Last time I discussed one way to make money online is through referral links on your site. These were called Cost Per Action (CPA) and usually bring in large profits sporadically. When you’re site grows then you’ll start to get more sales and thus more commission. Eventually this commission will be your highest earner and account for most of your profit. If you’ve built your site correctly!
You can build your site correctly by ensuring you follow a couple of key things when making posts.
Products related to the content
When placing referral links on your site they should be targeted to the content of the post. Nobody is going to click on a link for jelly beans when the blog is about mountain biking. In all fairness, some people are going to click on the link. However, the chance that this person converts into a sale will be very low.
However, if you had a mountain bike website and you discussed certain products you use or have heard of people using. This is much more likely to get clicks. For example: if you upload neat Google Earth images then a post dealing with your GPS unit or other GPS units then you’re much more likely to get a commission sale.
Links in the text / Selecting the right image
The second key is having links in your text rather then only having banner ads. I’ve also found that it helps if you can have your text link target correctly in the post. For example if I was linking to Jelly Belly I’d make a link when writing a post similar to the following
Jalapeno Jelly Belly’s are a great way to trick your friends into eating something spicy.
This is much better then the following
Jelly Belly Hodge Podge! The best of the rest!
Jalapeno flavor is a great way to trick your friends into eating something spicy
I realize that this is a fairly silly example. However, when searching for a link to use it’s worth spending a bit of extra time to find the correct text for your link.
Selecting Quality Stores
Ensuring that you select the right stores to market is just as important as the product. I’ll definitely make a lot more sales promoting Jelly Belly then if I was promoting Bean Candy (fake name, don’t know if it exists, just using as an example). People know and trust Jelly Belly so would feel much more comfortable making a purchase from their store.
Try to ensure that you do these things when using referral links in your posts. I also try to ensure that I have at least a post or two that DOESN’T have referral links in it. It’s VERY important to make sure your site doesn’t look like it’s just trying to pimp products. You’ll definitely lose readers if you are just continually promoting product after product (Unless of course your site is based upon reviewing products).
1 Comments until now.
Good writing. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed my Google News Reader..
Matt Hanson
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