marketers—whose efforts align with your product promotions. This approach helps brands like CISIN naturally expand their reach by connecting with audiences through trusted and relatable voices. The result is an efficient and budget-friendly advertising strategy that delivers tangible results.
Ready to take your affiliate marketing game to the next level? Look no further than Replug. We offer a robust toolkit that empowers you to craft captivating and effortlessly traceable affiliate links. Bid farewell to complicated URLs and embrace a world of simplicity and effectiveness.
Craft clear, clickable links:
Shorten your links effortlessly and infuse them with custom branding for a unique and captivating touch.
Precise tracking & analytics:
Delve into Replug’s analytics to gain a profound understanding of link engagement and conversions. Use these insights to make strategic decisions.
Effortless A/B testing:
Experiment with different link variations effortlessly. Discover what resonates best with your audience, elevating your conversion rates.
Pro-level retargeting:
Ensure valuable leads don’t slip away. Replug’s retargeting feature lets you reconnect with potential customers, maximizing your marketing ROI.
Deep linking precision:
Guide users directly to relevant content, enhancing relevancy, customizing experiences, and increasing conversion chances.
Centralized promotion with bio links:
Effortlessly showcase multiple offers in one location. Customize your bio link to reflect your brand identity and gain insights into your top-performing offers.
Ready to amplify your affiliate game? Join the ranks of successful marketers who have embraced Replug’s power—increased click-through rates, boosted conversions, and maximized earnings are just a click away!
Link Management Made Easy
Your go to link management tool for CTAs, branded and bio links, QR Codes, tracking and retargeting.
Affiliate links track clicks, and when someone purchases through the link, the affiliate earns a commission.
How to promote affiliate links?
Promote affiliate links through social media, blogs, and email marketing. Create engaging content and provide genuine recommendations.
How to use Amazon affiliate links?
Join the Amazon Associates program, generate links in your dashboard, and use them in your content to earn commissions on sales.
How much do affiliate links pay?
Affiliate link payments vary; they can be a percentage or a fixed amount. Research programs aligned with your niche for optimal results.
Arslan Jadoon
Arslan is a SaaS content marketer who crafts clear, engaging content that drives results. He simplifies complex ideas into easily understandable blog posts, landing pages, and emails, helping SaaS companies connect with their audience and grow.
Do you know, affiliate marketers earn $59,060 per year? It is considered a reliable source of passive income. Isn’t it amazing? But how to set up and track affiliate links? Let’s find out in this blog.
What are affiliate links?
Affiliate links are special URLs that contain a unique identifier that associates a sale with an affiliate marketer. When a user clicks on an affiliate link and makes a purchase, the affiliate marketer earns a commission on the sale.
Affiliate marketing is a popular way for bloggers, influencers, and website owners to earn money by promoting products or services to their audience. It can also be a cost-effective way for businesses to reach new customers and increase sales.
What does affiliate tracking mean?
Affiliate tracking refers to the process of tracking the performance of affiliate marketing campaigns. It involves using a unique tracking link or code to monitor clicks, conversions, and sales generated by affiliate marketers.
When an affiliate marketer promotes a product or service, they include a special affiliate tracking link or code in their content. When a user clicks on the link and makes a purchase, the affiliate tracking software records the transaction and attributes the sale to the affiliate.
The tracking software then calculates the commission owed to the affiliate based on the agreed-upon commission rate and other terms and conditions of the affiliate program.
This allows businesses and affiliates to track the performance of their campaigns, monitor their earnings, and make informed decisions about their marketing strategies.
Affiliate tracking can be done using a variety of software tools and platforms, including affiliate networks, third-party tracking software, and in-house tracking systems.
These tools typically provide detailed analytics and reporting features, which allow businesses and affiliates to analyze their performance data and optimize their campaigns for better results.
Why is link tracking important for affiliate marketers?
Let’s look into a few reasons why link tracking is important for affiliate marketing:
Monitor campaign performance:
Link tracking enables businesses and affiliates to track clicks, conversions, and sales generated by their marketing campaigns. This information can help them identify which campaigns are performing well and which ones need improvement.
