Affiliate Links, When To Start With It?
Now I am actually quite surprised.
In the big "Get Started Here" Tutorial you get to add affiliate links not straight away, but soon enough, at level 3.
A lot is written about whether or not to add this or that.. Adsense, MediaVine and the like, finding affiliate programs, creating accounts and applying for affiliate accounts.
But nowhere I found really much more info on when you should really start doing so and whether it could really damage your ranking in the short run.
Until I subscribed to one of the (main) members' email lists and found the following quote:
Whenever I am building a niche website that will have affiliate links on it, I ALWAYS wait until the the site is ranking on the 1st page for at least one keyword BEFORE adding any affiliate links.
Why? Because it builds trust with Google.
They won’t rank a new website that has a bunch of affiliate links on it. Google wants to see a site with quality content before it ranks a website.
- quote by Jay Neil / Magistudios
So in theory, following his advice, I should now remove my affiliate links of all my posts where I did include some of them (amazon). That are about 5 reviews plus some other posts, 10 articles tops I think.
The other 80 posts are informational articles that are of great value to readers and are built with SEO in mind.
I have never added google adsense, mediavine or any of those banner sites to my sites. Not because I don't want to earn money, but because I feel that I lose visitors because of stupid banners all over the place. Also most people have some sort of adblocker installed, preventing them from actually seeing the banners.
But I have placed Amazon links and product showcases in some of my blogs. Are they hurting my rankings? Should I remove them and wait until my pages have started to gain page 1 rankings?
- Steven
Recent Comments
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Good post Steven, thank you for this. I will keep a close watch and learn from your insights :)
I hate those adsense banners that people have, sooo distracting and totally makes their site look bad
I've heard Jay say that in his webinars, and see Jovo took a real slow route too, I'd like a definitive answer myself though...
I hate to say this, but your ignorance shows. I've been in sales and marketing for years. Pop-ups create tons of sign ups and get people to provide their email address.
As a marketer, the goal is to drive traffic -- correct? How do you drive conversion? Getting people to provide their email address so you can sell your products and/or services? Correct?
How many times have you opted-in to get a free gift, ebook, etc? How about receiving a discount coupon? Did you provide your email address?
If you never use a pop-up providers, you need to read more and educate yourself. Once you do, you will thank me.
How many people have signed up to your website? How much traffic do you drive to your site? How do you market your product and/or services to your subscribers? What is you conversion rate? What is your cost to acquire a customer -- acquisition cost? What is your customer return rate? Where do your customers come from? Do you know how your customers come to your site -- referrals?
If you don't know this, you should!
Don't say, I hate those annoying pop-ups. As a business owner, you should love them?
Don't be ignorant. Be smart and informed.
--jeff
You need to bear in mind that Google is currently penalising sites that block content using popups on mobile, which accounts for 50%+ of web traffic these days, and has announced it will do so on other platforms shortly. Also, many visitors now block popups at a browser level, I do so myself. I now only recommend using popups on exit.
I've found over many years experience that the majority of my signups come from a non-popup form that gets placed at the bottom of every post.
I highly recommend doing that instead! :)
I don't believe you 'hate' saying that at all, however you were wrong on multiple counts - firstly it was my opinion, not a lecture, and I'm entitled to do that. Whereas you are NOT entitled to be rude to anyone like that.
As for your comment, if you think I was going to read that well, you clearly don't know too much about communication, yet again.
Don't be rude Jeff, or bashing someone for a legitimate opinion and asking a question. Notice I never did follow you, and I'll be leaving it that way - no response required on your part.
"your ignorance shows" = a troll comment jeffrey262, stop it now.
All the intricacies of understanding google, page ranking, building authority, and being penalized. People think putting a website in the internet is simple and will earn you a boat load of money.
It's a lot more difficult than you think. Wait until you setup Facebook ads. Don't waste your money on Google Adsense or any other providers. FB is where you should focus your efforts.
Create yourself a landing page, use keywords, don't distract your views with anything else but your primary message. Have not other click bait but your CTA. Make sure you have 3 CTA's.
Want other help. Reach out to me.
Google Adsense is something else than Facebook Ads. Google AdWords would be more like the comparison in that.
But I am not sure whether Facebook Ads do anything good. It feels that you have to buy the visibility inside of it. It feels actually like you need to put a lot of money in for the little visibility. But I suppose it might work.
My experience sofar is people seeing the post--- reading the post maybe.. maybe not.. and in most cases just clicking on like and leaving it again.
But I will look into it again in some time.
Thanks!
Steven
CTA Stands for CAll To Action doesn't it? I agree with you, and either Jay Neill or Kyle or Carson or somebody needs to do a special tutorial on Facebook do's and Don't for I have learned the hard way that when you are a psychic as I am, that facebook doesn't like psyhchics to talk about what the Dead have said about who killed them. For then Facebook says that they had to take you off because of suspicious conduct was noticed on your page, and they take you off. So I can't do that type of work on Facebook, and I had over 780 Friends too, and growing. So thank You for the heads up about stay true to the product and sales there within. If I can get on with FB again. I will not do deviate from the products any further. Thanks for the Knowledge.
Ive had good luck driving traffic with FB Ads. You only pay for the traffic. The investment is well worth the rewards as long as you can get them to convert -- the money is all about conversion, right?
If you are seeking organic traffic, it going to take awhile. Watch your analytics.
I have, and they never respond to what I ask of them. So where can I go Jeffrey to petition them?
Do You have an Address that I can go to?
Google might look askance at a site with little content and awash with affiliate links but a few aren't going to hurt any.
The real issue is that many members add affiliate links when they have no traffic, in effect they're advertising to no-one. Given that many affiliate programs will bounce you after a set period of time if you've made no sales with them, it at least pays to wait until you have some traffic before joining affiliate programs.
Hi Richard! I agree and understand your concern in that.
I believe that I have more normal content than money making content. But I have little visitors.. at least on the organic side of things. I have a lot of clicks through social media, but it isn't enough to make money from it. Just a bunch of family and friends and a good deal of followers on twitter (400?).
Probably I will get denied to amazon soon again and then I just have to remove all the links again.
Steven
In my experience, whether you add it in the early stage it doesn't mean that it will be approved immediately. You have to wait for their approval until when they think you are receiving the required traffic . They will assess your site so they know if your site is qualified for affiliate programs.
Hi Jimmy!
Yes that part I am aware of. I have made a profile before and got refused before. In the course material at stage 3 they sort of push you into creating an affiliate program account and put up affiliate links.. whether you got your visitors already on your site or not.. basically you don't have any yet enough to fulfill the requirements.
You can create an account to amazon - you can search products, you can link with affiliate links.. this is all without approval. Because the real approval story comes afterwards.. basically not before you have made 1 sale.
And now I am in my second 180 day period to get approved...maybe. Well if I fall short again, I will remove all links again and than wait until I actually do get visitors.
Thanks for your comment.
Steven
Great information! I am too new to answer your question though, will be checking back to see your feedback on this...Thank You.
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Following too. Jay just mentioned this again in today's live training. I have a resources page with affiliate links, and a couple of posts with affiliate links, but am yet to rank on page 1 yet. Have mostly social media traffic, and a small amount of organic traffic.
I was just following the Certification Training...
Looking forward to some more answers... Who can help?