How to Optimizing Affiliate Link and Programs for Better Revenue

Affiliate Links & Maximising Conversions

In this article we're going to look at where to place your affiliate links to maximise conversions and also how to cloak those affiliate links.

Getting visitors to actually click on your affiliate links is, bar none, the most important task that your site needs to accomplish. Sure, getting traffic is important and preselling is important, but at the end of the day, if the visitor does not click that link you're not going to get paid ­ it's as simple as that. 

Therefore, it surprises me that so many internet marketing courses leave this crucial part of your site design out. Where you place your affiliate links, what calls to action you use (if any) and what format they're in (text or image) will play an absolutely massive part in determining the profitability of your site. Seriously, I'm not kidding ­ Your actual links could literally double or halve your profits. As I discovered a few months back... 

I didn't really pay much attention to link placement or link anchor text until a couple of months ago, when I changed the link set up on one of sites and monthly commissions went up from around $300 I think, to $600. 

This particular website had very few affiliate links on it. I thought I'd focus the first part of the page entirely on my content and have no distractions or opportunities for the visitors to exit my page through any kind of link. I did this because it was my theory that by the time the visitor found the link, they'd already been presold and would be much more likely to convert... 

But I wasn't getting a very high hop through rate (the percentage of people who visit your page and then click your affiliate links) So, What I changed was adding 2 highly visible links above the fold (one on the sidebar and one in the main post). 

Now, as predicted, the conversion rate for these links (the percentage of people who clicked them and bought the product) was significantly lower than for those who clicked the one lower down (I think the sidebar link had like a 3% conversion rate). 

However, these links were getting clicked three times more often and I was obviously getting sales from visitors who wouldn't have click my links at all otherwise, because my profits rose sharply. 

Literally, overnight with no change in traffic my commissions increased by 100%. Anyway, I started to pay more attention to the placements of affiliate links and also their text. Few of my sites saw such a substantial increase in conversions (most 2040% after rigorous testing and some even performed worse) but I'm a bit stat crazy and the idea of leaving money on the table (same traffic but less sales) drove me to keep testing in an attempt to find out what links worked best. 

What this means for you is I've tested many different combinations on a variety of websites and what follows is what has worked best and led to the highest conversions.

Where to put your links 

This will be a no fluff section where I'm just going to tell you what spots have worked best for me and gotten the most response. This is a short section because there isn't really much to say on it... 

Just follow my instructions and put links in these places if you want to make the most money. 

First link: ­ At the top of your review/story. If it's a review say something like: Note: 

This a review, click here if you want to visit the product name website. If it's a story I might tell a story in the link itself. Click here to see how I finally got a six pack or something. 

Second link: ­Half way through the review/story, I got the best conversion results by giving that link right after mentioning a huge benefit of the product in bold. So even skimmers will read that benefit when they click the link ­ So they'll be SLIGHTLY pre sold. 

Final link: At the end of the review/story. Make it big and easily visible. This will be where you'll see conversion rates of 10%+ (providing your content was good). However, depending on the length of your main post, this won't get clicked even half as often as the top links. 

Side bar links: Not only will you have links in the main post but also some in the sidebar. I must admit that I'm still testing these today, but the best results I've had so far, is by placing a big text link (maybe a banner if it's good) directly under the Who am I section you'll create. So, it will usually still be visible above the fold. This will mean there's two links above the fold and in plain view to every visitor who visits your page.

The rest of your site:
Sprinkle them throughout your other posts and pages, but sparingly. Too many affiliate links will harm your SEO rankings. Often the link you have in the sidebar alone will be enough for your other pages (since you'll have the same sidebar on every page).

Anchor text & calls to action 
If you didn't already know, anchor text is the `text' of a link. 

So, instead of putting http://www.productname.com, marketers put `click here to see the product'. Where `click here to see the product' points to that URL. 
This makes it more attractive and helpful to human visitors and anchor text also plays a big role in off page SEO, where the anchor text of links pointing to your site is used to determine what your page is about. 

Now, I've actually found that the anchor text of a link WILL affect your conversion rate, considerably in fact. Particularly, for the links at the top of the page, where the anchor text might be the only thing a visitor reads before they click the link. 

