Launch an Affiliate Program to Build Your Links

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

There are many white hat ways to build relevant inbound links, but there is one method of link building that is almost guaranteed to build you links if you do it the right way. I am talking about building an affiliate program. But you do have to do it the right way. Remember, I always recommend building your offsite search engine optimization efforts (link building) from many different relevant sources over time. Launching an affiliate program can be another excellent way to build your inbound links to your website. So what is the right way?

Let’s first talk about the wrong way. Don’t go to one of the third-party affiliate program sites like Commission Junction. It doesn’t matter how good they are at managing affiliate programs. Any links that point to your affiliate program pages will be redirected through your affiliate manager’s website so they can track clicks. That will give them the link juice, not you. So I recommend that you build your own affiliate program. Let’s not forget that building a proper affiliate program can produce an additional excellent source of leads and sales for your business.

What you do is build an affiliate sign up page where you capture the pertinent data from your affiliates. Then you’ll need to assign an affiliate ID number. There are methods for doing this and you can Google it, but once you do that then you’ll want to include the affiliate ID number of each of your affiliates as a parameter in your landing page. Also, be sure to have an excellent commission structure (cost per lead, percentage of sales or cost per sale) affiliate program. If you don’t offer affiliates an excellent commission structure then they will not link to your website.

When you build an affiliate program this way you’ll get inbound links to your website. Use a third-party service and someone else will get the benefit those inbound relevant links.