More Commissions

Can You Say, "....More Commissions"

Sadly, human nature being what it is, as an affiliate you are not receiving all the commissions you have earned. There are a couple of reasons for this and we will examine these and discuss how simple changes can make you smile and say "more commissions".

How many times have people "cut off" your affiliate code when using your link - meaning you will never be credited with that commission? Here's an example:

http://www.affiliatedomainename.com/joe349.html

When your affiliate link is presented in your ad as above, someone decides that this program is worth looking into, but they type in their browser,

http://www.affiliatedomainname.com

... and sign up for the program --- frustrating, isn't it? But if ignorance is bliss, then blissful you are because you never knew that 40% of your efforts have been stolen. This type of person is really a low life in my opinion... someone who has not reaped any riches on the Internet, and spitefully retaliates. Likewise his twin who not only cuts your affiliate extension off but inserts his own when he runs across one of your "paid for" advertisements. If you scheduled and paid for six months; consider how many commissions may have been credited to this moron.

Almost as important as the 40% commission payments you are forfeiting, is the fact that readers of your advertisements are not very impressed with a link that looks this:

http://affiliatesite.com/cgi-bin/21345/workforme.html

But we can change that to http://www.easytoremember.com and even though you are an affiliate of the program "affiliatesite.com", it certainly doesn't appear that you are. This shorter, more professional link produces a 327% increase in the number of people who click on it in an email message, discussion board, or advertisement because it would appear that you are the owner of the site. But more importantly, it is cloaked; permanently hidden from your visitors as well as would be thieves.

No one online remembers your name and charm. They only remember your program, your website. Make it easy to remember, make it short, make it readable!

If you have done some affiliate work, you already know that normal affiliate links are almost impossible to have indexed for major search engines. By setting up a "forwarding domain" (a cloaked URL) as in the above example, they are not only index-friendly but bookmarkable. And -- your are rid of the long URL, forever.

A bonus for this is "tracking ability". I not only cloak my affiliate link with an easy to remember phrase, but I can add a tracking code and eliminate another piece of those long, ugly links that are vital for recording your ROI (return on investment). Thus my new URL would look like this: http://www.myad.easytoremember.com and replace the word "myad" with "powerad" or "safead" or any other name I make up to tell me where my sales results are coming from (and where they're not!).

In summation, you can start getting more traffic through better search engine indexing, and more affiliate commissions using an affiliate "stealth" marketing tool. No affiliate should be without it.

About the Author: Smith has published numerous articles and writes a blog for all artists: http://the-self-taught-artist.com/blog.html She also coaches new students on how to leave the time-for-money trap and set up Leveraged Income for life. http://thepermanentventure.com/dcc.htm If you can’t sing or ride a bull, you better learn how to make your money work for more money.