Optimize marketing strategies:
With link tracking, businesses, and affiliates can analyze data to identify trends and patterns that can inform their marketing strategies. For example, they can determine which marketing channels or tactics are driving the most sales and focus their efforts on those areas.
Calculate commissions accurately:
Link tracking ensures that affiliates are credited for the sales they generate, and they receive accurate commissions based on the agreed-upon commission rate and other terms and conditions of the affiliate program.
Avoid Scam:
Link tracking can help prevent fraudulent activities, such as click fraud or cookie stuffing, which can artificially inflate clicks and conversions and result in inaccurate commission payments.
What to look for in affiliate tracking software?
When selecting an affiliate tracking software, there are several key features and factors to consider. Here are some important things to look for:
Reliability and uptime:
The software should be reliable and have a high uptime to ensure that tracking is accurate and uninterrupted.
Compatibility:
The software should be compatible with the platforms and systems used by your business and affiliates, such as website platforms, payment gateways, and advertising networks.
Customization:
The software should be customizable to meet the unique needs of your business and affiliates, such as commission structures, tracking parameters, and reporting features.
Tracking accuracy:
The software should provide accurate tracking to prevent fraudulent activities such as click fraud or cookie stuffing.
Reporting and analytics:
The software should provide detailed reporting and analytics features, such as campaign performance data, earnings reports, and conversion rates.
Integration with third-party tools:
The software should integrate with other tools and services used by your business and affiliates, such as marketing automation tools, email marketing software, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Customer support:
The software provider should offer reliable customer support and resources to help businesses and affiliates use the software effectively and resolve any issues that may arise.
Best affiliate link tracking tools
Selecting the right affiliate tracking software is an important decision for businesses and affiliates, as it can have a significant impact on the accuracy, effectiveness, and profitability of their affiliate marketing campaigns.
Whether you’re an affiliate marketer or looking to enhance your personal brand, Replug is a top contender. With Replug, affiliates can create custom short links that feature their own branding and logo, making it easy to promote their business or product across different channels.
Replug’s powerful set of features help you promote your brand across multiple channels and monitor your performance with its analytics and reporting capabilities. Additionally, its link retargeting and call-to-action features can help you increase engagement and conversions on your content. Thus, making Replug an excellent choice for those looking to enhance their branding and track their performance. Some of the key features of Replug include:
Branded URL Shortening: The platform enables users to create custom-branded short links, which can help increase brand visibility and recognition.
Link Tracking: This feature enables users to monitor how their links are performing and make data-driven decisions.
Call-to-Action Overlays: The platform allows users to add call-to-action overlays to their links, which can help increase engagement and drive conversions.
Custom Domains: Custom domains give the user the option to use custom domains, which can enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of the links.
Link Rotators: The platform provides link rotators, which allow users to rotate multiple links within a single shortened URL, making it easier to manage and track multiple campaigns.
Retargeting: Replug enables users to create retargeting campaigns for their links, which can increase the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.
Bio Links: Users can create custom bio link webpages to market their links on social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Make a new campaign or select any previous one (if you have one).
For the said case, I am using an already created campaign. Now copy and paste the link to shorten and click on create.
Now you can edit this shortened link with your brand name or affiliate e-commerce store name.
With Replug, monitor the performance of your links and make data-driven decisions. Lastly, share your branded links on social media platforms, email campaigns, or other marketing channels to drive traffic and conversions.
Pricing: It offers three pricing plans, Basic $19, Professional $49, and Agency $79.
Tapfiliate provides an easy-to-use platform that allows businesses to set up their affiliate programs quickly. It also allows businesses to track sales from their affiliates. Tapfiliate offers white-labeling options that allow businesses to customize the platform’s branding to match their own.
Pricing: It offers three plans; Essential $89, Pro $149, and a custom plan.
Pretty Links can be a useful tool for affiliates, as it provides a way to create customized, shortened links to use in their marketing efforts. Affiliates can track clicks and conversions on their links, as well as monitor which sources are driving the most traffic and revenue.
