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So if you have been following this blog you will have chosen your affiliate product and you now have an affiliate link that looks something like this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/?ref=abcd1234

The next question is what do I do with this ugly looking domain name (URL)?

The easiest thing to do is use the raw affiliate link to drive traffic to the product sales page and collect the commissions. However in this case the simplest is definitely NOT the best.

Reasons NOT to use the Raw Affiliate Link

1. People trust direct links with normal looking URLs more than they trust an affiliate link with lots of foreign looking code.

2.The long ugly affiliate link can also drive potential customers away from your site which is exactly what you don’t want to happen.

3. If your raw affiliate link is visible then people can either chop off the code bit at the end of the affiliate link and you lose your commission or worse still they can substitute their own affiliate link for yours and once again you lose your commission for the sale!

4. Using your own domain name to promote an affiliate product gives you more control. You can track the clicks and conversion rates and you don’t have to rely on the statistics from the affiliate program which may not be that accurate.

5. If the affiliate product that you are promoting is no longer available you can use the same domain name to promote another product in the same niche and you don’t waste all of the hard work that you’ve already done building links for that site.

6. Also when you are building your backlinks you will want to promote your site with article marketing (more on that when we get to traffic) and some article directories don’t allow raw affiliate links in their articles.

Direct Linking

The next step up from using a raw affiliate link is direct linking. This is when you buy a domain name (which is keyword targeted for better SEO – more on that in the next post) and use a simple redirect from your domain name to your affiliate link. You can do this directly within your hosting account but there is a better way. Use the following script and save it is as an index.php file under your domain name on your server.

<?php
header( ‘Location: http://www.youraffiliatelink.com/abcd1234′);
?>

Hopefully I haven’t lost you with this small detour down Geek St. Leave me a comment if you don’t understand and I’ll try and explain it better.(Maybe I’ll even make a video if you ask really nicely)

Affiliate Link Cloaking/cloning

Sometimes even when you direct link you can see the raw affiliate link in your browser in the URL box or more commonly in the bottom left corner of the browser window as the website is being loaded. I prefer to have my affiliate links completely hidden so I use a program specifically for this purpose it’s called Affiliate Cloner and you can get it right here through my affiliate link. If you click on this link you won’t be able to see my affiliate code but I will still be credited with the sale.

I have found that Affiliate Cloner is an inexpensive program but really simple to use. It has several different features but so far I have only used the simple affiliate cloak function. It is simple tool that any newbie internet marketer who is serious about mastering the internet marketing game should add to their toolbox.

Pre Sell Page

The best thing to do with the new domain name is to build an SEO optimized single page with content that presells the product that you are promoting. This webpage has clickable links that take you to the sales page of the product that you are promoting via cloaked affiliate links.

This is a big topic and it needs much more explanation which will be done in future posts. So subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss out on any valuable information in the future.

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Marketing for Newbies – Finding a Product
2. Affiliate Marketing For Newbies – Test Your Niche
3. Affiliate Marketing for Newbies – Niche Product Ideas

2 Responses to “Affiliate Marketing for Newbies – Affiliate Links”

1. Colin Brennan says:

   November 25, 2009 at 11:17 am

   As the victim of link tampering myself I can support your statements of the advantages of link cloaking. I, however, have found it unnecessary to purchase or install link cloaking software when http://offto.net is a free service that also includes a decent set of tracking tools.
   Cheers.
2. Theo Cavers says:

   April 23, 2010 at 5:55 am

   I always enjoy reading intelligent articles by an individual who is definately up to snuff on their chosen subject. I’ll be following this thread with much interest. Keep up the good work, I will be back