Adding affiliate links to online content is a great way to earn passive income. Links can be created and added to a wide range of products or services that fit the niche or topic you are publishing. I have added affiliate links to online content from a variety of sites including eHow, Twitter, EzineArticles, GoArticles, Squidoo, Blogger sites, Passive Family Income, and more! The opportunities and earnings potential are endless.
Using affiliate links as part of an overall internet marketing campaign can provide a steady stream of income. But what happens when you add a bunch of links to your online content and your affiliate abruptly ends a campaign? Worse yet, what if one of your main affiliate partners cancels your account? That is just what happened to my Amazon Associates account, due to a proposed affiliate tax in my home state.
There is little you can do to prevent the closure of an affiliate account or campaign. In some cases, these decisions are made by affiliate partners based on government laws and regulations. Instead of worrying and spending lots of time rebuilding broken links, there are some steps that can be taken. These up front actions will help reduce the time and effort required to maintain your affiliate links.
Here are a few steps you can take to reduce the time it takes to maintain your affiliate links -
- Develop an affiliate link journal to track your information.
- Create reusable affiliate link titles.
Another step that can be taken to reduce maintenance time on all of your affiliate campaigns is to develop dynamic links, which is detailed below.
Create Dynamic Affiliate Links
Creating dynamic links is probably the biggest time saver when it comes to building affiliate campaigns. Instead of adding the same affiliate link to several sources of online content, create one new link that can be added to multiple sources. This new link should be created so that it can be updated in one central location.
There are a couple of ways you can point your affiliate links to one location, with two popular techniques listed below.
- Forward Affiliate Links – One simple option to improve your management of affiliate links is to forward them to a domain that you own. This is very simple and costs a few dollars. Go and purchase a .info or other domain name from a discount domain provider. Then simply update your new domain and have it redirected to your affiliate link. The only downside to this is that you will need a new domain for each affiliate link that you want to promote. The upside is that you can now use your new domain url in every single location that you want to promote that product. If you ever want to change it out, simply redirect your new domain to point to another affiliate link. This technique requires one simple update on any affiliate change!
- PHP Redirect – Another option that can help reduce maintenance and centralize your affiliate links is to use a PHP redirect. This option requires that you have your own website, as well as some knowledge of PHP programming. You can use PHP redirect to manage your affiliate links so that they all point to a directory from your website. This takes a little bit of coding experience, but isn’t too complicated to implement. The upside of using this option is that there is no additional costs associated, provided you have your own website. For additional information on this technique, check out this great PHP redirect resource.
Final Thoughts
Adding a few additional steps when building affiliate links can save you lots of maintenance and frustration overtime. These extra steps will help to limit your time spent keeping your affiliate marketing campaign running smoothly, while you focus on building new income streams. Successful passive income streams are built around this principal!
Do you use dynamic affiliate links?
