8 replies to this topic

[Dr.Marie]

About a year ago I looked into offering an affiliate program. I purchased a self hosted in house program and set it up. Then, when talking in an affiliate marketing forum I got convinced to give Share A Sale a try.

My SAS sales have been very unrewarding. It cost me $500 to join. In the last year I have brought in $150 from affiliate sales via SAS. Now, I'm at the point where I need to pay about $25 a month to stay in the program and I'm not making close to that, so it doesn't make sense to continue with it.

I'm thinking of going back to the in house program. The drawback of course is that I need to do manual payouts each month for those who meet the payment thresholds. I don't think that would take too long.

One of the things that this in house program offers is "SEO-Links" where the links point back to your site with your chosen anchor text. I could be wrong, but isn't this against Google's TOS? Could I get in trouble for using this?

The other option, of course is to go with no affiliate program.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[jonbey]

Google do say that any "paid link" should be nofollow, and I am pretty sure that includes affiliate links. Basically, if there link is there to make money and not because it is a genuine "vote" for a website, then they do not want it boosting the organic search rankings.

What is your product?

[Dr.Marie]

Thanks Jon, that's what I thought about the affiliate links.

My "product" is veterinary advice. I answer questions for free, but if you'd like an answer within 24 hours, (or immediately if I am online) then there is a fee.

(Don't worry, I have the legal aspects of giving advice online covered - I always get asked that when I explain what I do).

[jonbey]

Maybe some more traditional advertising on related site would work better? I only really do anything with ebooks now as far as affiliates are concerned.

Now if you wrote a series of ebooks, around 50-100 pages each, on "how to look after your ...." for all the main pets, then you could probably make some good money if you marketed them right.....

[DonnaFontenot]

e-junkie.com might work better for you. At the level you're at, the $5/mo. option would probably work. Once a month, you go do a one-click thingy to pay all the affiliates you owe for the previous month. Not too difficult.

[Dr.Marie]

Thanks guys,

Now if you wrote a series of ebooks, around 50-100 pages each, on "how to look after your ...." for all the main pets, then you could probably make some good money if you marketed them right.....

Interesting...You reminded me that I actually did write an ebook and when I redesigned my site I never got around to putting it back on. I'm getting way more traffic than I did before my redesign, so I think it's worth a try again. It's a darn good book...I put a lot of hours into it!

if you market them right.....

Hmmm...how do I know if I am marketing them right?

[jonbey]

Well, the books I sell are generally sold through Clickbank. Most sellers pay 75% commission, which means that you get a lot of people interested in promoting them for you, much more so than if you sold through Amazon (who I think take about 60% anyway!).

[Dr.Marie]

How much do you pay to have your book listed on Clickbank?

[EGOL]

:offtopic:

One of my friends has a number of books, lists and videos that he sells on his site.

I always tell him that if I had those books and videos I would publish the information on html article pages. All of that information would attract tons of links, the pages would earn advertising money, and I would be relieved from the hassle of being a merchant for them.

Imagine his site with a bunch of eBooks for sale and my site with all of that info available for free. Who will earn more links? Who will rank higher? Who will have more traffic, more tweets, more likes, more recomments? Who will have a website with a higher reputation among visitors?

IMO he is selling his rankings - not the books.

Now... if you already dominate your niche and don't have to worry about links because all of your content ranks at TopSERPs then I think you are in a great position to sell your information. (until some competitor buys your books and rewrites them into website content). Falling short of that you might be better off using the content of the books to beat the pants off of your competitors.

Just my two cents on the topic.

Edited by EGOL, 26 March 2011 - 09:16 PM.