What is an affiliate link and how to make money from it?

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Affiliate activities can interest content creators as well as marketers, SEO specialists or business owners. For each of them, however, affiliation entails different benefits or tasks. Today, first of all, we will answer the question what is an affiliate link. In addition, we’ll take a look at the general principles of working with affiliate links and look at when they can combine with SEO.

What is an affiliate link?

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However, let’s start with the absolute basics. Affiliate links are unique URLs that:

• • are created in an affiliate network,

• • lead to any sub-site of the advertiser,

• • contain a special tracking code associated with a specific campaign,

• • support sales activities,

• • have affiliate data embedded in them,

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The person sharing the tagged link gets a commission for each completed transaction coming from that hyperlink. The result – higher committed promotional activities, on which the amount depends.

And yes, this is one of the elements of link building strategy. Which means that – if they meet all the requirements – affiliate links can have a positive impact on the position of a given site in Google search results, but this is not their main task.

Affiliate links – 3 main benefits for SEO

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Affiliate links influence, among other things:

• • increase organic traffic – keep in mind that backlinks are an important factor for the search engine algorithm,

• • improve site authority – websites with high authority are more trusted and better ranked,

• • optimize content – good quality text with affiliate links also increase user engagement on the site.

An additional benefit of affiliate efforts is the creative promotion of products, services or events.

What does this mean?

Imagine an SEO specialist who has gathered a loyal audience around him. At some point, he decides to participate in the SENUTO affiliate program. He uses the tool, knows that he can recommend it in good conscience and profit from it in the process. To this end, he creates a dedicated text on a blog or a social media post and places the affiliate link so tagged. Users use it and all parties involved gain. Virtually without any effort.

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How to use affiliate links?

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Affiliate networks and activities with affiliate links (as long as they comply with the program’s terms and conditions) are generally considered legal. So let’s now try to sort out the issues of how to use affiliate links in the context of SEO and for the benefit of SEO.

The rules are actually quite obvious and come naturally from the process of preparing promotional content:

1. 1. Create content that is dedicated and contextually related to the link -everything should be natural and useful. If an affiliate link is about a specific model of shoes, for example, don’t put a link to them in a text about… books.

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1. 1. Avoid too many links – no one likes spam, Google does too.

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1. 1. Stay for quality, not quantity – the main task of affiliate links is to show Internet users valuable products, services or events. Making money from this is a pleasant side effect.

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How to generate an affiliate link?

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A dedicated link with a sewn-in ID assigned to a specific person… It sounds breakneck, and in fact generating affiliate links is very simple and usually closes in five steps:

1. 1. Register with an affiliate program or affiliate platform.

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1. 1. Selecting the product/service to promote.

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1. 1. Selection of link format (e.g. text or graphic).

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1. 1. Copy the generated link.

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1. 1. Paste the link into text or advertisement.

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An important part of operating with affiliate links is also compliance with the program’s terms and conditions – whether you are a publisher or an advertiser. In both situations, make sure that everything you intend to do complies with the guidelines. After all, affiliation is supposed to benefit you, not generate unnecessary stress.

How does an affiliate link look like?

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The answer to the question “how to make an affiliate link?” is one thing. The other is how such a link looks, and it can look uninteresting. Tagged affiliate links armed with, among other things, a number of different parameters are simply very long (and thus visually unattractive).

Typical tags are UTMs:.

• • utm_source – i.e. source of traffic acquisition,

• • utm_medium – i.e., traffic source,

• • utm_campaign – i.e. the name of the campaign,

• • utm_content – i.e. content,

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The above designations are nothing more than tracking codes or modules that collect data for the advertiser and calculate commissions for the publisher. For different affiliate networks, these designations may look slightly different, so it is worth checking the applicable rules each time.

Anchor text vs. affiliate link

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So it is already the case that in the topic of linking it is necessary to think about the form of anchor texts still. An important note is that for affiliate links you have the same choices as usual.

Anchor in affiliate activities can thus be:.

• • the name of the product, service or event,

• • classic CTAi, such as Learn more,

• • brand name,

• • URL,

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The most important thing here is to encourage the user to click, go to the right page and make a transaction. How you achieve this goal is up to you.

Can an affiliate link be hidden?

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There are two different ways to look at such a question.

First – affiliation is an advertising activity and needs to be clearly marked (guidelines created by the OCCP bow!). This needs to be guarded both as a publisher and as an advertiser.

Second – by using a link shortener you can make an extended affiliate link in a text or post on SoMe look much nicer. This, in turn, can make internet users feel more secure. After all, none of us likes to click on suspicious-looking hyperlinks.

Where to place affiliate links?

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The advantage of affiliate links is that they can take various forms, whether text, logos or graphics. And if that weren’t enough… you don’t have to spend too much time or energy figuring out where to put affiliate links. You can do it virtually anywhere!

