Today’s Make Money Online Tip
Do YOU promote affiliate links?
If not, you should! Affiliate links make it possible to earn money from OPP (other people’s products)…and can range from ebooks and software to ANYTHING (as in, ANYTHING) you can imagine at Amazon.com or eBay.com or the other big huge Names.com etc.
Well! That being said, one way to increase your future commissions is to cloak the blasted affiliate link referrer!
You see, if you leave it stark naked and open, folks who read your recommendations can see your link, substitute THEIR affiliate ID for yours, and BAM, bye bye your commission.
I am continuously shocked at how often even smart savvy marketers online will miss the boat on this one.
Now, sure, you can pay for affiliate link cloaking (more on that below). But you can also do it for free! We have some great threads about that over at our community:
My favorite way to cloak links is to simply use a PHP redirection script that has only 4 lines like so:
<?php
$URL="http://lingstar.empiredow.hop.clickbank.net/";
header ("Location: $URL");
?>
The first line starts PHP, the second line is the affiliate link, the third line sends the visitor TO said affiliate link, the 4th line closes the PHP.
Here is the script in action:
http://www.barbaraling.com/learnmore/eempire.php
You’ll notice there’s no way to see from the file just WHAT is my affiliate link.
Now, if you’d prefer an already-packaged solution (for wordpress no less!), you can check out:
- Ninja Affiliate – this is a must-have for cloaking past, present and future affiliate links in your WordPress blog. Really useful interface as well!
Remember, if you’ve done all the work to promote an affiliate link…you truly deserve the credit. Take advantage of affiliate link cloaking – your income’s fitness will thank you for it!
Enjoy,
Barbara Ling
PS – another good tip to make money with your online business endeavors is to check out my blueprint, Income Fitness – it gives you the step-by-step process you need to showcase yourself as THE authority in your niche (as well as optimize your site to meet all of your own personal needs). Click on the book below to see!
"Hey there, thanks so much for stopping by! If you
enjoyed this article, please do feel free to tell your
friends about it or use those nifty neato social icons
above to spread the word. I love sharing great info,
and would really appreciate it...thanks!"
-- Barbara Ling
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great tip, Barbara. I used to be a member of WealthyAffiliate University and enjoyed their link cloaking service. When I left, I swtiched to the php solution you mentioned and added an extra layer:
The $URL variable points to a url-shortening service!
Two benefits: first, the hyperlink can be reused, as can the shortened link (find a service that allows you to edit the long link); second, I now have tracking!
I really like the time-saving first benefit. If a campaign isn't performing well, I just go to the shortening service and swap out landing page urls!
Inspired by WealthyAffiliate, I keep track of all this in a handy Excel spreadsheet
I don't record the tracking info, just the php folder location, the short link and the landing page.
Cheers,Mitch
Mitchell Allen recently posted..Who Do You Know
Nice!! I’ll have to look into tracking stuff like that, good idea!