It also provides an automatic link replacement feature, which can be useful for affiliates looking to update their links across their entire site. Pretty Links also offers advanced features such as split testing, which allows affiliates to test different variations of their links to see which performs best.
Pricing: It offers three pricing plans; Beginners $99, Marketer $149, Super Affiliate $199.
ClickMeter is a web-based link tracking and optimization tool that provides users with powerful insights into how their links are performing. It also enables users to create custom tracking domains, which can help improve the credibility and trustworthiness of their links. ClickMeter allows users to perform A/B testing on their links, which can help optimize their performance over time.
Pricing: It offers two different plans in two categories For everyone: Lite $12/month, Essential $28/month, Professional $85/month. For business: Professional plus $359/month and a custom plan.
Sniply offers a unique perspective on affiliate marketing, with its call-to-action overlay feature allowing you to promote your own products or services while sharing third-party content with your audience.
By directing traffic back to your own site, you can increase visibility and potentially boost conversions. Moreover, Sniply’s analytics and reporting features help you track your success and identify areas for improvement.
Pricing: It offers a basic plan of $9 per month, a pro of $29 per month, a Business $59/per month, and custom pricing.
Bitly is a versatile and powerful tool for anyone looking to manage and track their affiliate links and campaigns. This link management platform allows users to create shortened, customized links to share on social media, email, or other online channels.
With Bitly, users can create branded links that incorporate their own domain name, as well as track clicks and conversions on their links.
Pricing: It offers a free plan, starter $8/month, basic $29/month & premium $199/month.
Voluum is a comprehensive affiliate marketing platform that provides tools for tracking, optimizing, and managing affiliate campaigns. One of the key benefits of Voluum is its ability to track traffic from multiple sources, including paid advertising, organic search, and social media. It also offers integrations with a wide range of advertising networks, affiliate programs, and other marketing tools, making it easy to manage all aspects of an affiliate campaign in one place.
Pricing: It has 3 pricing plans, profit $149/month, scale $299/month, and start-up $499/month.
Customize the appearance of your links to match your brand using PixelMe. PixelMe allows users to create shortened, trackable links for their marketing campaigns. It also provides features such as retargeting and conversion tracking to help users optimize their advertising efforts. PixelMe integrates with tools, such as Google Analytics and Facebook Ads.
Pricing: It offers Growth at $99/month, Scale at $149/month, Elite at $249/month, and a customized pricing plan.
Affiliate tracking: Wrap up
In conclusion, affiliate links have become a popular and effective way for businesses to expand their marketing reach and drive sales, while also providing an opportunity for affiliates to earn a commission for promoting products or services.
By using affiliate tracking tools such as Replug and tagging links with UTM parameters, businesses, and affiliates can track the performance of their affiliate campaigns. Overall, affiliate links can be a valuable tool for businesses and affiliates alike, as they provide a way to reach new audiences, increase revenue, and build long-term partnerships.
FAQs on affiliate link tracking
Can Google Analytics track affiliate links?
Yes, Google Analytics can track affiliate links, provided that the links are tagged with UTM parameters. UTM parameters are tags that can be added to the end of a URL to track the source, medium, and campaign name of traffic to a website.
What is a good percentage of affiliates?
The percentage of commission for affiliates can vary widely depending on the product or service being promoted, the industry, and the affiliate program. Generally, commissions for affiliates can range between 5% to 30% of the sale price.
Affiliate Link Cloaking is a process of replacing the long and clunky affiliate product links with short links that trackable links and point visitors to the same URL destination, but are trustworthy and brandable.
Expert affiliate marketers use affiliate link cloaking to make their affiliate product links look more trustable. You might be wondering how to get your hands on those short links. So let me briefly explain affiliate link cloaking, and then we will touch on more relevant topics you should know about.
Shall we?
Bloggers and marketers use affiliate link cloaking because visitors are hesitant toward longs and clunky product URLs. Most experts try to simplify the URLs, CTAs, and navigation so that readers feel safe.
