--------------- Now playing: Save Me, San Francisco by Train ---------------

How do I cloak my affiliate links so they're not so long and confusing?

As you've noted, affiliate links usually aren't pretty. They look something like this:

http://www.domain.com/1224xjn876bhf4vg91x3014js493661

Maybe you'd like to put the link in your e-mail signature or send it to someone, but links like that don't exactly invite someone to click.

There are many different ways to cloak your affiliate links. Here's one of the easiest ways I've found for someone new to affiliate marketing.

Using the GoCodes plugin

There's a great WordPress plugin called GoCodes. Download it at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gocodes. Install it as you would any other plugin (page 106 in the Affiliate Marketing Schoolbook).

Once you set up an affiliate link using GoCodes, it’s going to look something like this:

yoursite.com/go/affiliatelink

You can change the /go/ part to something else under Settings > GoCodes > URL Trigger in your WordPress dashboard, but I just leave it as is. I would also check the Nofollow box there and save your settings.

Then under Tools > GoCodes you can set up the last part of each individual link. Under Redirection Key you’re going to put whatever text you want to come after /go/, which will replace all those digits in the example at the beginning of this post. You can make this whatever you consider to be a good identifier for the link and will help you remember later what you were linking to. Target URL is where you would paste the entire affiliate link, which you got from the merchant or network you are affiliated with. Check whether you want it to track the number of clicks, and Add Redirect. Then you can paste your new affiliate link in e-mails or wherever you want.

So as an example, if your site is weddingveils.com and you choose /go/ as your URL trigger and beadedveils as your Redirection Key, here's what will result:

Instead of: http://www.weddingveils.com/1224xjn876bhf489163014493661

It will be: weddingveils.com/go/beadedveils

Much better, huh? Of course, you can use this plugin as a general redirection plugin for any URL you want to shorten or if you've changed the name of a page and want to direct search engines to the new page, since it creates 301 redirects.

It's that time of year when you can get crazy discounts just about everywhere, and the affiliate marketing world is no different. As I do each year, I'm offering a fantastic Black-Friday-through-Cyber-Monday deal on the Affiliate Marketing Schoolbook that you won't want to miss. Read on for details, but here's a subliminal preview:

50% off

Did you catch that?

It's been pretty quiet here at Skip the Scams because I've put the blog on the back burner while I finish up the second edition of the course. So is the current course still good? Yes. The biggest thing that is changing about the second edition is the screenshots of the various sites you'll be using as you set up your first affiliate marketing site. Sites change their look and their offerings all the time, and it's tough to keep up, but I'm updating all the references in the course to reflect their current state.

There are a few other changes I'm making, as well. For instance, a couple of the plugins or pieces of software that I used to recommend are no longer free. Since part of the goal of the AMS is to get you into affiliate marketing as inexpensively as possible, I found alternative solutions for those issues.

In addition, I've gone into deeper explanations on a couple of the other recommendations that I make in the course or refined them in various ways.

All that said, the fundamental principles of affiliate marketing that the course teaches are still the same, so there's no reason to put off a purchase until the second edition arrives. When it does, anyone who has already purchased the current edition will get the new one for free.

So what's the deal? Get 50% off the Affiliate Marketing Schoolbook until midnight on Monday the 28th by visiting this link: Learn affiliate marketing - and using the discount code halfoff. In fact, the sale starts right now - this minute!

So for the next four days, the normal price of $97 is being slashed to $48.50 - plus you still get the bonuses: a free ebook by Lisa Irby called "20 Ways To Build Traffic To Your Web Site," free hosting for one year, and personal support by e-mail and on the student forum when you have questions.

After Monday, the price goes back to $97, which is still a steal, but if you want to get started in affiliate marketing, now's the time.

P.S. For those who purchased the AMS earlier in November at the regular price, contact me and I'll gladly extend your free hosting for another six months!

I'm happy to welcome Kelli back for a guest post here at Skip the Scams! She has been busy ever since being our first case study subject a while back. I was remiss in checking up on her sooner so my readers could see how it was going. But better late than never, right?

Take it away, Kelli!

Hi everyone, Kelli here, with an update of my first year of affiliate marketing after being Laura’s case study for her affiliate marketing course back in May of 2010. My first year had me learning so much, as well as changing the direction of my blog.

When I originally went with the name FightTheCellulite.com, I thought it would be a good niche for affiliate marketing as well as a problem that needed solving. Over time, I began to see that the majority of cellulite products available weren’t necessarily all they were made out to be. I will not promote or pre-sell a product that I don’t believe in, or that people that I know don’t believe in because of trying a product or treatment themselves.

