Affiliates earn commission when someone clicks on their affiliate link and purchases the product they are promoting. Links are placed within content, and driving traffic to that content is the affiliate’s top priority.
The goal is to increase visitors and traffic so that the affiliate can maximize earnings. If you’re just getting started with affiliate marketing, you may be wondering how to add affiliate links to your website. This guide will help you understand how affiliate links work and where to place them.
What Are Affiliate Links?
Affiliate links are links that direct visitors to an offer page or product that the affiliate is promoting. These are special links that contain the affiliate’s username or ID. The ID or username is used for tracking purposes, so the affiliate can earn commission if the person who clicked the link buys the product.
Affiliates are responsible for managing their own links.
Types of Affiliate Links
Before you learn how to add affiliate links to website content, you first have to understand the different types of affiliate links:
- Webmaster: These are affiliates who own their own websites. They create content for their websites that contain affiliate links. The content is typically centered on the product they’re trying to promote and the niche itself.
- Search: These are links that are placed on search engines, paid advertising or social media advertising (e.g. Facebook ads).
- Influencers: These are affiliates who reach out to influencers and have them write about the product they are promoting. Their links are placed on the influencer’s blog to drive traffic and, hopefully, conversions.
- Reviews: These affiliates build websites that review products in hopes of having visitors make a purchase.
- Email: Many affiliates engage in email marketing to promote products and earn commission. Their affiliate links are placed in these messages.
- Social media: Some affiliates use their social media accounts to promote products. This can be an effective way to grow your affiliate marketing business because your audience (your followers) is constantly growing.
- Referral: Some affiliates use referral links to earn commission from referral sales.
Many affiliates go the route of creating a website or review site to place their affiliate links on. This gives them control over the content their links are placed in and the amount of traffic funneled to their website.
There are many types of affiliate links, but they all have one aim: to sell a product and earn commission.
How to Get Affiliate Links
Now that you understand the different types of affiliate links, you may be wondering how you get links. The answer is simple: sign up for an affiliate program.
Once you sign up for an affiliate program, you will have the option of creating your affiliate links. It’s important to understand the rules when it comes to link creation. Otherwise, you may not earn commission from sales.
There are a few different ways to create your link:
- With some programs, you can simply add your unique affiliate ID to the end of any URL for a product.
- Some programs have a link generator that will automatically create the URL with your ID or username.
- If you want to create a referral affiliate link, you may be able to append the URL to add the affiliate’s ID.
- Some affiliates cloak their links. This simply shortens the URL to make it look prettier.
Before you can start creating links, you must find a program to join. Some programs require approval before joining, but most only require a simple sign-up process.
Once you have signed up, the affiliate program will provide instructions on how to create links to earn commission. Make sure that you follow these instructions carefully so that you don’t miss a chance to earn commission.
Which Links Work Best?
When learning how to add affiliate links, you may be wondering what type of links work best. The placement of the link is what’s most important. The right placement will maximize conversions and boost your earnings.
The type of link that works best will depend on the product, your niche and your following. Some affiliate marketers find that social media links work best, while others have more success building their own websites. There is no right or wrong answer. It’s up to you to find a placement that works best.
Some of the most effective places to add affiliate links include:
Blog Posts or Articles
Most affiliates find that links placed in blog posts or articles are the most effective. The content must be relevant and engaging to have high conversions.
Many affiliates spend a great deal of time and resources ensuring that their blogs, websites or review sites contain high-quality content that will convert visitors.
Site Sidebar
Affiliates will often place their links or graphic advertisements containing their affiliate links in their website sidebar. This is an effective placement for your link because visitors will see it and be enticed to click on it.
eBooks
Many affiliates create eBooks and place their links inside of them. This is a great way to drive traffic and increase conversions, especially if the eBook offers valuable, relevant content. There are many opportunities to add links to eBooks, especially long books. In many cases, there are opportunities to promote more than one product within an eBook.
Videos
If you create video content, you can add your affiliate link to the video description or the video itself in some cases. This gives you yet another avenue to earn commission and build your affiliate marketing business.
Affiliate links can typically be added to any type of content that you create. Many affiliates try out different types and placements to find out what works best for their niche.
Conclusion
Wondering how to add affiliate links to your website? Once you have created your link, either manually or through an automatic generator, you can experiment with different placements to see what works best.
It’s important to read the affiliate program’s rules to ensure that you’re not breaking their terms or adding your links to places or in ways they prohibit.