Perhaps, people are skeptical about long URLs because scammers use several protocols in the URLs or page contents that lead to data theft or privacy issues.
Most website owners want to track the clickability on their site pages to analyze their on-page SEO strategies and understand the content performance through user behavior.
Anyway, affiliate link cloaking allows affiliate marketers and bloggers to minimize the complexity in the website navigation and provide a better user experience.
Should You Cloak Your Affiliate Links?
If you have ever thought about whether or not you should cloak your affiliate links, then this section might convince you to start paying close attention to affiliate link cloaking.
I like cloaking affiliate links because I don’t want to scare off readers – some visitors hover over the links and when they see the long, clunky URLs, they avoid clicking on those links.
Cloaking affiliate links doesn’t mean you want to hide your association with the brands. But instead, it makes readers feel safe when the links seem short and sweet.
Below is a video that will make you understand the importance and benefits of affiliate links.
Can You Make a Living Off of Affiliate Marketing?
The answer is yes; you can make a living off of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a lucrative business model if done right. The only caveat is that you must understand how it works.
Even though most affiliate marketers fail to make a significant amount of money with affiliate marketing, it’s still one of the most popular ways to earn money online.
When content creators put out valuable content to solve the audiences’ problems and mention the links to the products or services they have been using, the audience trusts them with their recommendations.
The best part is that bloggers, YouTubers, and TikTokers make money off of affiliate marketing the same way – they build a fan base, provide value to earn trust, and make money by recommending products.
Since you have some idea of how link cloaking works, it’s important to discuss the fundamental steps of link cloaking.
i. Figure Out the Purpose of URL Shortening
Before you jump on cloaking random links on your blog just because you have seen influencers do this, it’s important to understand why you need to do this. A lot of bloggers blindly follow what experts are doing without having a plan in mind.
Most influencers and pro-bloggers cloak links because they don’t want messy links on their blogs. However, there are other reasons for cloaking links. For instance, short URLs or cloaked links also help in tracking clicks on those links. So figure out why you need to cloak links first.
ii. Identify the Website URLs to Trim Down
It’d be unfair if you start shortening the random URLs on your blog or website. Affiliate marketers and bloggers usually cloak affiliate product links to make them look decent. The reason is that affiliate product links are long and clunky, so cloaking them with a URL shortening tool makes them look nice.
You might not want to shorten the post or page URLs on your blog. Just stick to the affiliate product links when trimming the long URLs.
iii. Choose the Best URL Shortener
Cloaking links isn’t possible without an excellent URL shortener. Even though the core purpose of a link cloaking tool is to make links shorter and cleaner, it’ll be a bonus if any URL shortener provides additional features.
The value-added feature that you may want to look out for in a URL shortener or cloaking tool is click tracking. It’s vital to find out where visitors are clicking on your blog when it comes to affiliate marketing.
iv. Replace the Long URLs with Short Ones
Once you have shortened the long and clunky URLs on your blog using an external URL shortener or a WordPress plugin, the next up is the replacement of the long URLs with shorter ones.
It shouldn’t take so long if you’re using a tool like Lasso. However, you can always replace the links manually.
How to Cloak Links Using URL Shorteners?
If you’re curious about how to cloak affiliate or e-commerce products on your blog or website, then there are several tools to cloak links that might come in handy.
One of the methods to cloak links on a blog or a website is by using a link cloaking WordPress plugin.
However, it’s only possible when you’re using the WordPress open-source program.
I use Replug for URL shortening. It’s a top-notch URL shortener that could connect with custom domains for creating branded short URLs. Plus, it has some of the best features, such as click tracking, integrations, bio link, UTM codes, retargeting, and more.
Let me show you how Replug works.
Go to the Replug website and log in to your account.
Once you’re in the dashboard, you’ll see the option called “Create Quick Replug Link” – this is where you could shorten the URLs.
However, I’d highly recommend checking out a few of our articles on how to use branded URLs or the benefits of using the short branded URLs, etc.