Because of this, it grew increasingly difficult for me to want to write just about cellulite and cellulite products. I also realized that I began writing more about healthier eating, beauty, simple exercises, and challenges women working from home often face regarding their fitness and dietary lifestyle.

A Couple Big Challenges I Faced

1. Being a California resident, my Amazon Affiliate Contract was terminated due to the state’s new Internet tax law for consumers and California-based marketing affiliates. I have been messing around with the Skimlinks affiliate program to see how that will convert for me on my Amazon links.

2. The second was trying to decide and figure out if I should change the direction of my blog. I needed to figure out if it would be possible to change the domain name, how to go about it, and do a redesign of the layout of my blog. After figuring out it was possible, Laura (such a doll as always), helped me streamline the process through Host Gator.

My Successes

I’m finally calling myself an affiliate marketer because at the eleven-month mark, I made my first commission and continue to do, so albeit in small amounts. Although the amounts have been trickling in, it’s awesome nonetheless.

My traffic also continues to increase each month, and I’ve ranked on page 1 and 2 in Google for all of my keywords! I recently had a skin-care line approach me about reviewing their product in which I’m delighted about – it will be perfect for the direction I’m taking my blog

My New Blog Name

After much thought as well as some rework of what keywords I’m going to target and which ones I still wanted to maintain targeting, I renamed it – WorkAtHomeBeauty.com!  I’m excited about the direction of it not only as a blogger but as an affiliate marketer!

Since beginning this journey, I’ve started two other niche blogs as well. They are on the back burner but ready and waiting for me when time permits. In the meanwhile, they are aging quite nicely and receiving some traffic.

I am also currently working on a fourth site, and soon a fifth site which will be service- and content-provider-type sites. During the past 14 months, I vamped up my writing services to ghostwrite and to provide blog management and content, to “pay the bills,” and because I enjoy researching and writing. I realize the journey to passive income is rarely a quick one!

To this day, I refer to the Affiliate Marketing Schoolbook and am still amazed how jam-packed full of truly solid information it has. This course is 253-plus pages of step-by-step action for you to take in your journey into affiliate marketing and I can't recommend it enough. This entire experience has opened up a whole new world for me. I'm extremely pleased with all that I've learned and accomplished.

--------------------------

Laura's comments: I'm very proud of how Kelli has stuck with it in spite of some ups and downs common to almost every affiliate marketer. There were no doubt times it had to be on the back burner, either because life happens or because she was focusing on more immediate methods of making an income, but she didn't give up. That way her affiliate marketing income could slowly be growing in the background rather than lying completely dormant.

I asked Kelli how much social media marketing, article marketing, and guest posting she'd been doing, since those are three of my favorite ways to publicize my sites, get backlinks, and network with others. She said she hasn't done any guest posting yet (until today, that is ), and that she hasn't actively done the other two methods in the past few months.

So she is getting the majority of her traffic from search engine traffic, but that's great, because those are likely buyers looking to buy, but overall, she would no doubt get more traffic and more money rolling in if she were able to do more off-site promotion, which she said she is planning to do. If a new affiliate marketer is able to spend some serious time on that off-page search engine optimization, they would see commissions much sooner than 11 months. And Kelli gave me permission to say that — I didn't want her thinking I think she's a slacker! I just wanted readers to know exactly what factors were or weren't in play in Kelli's situation.

She is planning on setting up a Facebook page soon and is working on a free report as well in order to begin building her mailing list. So she's definitely still chugging along on the right track and getting better all the time! Thanks, Kelli, for the update — and y'all come back soon, now, ya hear?

Copyblogger

http://www.copyblogger.com/

This site is basically about how to write for your site and addresses the following major topics: Copywriting, content marketing, SEO copywriting, e-mail marketing, keyword research, landing pages, and Internet marketing.

ClickNewz

http://www.clicknewz.com/

Lynn Terry is the real deal. She's fun, enthusiastic, and knows her stuff.

We Blog Better

http://weblogbetter.com/

Lots of interesting and helpful articles to assist you as you blog your way to an income.

Joel Comm

http://joelcomm.com/

One of the good guys, Joel is fun to read and definitely can teach you a lot.

Ask Dave Taylor

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/

This site isn't about Internet marketing, per se, but it's a great source of answers for your technical questions relating to social media, your computer, and much more.