If it's a story presell I'm using for example, 
I'll put a benefit of the product (usually something like `click here to see how I finally solved the problem') right there in the anchor text. That way skim readers will get a quick `testimonial' from a seemingly unbiased third party and are more likely to believe the hype on the merchants sales page ­ Even if they didn't read another word on your website. 

Now, before we talk about specific sentences which have converted very well for me, I just want to explain how important calls to action are. And to do that, here's two examples of similar links: See the book that helped me to finally got rid of my panic attacks Or Click here to see the book that helped me to finally get rid of my panic attacks. 

The difference is obviously the `click here' part. But those two simple words will make a big difference to number of times that link will get. Another key to success online is providing a user experience where the visitor doesn't have to think. 

By saying CLICK HERE, you're literally giving a simple order to follow. And we as humans, whether consciously or not, will usually follow that order. So, whatever anchor text you decide on, make sure you include the tried and tested, clear as day... click here.

Now as for specific sentences which work well, there is no `right answer' of a single sentence that converts best and it will vary from site to site. But below are what's worked best for me: I'll cover review websites first (scroll down if you're doing a story). 

For the first link the most effective one has been: 

Notice that the statement made before the link was a very powerful one, yet not sales-ish in any way at the same time. I just present the facts about the product in an appealing way. Even though I already mentioned it earlier, I'll say it again: Do not sell the product in your reviews ­ Just give them the good facts (and a couple of bad ones for good measure). 

The link itself is very simple, I don't say click here to buy it (never, EVER, say that) or even click here to read more. I'm just telling the visitor that by clicking that link they're going to visit the products site, just a simple visit ­ How can they say no to that? (I'm not sending them there to read or buy the product). 

This principle of appealing to a users emotions can be seen throughout internet marketing. Why do you think so many sales letters start with `Discover'? Because discover doesn't qualify the visitor in any way. Where users might be put off by `read', when was the last time you didn't want to simply `discover' something? ­ a discovery implies a result from no work. Anyway (went off track a bit there), the final link should use the same sort of anchor text as the middle link and come straight after the positive conclusion of your review. 

Click here to visit xxxx's site 
Click here to visit the xxxx official site 
Click here to read more about xxxx on their website 

These are the three anchor texts that have produced the highest conversions by far for me.
Now, let's look at stories. For the first link you want to give the main benefit of the product in a story form. So, Click here to see the program that finally cured my acne. 

As for the middle and final links: 
If you're doing a story where you basically say something along the lines of: this didn't work, this really didn't work but finally this product did. Then don't put the middle link until you've told them a bit about the product that DID work (the affiliate product). I've tried putting a link after I've written a whole paragraph about how something didn't work, with the link saying something like: Click here to see what did work for me. 

But for some reason, the conversion rates were generally horrible. I think conversions are low from that kind of link because it ruins the credibility of your story. You look kind of like a salesman by blatantly saying "don't try that, try THIS instead!". So, don't put the middle link until you've explained a bit about what the product that helped you was. And then use a completely unbiased link that you might find on a forum or something. 

Here's some of my best converting examples that I've used: 
Click here if you want to see the product. 
Click here to see the product I'm talking about. 
Click here if you want to read more on xxxx's website. 

Obviously, put the final link at the end of the story and use the same style of text.

The importance of cloaking & how to do it

Cloaking your affiliate link is the practice of hiding your ugly affiliate URL link from your visitors. So instead of seeing affiliate.vender.hop.clickbank.net they'll see www.yourdomain.com/recommends/t2tricks or whatever product your promoting. Which is, I think we can both agree, a much more attractive URL. 

Link cloaking is important not only because it will improve the amount of times your links get clicked (many internet users are sceptical of weird links with loads of numbers) but also, it helps prevent affiliate link theft. This is when a user sees your blatant affiliate link and thinks "hmm, I think I'll just sign up as an affiliate and save myself 50% of the sale". 

Link theft is particularly rife in the make money/affiliate marketing niche. Of course, savvy marketers will also know it's an affiliate link when they see yourdomain.com/something instead of linking directly to their website. But it isn't AS obvious and in my experience it has increased conversions. 

I could discuss the ins and outs of link cloaking and whether it's worth the effort or not, but you can find many hot discussions about it for free on Google if you're that interested. 

