Learn Affiliate Marketing

When I started promoting affiliate programs online I wasn’t very smart about how I promoted my products.

For example, when I started promoting ebags, I used to think that slapping up the latest banner was the greatest thing since sliced bread and I loaded up my headers with them.  

 My thinking was that banners grabbed attention — right?  So they were naturals for getting the click, and of course if I could get the click, the sales would start rolling in.   WRONG!

That may have worked well a l-o-n-g time ago, actually I’m not sure they ever worked that well, but I can tell you today, they have lost a lot of their punch. 

Contextual links have clearly been my choice for getting click-throughs because they don’t scream ‘advertisement’; they indicate to the reader that by clicking the text link they might be led to more deeper, useful information. 

Also text links placed in the body of a post on your site or blog strongly indicates that the text link is pointing to something relevant.  That’s why Google Adsense ads work so well.  Adsense ads are designed to relate to the subject matter they are posted with, consequently if someone reads your article or post and notices a related text ad, you’re more likely to get a click through.   

Compare that to posting a Gucci banner on a page that is talking about back to school backpacks. First of all the banner screams ‘advertisement’ and second of all it’s not even related. 

The moral of the story is to keep your pages relevant and less ’salesy’.  If you are writing a review about the latest Gucci bag on your handbags blog you’re much more likely to make a sale if you include a contextual link directly to your affiliate site for the for the exact model of bag you are reviewing. 

This is how I use ebags today.  It’s a bit more work but oh so worth the effort.

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