--------------- Now playing: Independent Women Pt. 1 by Destiny's Child ---------------

I've always had a hard time organizing my to-do lists, and therefore my desk, and therefore my brain, and therefore my life. I've gone through several methods without finding one that works consistently.

For some reason, I often find it hard to concentrate on the tasks I think I've prioritized for the day because I'm always worrying that there's an Even More Important Task that I'm forgetting about. At the end of the day sometimes, I don't have the tasks I thought were most crucial done because I was feeling scatter-brained, but I never did think of the Even More Important Task either, so in the end nothing really got done. That just doesn't compute.

That is not how to be productive, my friends.

I may have happened across a solution recently—time will tell, but so far, I like it. It's called Stixy.com. No idea how the name is relevant to the function, but whatever.

Things I've tried

In the past, the three main methods I've used have failed miserably: 1) a mental list (hahahahahahaha, that's a good one), 2) Entourage, and 3) Post-It notes.

There's no need to expand on why #1 didn't work. Does that work for anyone?

The second option, Entourage (my e-mail client), was nice for some things, such as sending me reminders that I could schedule, and giving me plenty of room to elaborate on the details of each note, but I'm having a couple of serious problems with it.

It isn't visual. And it's not that I'm the kind of person who goes around saying, "I'm a visual person, I need to see something to understand it," but for this particular purpose, lack of visual organization was a definite drawback.

Also, Entourage has been acting flaky lately, and has been giving me "your database is damaged" messages. Those are scary. I am backing up my inbox as often as I can. It would be catastrophic enough to lose all the messages I have yet to deal with, but to lose all my notes too might just put me over the edge sanity-wise.

The third option, sticky notes and other sundry pieces of paper, are my automatic tendency. They covered my desk (all three of my desks, actually). It's natural for me to grab a piece of paper and a writing instrument to jot down a to-do item or a list of any sort. But although it's visual, it's not easy to organize. Post-Its don't often stay sticky long enough, for one thing. Amazing how cat hair can affect stick-to-itiveness. (Of course, if they made Post-Its using cat hair as the adhesive, they might be on to something.)

In addition, I would always find myself rewriting my notes in order to consolidate the number of pieces of paper as things would get crossed off the various notes. Or there'd be too much to fit on the size of paper I chose for a certain item. Or something. It was always something.

So I've been doing some searching for online or digital organizers. I tried Evernote, and it is working well for some things. I do like how it syncs my iMac with my iPhone. But it's not as visual as I would like either.

A virtual bulletin board

A search for "virtual whiteboards" led me to MindManager and Stixy. MindManager, although it looked interesting, was not free, and that disqualified it, because I'm too cheap to spend money on something like that when I could continue using Post-Its for free. (I have a zillion Post-It pads in a drawer left over from a previous failed business; I won't have to pay for new ones for a long, long time.)

So that left Stixy.com. I like how it's built on a visual layout which is basically like Sticky notes on a whiteboard, except they stay put and you don't get marker on your hands.

It requires a free sign-up, and you do have to sign in to their web site to use your personal Stixy board(s). I guess that's ideal in a way because it's not sitting on your own hard drive, subject to lightning strikes or other hard drive failures, etc., but I do need to look into whether it's backed up anywhere other than their servers, which could also get hit with an errant bolt of lightning, just for my peace of mind.

You create a Stixy board for each category, sort of like you might have separate whiteboards for separate projects. For example, I have 6 right now:

1. My local web design business
2. Affiliate marketing
3. Other income streams
4. Personal
5. Computer stuff
6. Recurring tasks

You can see them listed on the left in the above screenshot. When you click on one, it loads that particular "bulletin board."

Mostly I use the "notes," which are the various colored columns you see above. You can determine the color, font, and other features of your notes.

I also use the "to-do's," which are little calendar dates. Once you create a to-do you can set it to e-mail you a reminder at a predetermined amount of time before it's actually due, which is great.

You can also add documents to Stixy by dragging the "document" widget to the board area. Photos work the same way, but I haven't needed to put any photos up yet.

You can share your board with others or keep it private. It auto-saves your work every 30 seconds, or you can save at any point as well.

The board is quite wide and tall—I haven't explored its limits yet, but I don't think I would run out of room because I already have tons of stuff on it and it's nowhere near full.

I've found it helps to have it auto-open in a tab every day. For instance, in Firefox you can "pin" tabs to your browser so they'll open automatically every time you start up Firefox. Then I can easily check the tab at any point during the day.

So far, I'm feeling much less stressed by things I might be forgetting. It's all on the board, baby!

