As many of you who have been reading our ebusiness blog know that we have concluded that a pay-per-click (PPC) program generates far more revenue than affiliate programs for most nano-publishing companies. We believe that affiliate programs benefit the merchant a lot more than the publisher. On the other hand, a PPC program is more of a win-win situation for all parties involved.
That does nto mean, however, that we have given up on affiliate programs altogether. We still are affiliates of over a dozen merchants through LinkShare, Commission Junction, Amazon.com, and ClickBank. The following are some of the secrets of our success with affiliate programs (mind you, the affiliate programs generate a very small percentage of our revenue at this time but we want to get whatever we can out of them):
That does nto mean, however, that we have given up on affiliate programs altogether. We still are affiliates of over a dozen merchants through LinkShare, Commission Junction, Amazon.com, and ClickBank. The following are some of the secrets of our success with affiliate programs (mind you, the affiliate programs generate a very small percentage of our revenue at this time but we want to get whatever we can out of them):
- Use affiliate programs when AdSense does not seem to have any ads (you can generally get a good idea by doing a Google search and see if any ads show on the right sidebar.). For instance, if nothing pops up you can always find a few related books on Amazon. By doing this you are not wasting your real estate on the Internet.
- Use the alternate URL feature of Google Adsense to display affiliate program ads. That way you do not not show public service ads. (Related link: How to substitute public service ads?)
- Clearly label the affiliate program links as advertisements (or whatever term you want to use to distinguish them from links to other pages on your websites). If possible, indicate the cost of the product and anything else that will help the visitor decide if s/he is interested in the product and can afford it. The more information you give, the more chances are that you will not end up losing a visitor who does not do what you want her/him to do (since this is how you get paid). However, by giving this information right in the body of the ad, you are making sure that if the reader is not interested, s/he will stay on your website and visit other pages and hopefully click on other ads. Below is a sample of how we are now putting affiliate program links:
Recommended link: Building a real business with affiliate programs