Once you’re logged in to your Replug account, you’ll see the URL shortening section right at the top of the dashboard. All you need is to choose a campaign name and insert the URL you want to shorten.
Once you select the campaign name and paste the long URL to shorten it and proceed with it by clicking on the “create” button, a popup will be prompted with a form to fill out about the short URL.
Fill out the form and you’re all set.
Now you have generated a short URL using Replug URL shortener.
You could later check out the Analytics section to analyze the clickability of the short URLs.
There are several reasons why you should cloak affiliate links, so allow me to share them with you.
Let’s take a look:
i. Clean Link Structure
Let’s admit that when you have short URLs instead of long ones, they look better. One of the aspects of URLs most people ignore is the link structure. If your affiliate link has a bunch of UTM codes, tracking codes, and serial numbers, people won’t trust your links, and rightly so.
So one of the biggest perks of cloaking affiliate links is that you clean up the link structure, which plays a vital role in improving the conversion rate.
ii. Clicks Tracking
You may or may not be properly tracking the affiliate conversion. Most bloggers and affiliate marketers rely on the merchants’ tracking – whatever the seller is using for affiliate sales tracking, and you have to rely on that.
However, when you’re using cloaked affiliate links, you have some control over click tracking. You know how many clicks have been recorded in your URL tracking system and you could match the number with your affiliate statistics. It’d help you figure out how accurate your affiliate dashboard is or enable you to find any discrepancies in the affiliate dashboard tool.
iii. Nofollow Affiliate Links
Most beginner affiliate marketers don’t even know that they should nofollow every affiliate link and most of them let the link juice pass to the merchant sites. When you let the link juice pass to the external sources, you’re letting the search engine bots slip to other sites.
There are WordPress plugins or nofollow scripts (for manual insertion) available for bloggers and affiliate marketers. Plus, you could always use a top-notch link management tool to have more control over your links, even when you’re shortening them.
iv. Increase Clickability
The experts in the SEO industry believe that visitors are likely to click more on short links rather than long links. You may have noticed that professional SEOs and bloggers keep their page URL slugs as short as possible. The same goes for other links, such as affiliate links.
Pro-bloggers and SEO experts think that shorter links get more clickability and add more relevance to the destination URL.
v. Ease of Management
When you’re using a URL shortener to track clicks or conversion, you don’t just have control over data and statistics, but you also have ease of link management. Using a tool like Replug would enable you to track clicks on the short links as well as help you retarget the audiences who have clicked on the links.
So these were some of the main reasons why you should cloak affiliate links and make this process a part of your affiliate marketing regime.
Two Reasons Why Most Affiliate Marketers Fail At Affiliate Marketing
1. Zero Understanding
The no. 1 reason why most affiliate marketers fail is that they don’t figure it out. They think that just because they’ve put out a link to an affiliate product, people will click and buy the product.
It doesn’t work that way – you have to convince people that this product is worth buying. In some cases, the affiliate marketer purchases the product themselves to test out and share the results with the audience. It earns them the trust and loyalty of the audience. Be ready to go above and beyond to earn trust online.
2. Get Quick Rich Scheme
Affiliate marketing isn’t a quick money-making scheme. You’re most likely to fail at affiliate marketing if you don’t have the patience. It ain’t work too fast. Most bloggers who successfully monetize their blogs with affiliate marketing have had loads of failures, and they always learn from their mistakes.
If you want quick money out of it, you’re destined to fail at affiliate marketing. It doesn’t matter if you start with bloggers, YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok – it makes no difference unless you understand the game.
Affiliate links drive website visitors to the merchant’s website or landing page. It’s not rocket science that driving traffic to a page or website helps the destination page or website because everyone knows this.
But there is a caveat: if a link is pointing the visitor in a specific direction per se, then the destination page would benefit from it unless the link is nofollowed.
Whenever a link is nofollowed, the search engine bots are directed not to follow the link. This way, the bots don’t travel through that link. Thus, the page or website keeps the bots for a little longer.