--------------- Now playing: Cold by Crossfade ---------------

You probably would like to integrate your affiliate links rather seamlessly into your web site posts or articles. This is good practice, not only from a design perspective, but also because you want your affiliate links to be placed where they'll be noticed and convenient for your readers but without disrupting the flow of your article.

As an example, which GoDaddy affiliate link looks better in the article you're reading right this minute, the first one or the second one? (If they look exactly the same, you may be viewing this post in an e-mail message or an RSS reader. Click on the headline of this article to view it directly on my site. Also, if all you see are text links, the images just haven't loaded yet.)

That's right: the second one looks much more professional. The first one makes your site (well, in this case my site) look amateurish and as if it's kind of broken, possibly causing your readers to feel less confident that they're going to find the solution to their problem at your site. You may think it shouldn't matter, and maybe it shouldn't, but how your site presents itself can have a great effect on its ability to convert visitors to customers.

Wrapping the text is pretty easy in WordPress—all you have to do is choose Left, Center, or Right under Alignment when you insert an image in your post (choosing None under Alignment will result in the first example above, with the text above and below the image). If you're not using WordPress, though, and need to know how to wrap it yourself, here's an easy way to wrap text around an affiliate link neatly, as in the second example.

We're going to use a little HTML and CSS to accomplish this, but don't be scared. It's quite simple, and once you understand how to do it, you're going to find lots of uses for this technique.

In a nutshell, there are two components in making CSS manipulate elements of your design: First you put a rule in the CSS stylesheet that describes how an element on your page should behave, and then you "call" that rule in the HTML that surrounds the item you're trying to manipulate. You might think of the HTML code as "activating" the CSS rule.

The CSS

Let's create a CSS class will tell the text how to wrap. You create a "class" when you need a rule that can apply to several instances (as opposed to an "ID," which can only apply once per page). You may have many affiliate links on a page or site that you want to have the text wrap around in the same manner, so that's why we need a class. Here's how it will look:

.affwrapper {
float: right;
margin-left: 10px;
}

We'll talk about where to put this code in a minute, but first let's discuss its contents. A class begins with a period. Name your class something that tells you what it IS, not just what it DOES. I would use something like "affwrapper" as shown above, short for "affiliate link wrapper," as opposed to something like "alignright," so you know what it's being used for later when you've forgotten what you were trying to do. "Alignright" is too generic. You'll always know that the class "affwrapper" is wrapping text around affiliate links.

Make sure you have an opening bracket { before the actual instructions. It can even be on its own line if you want; it doesn't matter.

The float: right; part tells the browser that the image should be aligned with the right side of your post. The margin-left: 10px; part tells it to leave 10 pixels of space between the left edge of the image and the right edge of the text that's going to wrap around it.

Make sure you keep the semi-colons in place after each line. Then put a closing bracket }.

This may seem complicated at first, but you can definitely copy and paste these bits of code into a document named something like "how to wrap text around images" and put it where you can access it the next time you need to do this so you don't have to type it from scratch each time you use it. And you will be able to type it from scratch before long.

It's also helpful to put a comment line above the code so that later, you'll have an extra hint to help you remember what it's for. As you experiment more with CSS, you'll be glad you inserted these little reminders.

/*WRAPS TEXT AROUND AFFILIATE LINKS*/

The /* and */ are like blinders for the browser; it won't try to execute whatever's between those two things. So your final CSS will look like this:

/*WRAPS TEXT AROUND AFFILIATE LINKS*/
.affwrapper {
float: right;
margin-left: 10px;
}

Now, where to put it? You need to find the stylesheet for your theme. If you're using the default WordPress theme, you will find it in your WordPress dashboard under Appearance > Editor. Click on style.css in the right-hand column. (If you use Thesis, as I do, it will be under Thesis > Custom File Editor in the left-hand column.)

It would be best to put this code in the relevant section, such as Content—the content section begins with this code):

/* =Content
-------------------------------------------------------------- */

But if you're not sure, you can just scroll down at paste it at the end. Make sure you click Update File and you're done with this part!