Link cloaking has worked wonders in my experience and has led to solid increase in conversions. And therefore it warrants the extra few minutes needed to actually cloak your links. So therefore I strongly recommend that you do it. 

I'm also convinced that link cloaking does improve your SEO rank but there's no scientific evidence to support that (just another one of my crazy theories I guess!)

The easiest way to cloak your links

There's a whole bunch of different ways to cloak your affiliate links. Some people have even set up businesses where they offer a link cloaking service. 

I recommend that you stay away from these as I have heard of several cases where the affiliates in question didn't get the credit for a lot of sales. 

I'm not going to point any fingers but I suspect some link theft is going on, or improper cloaking techniques are being utilized .Either way, I wouldn't trust a third party (other than of course the affiliate network e.g. Clickbank) with such an important part of your business. Also, I don't understand why people use these services at all. Because cloaking your links couldn't be simpler. 

All you need to do is use the "Pretty Link Lite" wordpress plugin to create a simple redirect or of course you can do it the "Old school" method which I've detailed below..

How to cloak your links step by step (Newest and Easiest Method) 

Firstly we install the wordpress plugin "Pretty Link Lite" by installing it into your plugins:

The next step is to "Add New Link", we need to click as shown below:

Next, we add in all our affiliate link, what we want to link cloaked to be named and also a title:

Then all we do is hit "Create" button to save and complete our cloaked link:

And that's how simple and easy it is to cloak a link. 
Below I've also included the "old school" method on how to cloak your links. 

How to cloak your links step by step (Old School Method ­ DON'T USE) 

This is the OLD METHOD. Use the method above. I only show this below to demonstrate how difficult it used to be. Here we go: Ok, so by now you should be at least relatively familiar with your FTP program (you know the thing we used to upload our plugins and themes to wordpress). 

And basically all we need to do to cloak our links is upload a tiny file (which I'll show you how to create) to our website. You'll need to repeat this process for each website you create, but in total it takes like 2 minutes to do. (Note that there's a video at the end of this section on how to do this whole link cloaking process too)

Step 1: Create a new folder on your desktop and name it recommends. That will be the www.yourdomain.com/RECOMMENDS/product part. 

Now, you don't have to make `recommends', you could name it `go' for example. If I were creating a story website I might call this folder `go' instead. Recommends is better suited to a review page. 

Step 2: Open the folder and inside create a text document. Name this text document whatever you want the "product" part of the URL to be, but make sure it's all one word (No spaces in the name). 

Often the product name or a shortened version of it is what I'll use ­ but you can experiment if you like. I just want to make this crystal clear (I'm not a techie myself, so I know how this can be tough)... Let's say the folder was called go and the text document inside was called googleshadow. 
The cloaked link would look like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/go/googleshadow.php 

Step 3: Change the file extension of the text document to php. So hit rename and on the end of the filename replace .txt with .php - You will need to enable file extensions if you can't see the .txt part. 

Step 4: This is where it gets kind of tricky (well I mean not really.. but anyway)... 

Open up your product.php in notepad and you'll see a blank document. You need to enter this code, and nothing else inside it:  

Just copy and paste that into the document and insert your affiliate link. Here's exactly what the document should look like:

Ok, save that, now all we need to do is upload it to our web site server.

Step 5: Log into your FTP program (the same one you used earlier) and on the left hand side browse to your desktop or wherever you created the recommends folder. 

Step 6: On the right hand side, double click on public_html. Then if that's your first website on that hosting account, simply click on recommends on the left hand side and hit upload. The recommends folder should now be on your web server.

By the way, make sure to test your link by actually typing in www.yourdomain.com/recommends/productname.php to make sure it works! You should go straight to the merchants website when you enter that. 

Also, remember that that URL will be your affiliate link (because as users are redirected through that other page you'll get credit for the sale). So whenever you want to add an affiliate link to your site, add that link and NOT plain the affiliate link. No worries, if you're still not 100% sure how to do it...

I think that some marketers put off cloaking there links because it seems hard work and not really worth the trouble. But it is worth your time... 

There's a reason that all the top affiliates do it. Because it does improve conversions. 
You will want to do it sooner or later, and as I've just demonstrated to you, it really is a simple process that only takes a couple of minutes at the most.