For publishing affiliate links there are, for example:.

• • blog texts,

• • posts on Facebook fan page,

• • link in bio on Instagram,

• • link in testimonial on Instagram,

• • description of the video on Youtube,

• • descriptions of the episode on podcast platforms,

• • posts on Pinterest,

• • mailing,

• • comments and posts on groups,

• • SMS messages,

• • messages on instant messaging,

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It can be said that all (overt) tricks allowed.

How to promote affiliate links?

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Promoting affiliate links is mainly on the part of the publisher, since it is up to him to make sure that the generated links end up with a transaction on the advertiser’s side and a commission in his account.

The publisher (i.e., the affiliate) himself chooses the means by which he wants to reach his own audience with his content. The important thing is that these should be:

• • adapted to the target audience,

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• • naturally embedded in the context,

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• • bringing real value to the user,

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How to promote affiliate links for free?

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Free ways to promote affiliate links are mainly activities within one’s own site or embedded in already used ways to reach users.

You will do affiliate link promotion for free thanks to:

• • creation of valuable content on the blog – it is enough to write a text or a series of texts matching the advertised product or promoted service.

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• include links in newsletters – if you do this regularly, you can simply add a news section with a link or, when you can afford it, create a dedicated newsletter series that you’ll wake up with content.

In either case, it’s a good idea to develop a communication plan so that you don’t overcharge users with too much produced content of questionable quality. That way, the effect may be the opposite of what you expect.

How to promote affiliate links without a website?

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It often happens that someone wants to promote a product, knows how to do it, but… does not have his own site. In such a situation, is there any point in acting with affiliate links?

The answer – for both the publisher and the advertiser – is: of course, yes. Links can be shared as well:

• • on your social media channels,

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• • as part of paid advertising (although this is not the best solution for beginners),

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• • in email,

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• • through any messenger,

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• • in the descriptions of videos or podcasts,

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The resulting hits to the advertised site will increase traffic, reach a larger audience and positively affect the credibility of the advertiser’s site. The game is therefore worth the candle.

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listen to an episode of the podcast about link building.

Is it possible to make money on affiliate links?

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I’ve already covered several topics related to affiliate programs from an SEO perspective. So let me return for a moment to publishers and the question that very often arises in their minds.

Is it possible to make money from affiliate links!

Of course it is. The condition is simple – you need to engage in promotional activities, encourage people to go to the site of the recommended product or service and, well, show real benefits with concrete examples. Remember, you don’t get a commission for sharing a link, but for a completed transaction that started from your link.

Signing up for specific affiliate programs, not only earns you money, but also develops your creativity. An important feature of this area of marketing is its wide availability. Virtually everyone can earn from affiliate links:.

• • owners of sites,

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• • bloggers,

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• • owners of comparison shopping engines,

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• • webmasters,

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• • SEO specialists,

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• • social media users,

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How to make money from affiliate links?

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Affiliate activities raise many questions. It is not always clear what you should do. Therefore, especially for you, I have prepared a short list of the most important rules related to earning from affiliate links and their promotion.

• • Care for an engaged audience

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Affiliation is based on communities gathered around a particular service or specialist. So if you are thinking about activities of this type, it is good to prepare properly. Promotion that does not reach anyone will not bring profits from affiliate links.

• • Promote sensibly and only what you really recommend

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One follows from the other. People engage in communication from people they trust.

• • Create valuable content around the product or service you are promoting

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In a world where there is constant talk of minimalism, overproduction and similar things, it is difficult to sell anything simply by saying BUY. Therefore, if you care about success, choose creative avenues of creation, share knowledge and show promoted products or services in action.

Of course, the above rules do not apply to comparison sites, discount sites, etc. These spaces are governed by completely different laws, and affiliate links appear there often and thickly.

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Affiliate link sites you should know

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The history of affiliate programs created by brands began with Amazon. Since then, many companies have reached for similar solutions. So it’s worth checking whether the brand you work with has also implemented it. Perhaps you can take advantage of it by conducting link building.

At the same time, there are many special affiliate networks. All you have to do is register there, generate relevant affiliate links and work with promotion. Below you will find some examples – to be checked by both publishers and advertisers!

Popular affiliate networks:

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• • admitad.com

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• • adtraction.com

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• • aff44.com

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• • awin.com

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• • systempartnerski.pl

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• • comperialead.pl

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• • convertiser.com

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• • inis.pl

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• • lead.network

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• money2money.com.pl

Affiliate links and SEO – similarities

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Note that both in affiliation and SEO are important:

• • create unique content,

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• • keeping quality and content high,

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• • creating a natural link profile,

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As you can see, the topic of affiliation itself is quite broad and involves a lot of freedom to implement solutions. If you have an interesting case of affiliate links that you can and want to show, let me know. Sharing knowledge guarantees development and makes our industry more and more effective.