Additional options

Obviously, if you want to have your images aligned on the left side instead instead or you wanted a greater space between the image and the text, you would simply change the CSS to read like this:

/*WRAPS TEXT AROUND AFFILIATE LINKS*/
.affwrapper {
float: left;
margin-right: 20px;
}

What if you want some affiliate links on the right and some on the left? Then just create two separate classes. You can use the same code as above except you'll have to name the two of them differently (you can use the hyphen as I have to make it easier to read, but you don't have to):

/*WRAPS TEXT AROUND AFFILIATE LINKS*/
.affwrapper-right {
float: right;
margin-left: 10px;
}

/*WRAPS TEXT AROUND AFFILIATE LINKS*/
.affwrapper-left {
float: left;
margin-right: 20px;
}

As you've probably figured, you could also add other margins. If the text is too close to the bottom of the image, for example, you could add this to the list of instructions:

margin-bottom: 10px;

The HTML

Now you will "call" the desired class in the HTML of your post or page. Make sure you're in the HTML tab and not the Visual tab.

Let's say you have an affiliate link that consists of an image and a URL from Commission Junction. It would look something like this:

<a href="http://www.anrdoezrs.net/sq112cy63y5LPTUMSROLNMPUORPR" target="_blank" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.godaddy.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status=' ';return true;">
<img src="http://www.tqlkg.com/lf115uuymsqBFJKCIHEBDCFKEHFH" alt="Summer Savings! $7.49 .com domains at GoDaddy.com!" border="0"/></a>

We just need to put a little bit of code in the image HTML to tell it how to display. It'll be in this "img" part of the above code:

<img src="http://www.tqlkg.com/lf115uuymsqBFJKCIHEBDCFKEHFH" alt="Summer Savings! $7.49 .com domains at GoDaddy.com!" border="0"/></a>

We need to insert this:

class="affwrapper-right"

You could put it just about anywhere in there as long as it's not smack dab in the middle of another tag (such as the alt tag), but I like to be consistent and put the class directly after the image link itself. I've marked the image link in red below, and the class in green right after it so you can distinguish it easily:

<img src="http://www.tqlkg.com/lf115uuymsqBFJKCIHEBDCFKEHFH" class="affwrapper-right" alt="Summer Savings! $7.49 .com domains at GoDaddy.com!" border="0"/></a>

And that's it for the HTML portion of this task! Pretty simple, huh? Once you publish or preview your post, you'll see whether what you've done is working or not. If it isn't, check to make sure you haven't left off any quote marks, semi-colons, or brackets. They may not seem important, but they are. Code isn't very forgiving when it comes to punctuation, because punctuation is what it's all about!

Get your feet wet with this basic CSS and HTML, and you may find that the concept of how they work together to dictate the design of your site will start clicking.

--------------- Now playing: Never Say Never by the Fray ---------------

Do I have to write new articles about my niche topic every day or week from now until the end of time? How long will I have to keep coming up with new ideas?

Don't worry! Once you've made a complete site that adequately covers your chosen keywords and provides a well-rounded shopping experience for your visitors, you'll probably be ready to move on to a new site.

You'll still keep an eye on and maintain the first site by adding new information on occasion, whether it's weekly, every other week, monthly, or even more seldom. You may discover additional keywords over time and want to use those for some site content. But you can pour your heart into a new project.

One thing to keep in mind is that your articles needn't be super long. You can stretch out those keywords a little more by keeping posts on the short side but writing more of them. I would recommend they be at least 300 words, which isn't really all that long. This post itself is just over 450 words. It is nice to have some longer, meatier articles, too, and occasionally hit that 1,000-word mark, but it isn't going to break you if your posts are shorter than that.

If you haven't seen it, check out this article on the difference between a "finished" site and a "complete" site.

Once your site is earning, you may consider outsourcing its maintenance or just the writing. You might give the writer the word count desired, the keywords he/she must include, and the product(s) the article will be promoting.

There is no set definition of at what point you can sit back a little and just throw your first site a bone once in a while and start developing your next idea. It varies from person to person and site to site.

How to use keywords in articles, how many keywords and articles you need to have a decent site, and whether your niche is too narrow or too wide are things that a lot of beginners worry about. So you're not alone in your concerns, but let me ease your mind by saying that you are no obligation to work on a site every week or even every month for the rest of your days.

I have sites that I haven't touched in years, and they still bring in a little money every month. No doubt, they'd bring in more if I paid them some attention, but they're niches that I probably wouldn't choose nowadays so I'm just letting them languish for now.

So do your best to make your site complete and worthy of being a stand-alone site, and then start on a new one!

--------------- Now playing: Respect by Aretha Franklin ---------------

Commission Junction is a popular affiliate network for affiliate marketers. With a huge variety of participating merchants, you can usually find something there to promote regardless of your niche.