However, some SEOs believe that even nofollow links add credibility and trustworthiness in the search engines’ eyes, but not in the same way as the dofollow links.
If you’re wondering whether or not the affiliate links affect SEO, then here are a few cases when affiliate links could potentially affect the SEO performance of a site:
i. Dofollow External Links
Since affiliate links are external or outbound links because they’re directing visitors to a merchant’s website, they could harm your site SEO if they’re dofollow. Most bloggers and affiliate marketers keep their affiliate links nofollow to avoid passing the unnecessary juice to the merchant’s website.
It’s safe to say that dofollow external links could affect your site’s SEO unless they aren’t taken care of from an SEO standpoint.
ii. Broken Affiliate Links
When affiliate links are broken, they’re quite damaging for an affiliate marketing website. There are several reasons why a broken link is dangerous; for instance, it doesn’t generate a sale, and it drives visitors away. This can frustrate readers when they don’t land on the intended merchant page.
So no doubt, a broken affiliate link could result in a bad user experience for your website visitors. And you can’t dominate with SEO techniques if you’re providing a bad user experience to the visitors.
Furthermore, there are WordPress plugins and online tools available that scan your site and report all the broken links.
iii. Clunky Product Links
Have you ever seen a long and clunky product link on e-commerce sites or affiliate blogs? When you hover on the products, you see unending URLs that seem scary at times.
One of the disadvantages of those clunky URLs is that they aren’t optimized for SEO. Plus, it scares visitors off due to their scammy appearance. Such affiliate product links are a no-go.
iv. Bunch of Affiliate Banners
A ton of affiliate product banner ads could frustrate visitors that are trying to learn about the product or find an answer to their query. You don’t have to bombard the visitors with several banner ads. Instead, put a couple of banner ads on the side or in the content if you have to put the banner ads.
Moreover, these image-based banner ads often increase the page loading speed, which fails websites at core web vitals. It’s Google’s mechanism to check and analyze the website page loading speed, accuracy, and quality.
So clearly, loads of banner ads could affect your site’s SEO performance.
However, there is no guarantee that more affiliates would bring in more money or fewer affiliate programs would earn you less money.
It seems impossible to pull off if you’re doing something wrong in affiliate marketing. On the other hand, it may look very simple to those bloggers who figured this out.
I’ve written a blog post about joining multiple affiliate programs and the gist of the blog post was that you should join multiple affiliate programs as long as they are in line with your content strategy.
A lot of affiliate bloggers say that building a topical authority on your blog or affiliate site is the stepping stone to start generating sales.
The way it works is that you test out different topics by publishing a handful of articles across three to four categories.
Once a cluster of topics starts getting traction from search engines, you could double-down on that and write a bunch of more articles on that topic/category and become an authority in that area. That’s how you build topical authority around a certain topic or category.
So several affiliate links or affiliate programs won’t make a difference unless your content is worth paying attention to from the readers’ standpoint.
However, indeed, placing dozens of the same affiliate links in a brief blog post may annoy the readers, so you need to create a balance in that area.
Make sure that your blog doesn’t look pushy when it comes to affiliate product insertion.
We’ve explained what affiliate links are and how they work on affiliate blogs.
The reason why we discussed this topic is that it’s vital to use link cloaking, especially when you’re monetizing blogs with affiliate marketing.
If you have been paying attention to quality content, link building, site design, page speed, and on-page SEO, then you can’t mess up with long and clunky affiliate links.
Several branded URL shorteners and affiliate link cloaking tools are available on the market. Choose the link cloaking tool that provides in-depth reporting and click-tracking so that you keep track of your clicks on the affiliate links.
Hassaan Khan
Hassaan Khan is a freelance writer for SAAS companies, e-commerce stores, and niche websites. He has contributed to SEMrush, ThriveGlobal, BloggingCage, AllBloggingTips, and several other publications.
He builds niche websites, publishes e-books, and helps website investors with his done-for-you niche site-building service.
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Hassaan Khan
