Affiliate Linking In Blogs

What is the most efficient way to link to affiliate schemes within your blog?

Well here I'm not talking about the high earning affiliate for whom the blog is an essential sales tool - they know exactly how to work. I'm referring to those who blog for fun and then decide that a product or two could be included as affiliate links to try to earn a bit of extra cash.

Here's the way I would do it.

First, assume I have a successful marathon blog and have decided to buy a pair of shock absorbing soles - and they are available through an affiliate scheme. Well in one post I would say I've heard how good they are and am going to try them. From this post I would use an affiliate link to link directly to the item. Avoid linking to the merchant's home page - if someone is interested they might not find the product. Send them directly to where they need to go.

The next thing is that these fantastic products arrive. Another post describes them, what they look like etc before I've tried them. But this time the post doesn't link to the item, it links to the FIRST post, in which there is a link to the item.

Yes, this goes against what I've said on the first post - it's making it harder to find them. So, make the first post short & snappy and the link easy & clear to find.

But why add in this extra step? Because if you add in an internal link, expecially one using the product name as the anchor text of the link, you are building up your internal linking and this is good for the search engines.

Later, add more posts as you try the items, start to feel the benefits etc. In these again you always link to the first post, not to the merchant.

This also has other benefits. Say you notice the same item for sale cheaper, by a merchant offering more commission; or the merchant closes their scheme or changes the page name. Using this method you can just pop into the first post and update the link. Otherwise, you would have to search your blog and update every link.

Also, there's a theory that affiliate links can damage your page ranking (keep coming back and I'll tell you why I believe this). Therefore, by keeping the affiliate link to just the one page, rather than loads of pages, if there are any consequences they are limited to just the one page.

Hope this helps.