Here's how to add a product from Commission Junction to your site (instructions apply to wordpress.org; adjust as necessary). This tutorial assumes you already have an account at CJ and have established a relationship with at least one merchant, meaning you have applied to their affiliate program and been accepted.

1. Go to cj.com and sign in to your account.

2. Click on "Get Links By Relationship." You will see a list of all the merchants you are working with.

3. Choose an advertiser and click on "View Products."

4. Type in a keyword or two and click "Find" in order to find products that fit your niche. You can check out the links that appear to find out more about each product and its earning potential.

5. When you've decided which one to promote, click on "Get HTML."

6. In the window that pops up, select the options you want such as whether a click should open a new browser window for your customer and whether to hide the tracking code or encrypt the link. If you've chosen any of these options, click on "Update Link Code."

7. Copy the code that corresponds to the link you want. Some are plain text, some are just an image, and some have both.

8. Go to your WordPress dashboard to the post you're working on. Make sure you're in the HTML tab and paste the code in the desired spot.

9. Resize the photo if necessary, either by dragging one of the corner handles or by clicking on the photo and editing it by changing the pixel sizes under Advanced Settings. (If you change the width, make sure to change the height by the same percentage.)

10. "Update" or "Publish" your post, and you're done!

Customizing the affiliate link

If you're using a photo link and you want to make the text wrap around the photo neatly, insert this right before the HTML code you just pasted in:

<p style="float: left; width: 210px;">

Make the width about 10 pixels wider than the picture. Of course you can use float right if you prefer.

If you chose an affiliate link that consisted of a photo only, it helps to also change the text next to it to make it clear that the accompanying photo is a link to the product, not just a static image.

For instance, you could add something like: “Get your own [item name] like the one pictured here from [merchant name]." Then link that text to the product as well by isolating the URL from the code CJ gave you and making a link like you normally would in a post. That gives customers another chance to click through, which is what you want. Of course, if you're going to add your own text anyway, it might make sense to use the CJ code that already includes text and just tweak it as desired.

It may seem a little complicated at first, but once you've added a few different product links, you'll start to understand the concept and will find it gets much easier. Whenever you write about something, think about what products would help your reader accomplish what you’ve told them in that article. Not that you need to or even should add affiliate links to every article, but do whatever feels like the right amount to you for your particular site, using restraint but at the same time taking advantage of every reasonable opportunity. Try to blend the ads into the articles by wrapping the text around them as I’ve shown – that way they don’t interrupt the flow but are still noticeable.

--------------- Now playing: Eye In the Sky by the Alan Parsons Project ---------------

I've purchased a domain and hosting and changed the domain nameservers. Now I see a mostly blank screen that says "Index of /" and "cgi-bin/" plus some stuff I don't understand in the least. What is that? Have I done something wrong?

Nope, you're doing just fine! An example of that type of page is shown below.

This shows that you changed the domain nameservers correctly. Rather than pointing to a generic page from your registrar (GoDaddy or whatever), it is now pointing to your server.

It's showing you an index of what's on your server. Right now, it's just a folder called "cgi-bin," which is installed by default. Certain scripts that you might use on your site would be put in this folder, but you probably won't need to deal with it directly. As for the line of gobbledygook, it's just server-related stuff that you don't need to worry about, so don't panic.

As soon as you install WordPress, this will be replaced with your WordPress home page. You'll be good to go!

--------------- Now playing: Strawberry Lover by Jess Klein ---------------

What kind of affiliate links should I put on my site? Is there a shape or size that performs better than others? What about text links?

There is no pat answer for this. It depends. The only way you're going to know is by testing.

That said, your best bet for getting commissions may be to put text links in the context of your articles. Not that you shouldn’t have display ads in your sidebar or within your articles, but the problem is that people are often “ad blind.” They tend to ignore—and even mistrust—graphic ads, especially if these appear in sidebars or as a banner above the header.

However, if they’re reading through your article and see your text links for certain product, they’re more likely to click and check it out. It seems more trustworthy to them when they encounter it in that way rather than in what’s obviously an “advertisement.”

So if you find commissions are hard to come by, concentrate on doing more text affiliate links. And when you do use the buttons and banners provided by the merchant (or made by you), try to put them right within an article discussing those specific products rather than in the sidebar.

Another thing to remember: Make sure the photos within your articles link to the merchant’s site as well (making certain your affiliate ID is in the link). This is another "doorway" to the merchant and a possible sale.

You just have to test, test, test. If a certain type of ad never seems to convert, try another. What works well for one web site may not work as well for another.