As I continue to clean up hundreds of my affiliate links after losing my Amazon Associates account, I am using new methods to update and add new links. The first step that I am taking is to start an affiliate link journal to track all of the various links that I have published. This journal (using Microsoft Access) will allow me to see where I have placed all of my links and help me keep my internet marketing campaigns organized.
The next step that I am taking to improve my affiliate links is to start updating the titles of my links. Whether it be an affiliate link placed in some of my eHow articles, niche sites, or other various online content – creating reusable titles will help reduce the amount of time required to maintain these links in the future. In order to make internet marketing a viable passive income stream, I believe this is a necessary step that will payoff in the future.
So what exactly do I mean by creating reusable affiliate link titles?
Create Reusable Affiliate Link Titles
Creating reusable titles in your affiliate links will allow you to quickly change out the url that is behind the link with little impact to your content. For example, if I were promoting a new eBook, I would make the title generic enough that it is not directly specific to the product. Here is an example of what an old title may have looked liked compared to a new generic title for selling a new eBook on how to make money from eHow.
- Old Title – “How to Make Money on eHow – A step by step guide to making $1,000 per month”
- New Title – “Earn over $1,000 per month on eHow!”
The titles above are fictitious examples of promoting an eBook on making money from eHow. The Old Title was an example using the the fictitious eBook title. If I ever decided to change out this product, I would need to go back in to the link and change the title. Using a generic title would allow me to simply change the link. Obviously the title is still specific to ways to earn money on eHow, but I can now quickly switch out the product or service in the link with no impact to the title.
Exceptions to the Rule
Obviously there are exceptions to this technique depending on the situation. If I were promoting the Amazon Kindle Reader for example, I would probably use the name of the product in that case. In the case of selling a specific product or service, I would continue to use specific affiliate link titles.
Don’t Overdue your Reusable Titles
While I believe it is important to create reusable titles on my affiliate links – I don’t want to overdue it. After all, a very generic title is not going to help me generate any money if nobody clicks on the link and makes a purchase. Be sure the link still reflects the product or service you are trying to sell and appeals to your target audience.
Final Thoughts
Updating the titles on your affiliate links may not seem like a big deal. In some cases, it may not even make sense to use a reusable title in your links. However, I believe it is important and necessary to complete this step. Creating passive income requires you to eliminate waste. Using affiliate link titles that can appeal to multiple products is just one small way to help reduce wasted maintenance time.
What do your affiliate link titles look like? Are they very specific to the product you are trying to sell?
Related posts:
- 2 Options for Creating Dynamic Affiliate Links
- Stay Organized! – Keep Track of your Affiliate Links
- How to Create Passive Income Through Affiliate Marketing
- Affiliate Marketers Beware – Have you Studied Up on the Latest FTC Guidelines?
- Niche Website Link Building Project – Week 2
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Mine are pretty generic, and haven’t gotten much action. I might try changing some of them to be more specific to the product, and see how that goes.
Corporate Barbarian’s last blog post..A Spider’s-Eye View of Passive Income
@CB – Where do you have your links placed? Just on your site or in other content on the web?
pfincome’s last blog post..Creating Reusable Affiliate Link Titles
I know that there are plugins that can help you manage your affiliate links. I haven’t used any of them but I’d be interested in hearing about them from someone who has used them.
Andy Hough’s last blog post..Frugality 101: Housing
@Andy – Yeah, I have heard the same thing as well for Wordpress sites. Problem is when you have links on eHow, Ezine, Squidoo, etc. where there would be no plugins.
pfincome’s last blog post..Creating Reusable Affiliate Link Titles
Well I’m fairly new to the affiliate marketing world, and so far only use Amazon – sorry to hear about the NC tax legislation; that must be a real pain. I definitely agree about getting organized, as I tend to pretty much randomly drop Amazon links into Squidoo lenses. They’re on topic but I never kept records of them.
At the moment I’m going through all my lenses, and writing a file on each, with sections on ‘Selling modules’, ‘Directories submitted to’, ‘External affiliates’, ‘Tags’, ‘Groups submitted to’. So using your suggestions, I may end up adding an extra section detailing where affiliate links are and what phrasing is used etc. Thanks!
Neil’s last blog post..Top 5 POD lenses on Squidoo