Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 54 Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:30 pm Post subject:
Fabian:
I've kind of wondered about this myself.
I'm building what might be loosely called a Martell-type site. I say "loosely" because I'm sure it violates as many of his rules as it happens to follow, but the overall concept is a site with several product pages and a lot of articles with links back to the product pages.
However, I am putting affiliate links on all of my article pages as well as the product pages. My thinking is, you never know when a user might decide to click something.
There's also a practical reason. Some of my articles provide a logical basis for including affiliate links that would not fit in any of the product pages.
One example:
My site is about tennis. The product page affiliate links go to merchants of tennis rackets, ball machines, tennis shoes, tennis clothes, tennis instruction, etc.
However, one of my articles is about a particular tennis celebrity signing an endorsement deal with a famous watch company. So on that page, I have an affiliate link to an online seller of that company's watches.
I've noticed, too, that the AdSense ads being served up on that page are for that brand of watch.
So maybe some of my visitors will be interested in watches on that particular day, not tennis rackets. Presumably this page will give me maybe my one chance to "catch" them.
I'm not saying Martell is wrong. I may find there's something about doing it my way that will come around to bite. But at this point I can't see what that would be. _________________ Steve Smith
Joined: 12 Sep 2003 Posts: 84 Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:42 pm Post subject:
Keep in mind that James has over 90 websites. Even by only including his affiliate links on 6 pages, there is the potential to have to change over 540 pages by hand.
This was also before he knew about SSI includes. But his strategy has obviously worked for him, and I can't imagine him changing it unless he were to do extensive testing and see a dramatic improvement from those tests.
Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 122 Location: K?nigstein, Germany
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:42 pm Post subject:
StephenNC wrote:
However, one of my articles is about a particular tennis celebrity signing an endorsement deal with a famous watch company. So on that page, I have an affiliate link to an online seller of that company's watches.
Hi, thanks for your thoughts. Your example makes absolutely sense.
And even more: What if I optimize for a specific product? To me it absulutely makes sense to add a deeplink directly to the detail page of the merchant (including my id, of course). Why should I link to the product page from where I link to merchants?
My idea is to add a (deep) link to the merchant in addition with "More of <product category> on the <product page>. So I keep the link to the product page.
Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 122 Location: K?nigstein, Germany
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:46 pm Post subject:
Mike Long wrote:
Keep in mind that James has over 90 websites. Even by only including his affiliate links on 6 pages, there is the potential to have to change over 540 pages by hand.
That might be true, Mike. But, frankly, who else has that many sites? And the manual was not written for him but his customers... And, also, he hast definetly different merchants on each site. So if one program has stopped he might has to change 6x1 pages = 6, not 540.
Joined: 24 Aug 2004 Posts: 97 Location: Down by the sea in NC
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:49 pm Post subject:
Hi Stephen,
Or should I say "Neighbor" as we are both in NC, you in the piedmont and me on the coast.
I have wrestled with this myself as I'm building a string of Martell-type sites, of which I have my first two online at present. I agree with you as to the pros of adding affiliate links to article pages. It would be logical and, hopefully, profitable, to weave one or two affiliate links in the course or at the end of an informative article.
But, I also see problems. I think the problem Martell states is valid. If you have 10 or 20 or 50 sites, and your affilate company changes links or offers or whatever, that's a lot of little links you're going to have to track down and change. For somebody like me who's not a programmer (if there's a way to automate it), it would be a HUGE task. My idea was to take the links and do a .htaccess redirect but I've not found anyone who knows whether it would be viable to do this type of redirect using the standard LONG affiliate link. Most affiliate links done using .htaccess are the shorter version like this: http://www .affiliatesite.com/myid
So, I'm open for suggestions. I haven't added affiliate links to any pages other than my product pages but I would love to do so.
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 54 Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:05 pm Post subject:
Hi, Gail.
etcetera wrote:
Or should I say "Neighbor" as we are both in NC, you in the piedmont and me on the coast.
Wish I was on the coast. I grew up on the Alabama coast (yes, it does have one).
etcetera wrote:
But, I also see problems. I think the problem Martell states is valid. If you have 10 or 20 or 50 sites, and your affilate company changes links or offers or whatever, that's a lot of little links you're going to have to track down and change.
I think this is one of those things I've filed away in the back of my mind to worry about later. "Tomorrow IS another day," as Scarlet said.
But I'm probably making a lot of trouble for myself down the road. Not only do I have different affiliates scattered through the pages (with many more to come), but the links are product-specific wherever possible. So, on the Tennis Racquets page, the link to XYZ Sports Equipment goes to their racquets. On the Tennis Shoes page, the link to XYZ goes to their shoes. Etc.
I figured I could get one of those site checking programs that report broken links (as well as orphan pages, graphics, etc.). At least then I would know at a glance which links I needed to go in and fix and which ones were still working. But maybe such a program wouldn't work on affiliate-type links. ???
etcetera wrote:
My idea was to take the links and do a .htaccess redirect but I've not found anyone who knows whether it would be viable to do this type of redirect using the standard LONG affiliate link. Most affiliate links done using .htaccess are the shorter version like this: http://www .affiliatesite.com/myid
And I'm a complete dummy on this. I've been working on web pages in one capacity or another since 1996 and I have no idea what an .htaccess is or how to implement it. Something else to bone up on!
etcetera wrote:
PS Your site, and your daughter's site, are great...very clever and well done!
My daughter's site was fun but ultimately it ground to a halt as far as my adding to it. It was labor intensive, as is the tennis site, but I've planned the tennis site to be pretty much completed one day and then to require only routine maintenance. My daughter's site was intended to be more open-ended, and finally I realized I couldn't countinue putting that much work into it. It was not really optimized to make money even though that was its ultimate purpose (making money for my daughter's dream trip, that is). We continue to get a few dollars from it and maybe one day I'll do some more to it. (My daugther keeps bugging me to at least update her age in the introduction!). ... But thanks for the nice words about it.
I use Affiliate Diamond to do my PHP redirect pages. One of my sites is about Dungeons and Dragons (tabletop role-playing game). On this site, I plug the Player's Handbook. I link to players-handbook.php. That has my affiliate link etc.
If that link changes, then all I have to do is update the PHP file. This change will then reflect on every page on my site.
The above message is probably completely harsh and tactless; I don't have time to hold your hand if you ask for help. I give it straight. Hang in there, work hard, and you'll get there though!
I generally keep the affilate links on the product pages but sometimes I make an exception if an article really ties into a particluar affiliate program.
One question I have for people - on the product pages, you have your h1 header, your content and then your affiliate links below that.
The question - do you guys use a bolded phrase above the affiliate links (like I've seen martell do) as a header above them or do you use an h2 header?
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