As an affiliate marketer you should track and cloak your links. Tracking your links will show you where your getting your sales. Cloaking your links is important in Search Engine Optimization, click through rates, and in thwarting affiliate theft. It is important to understand these concepts in order to increase your income in affiliate marketing. (Click Here To Learn More)
Let’s look at cloaking links first. If you’ve ever noticed the appearance of affiliate links, they are rather ugly. Many people are caucus of links that they’re not familiar with and might not click them, which will negatively affect your conversion rate.
Would you prefer to click a link that looks like: www.yourdomain.com/sixpackabs instead of www.yourdomain.com/er%k&BeohroeXxierh?urer1223? Most people will click through the cloaked link because it makes more sense and looks like it comes from your domain name. People subconsciously will trust it without a thought.
Many web masters agree that cloaking links helps in search engine optimization because it can be keyword optimized. There is evidence that search engines like Google aren’t that fond of pages with affiliate links. Craigslist and Ezine Articles absolutely hate them.It is for this reason that cloaked links are more search engine friendly. So run a test for yourself and see whether your rankings improve when you cloak your links rather than just leaving them exposed.
A critical reason to cloak your links is to prevent affiliate theft. This is a real problem today and it can easily be avoided. The problem arises when an unethical marketer run across your link and simply replaces their affiliate code with yours. Affiliate marketing is a competitive business and some people will beg, barrow and even steal to make money online. The bottom line is, if you cloak your links it won’t be so obvious and you can truly prevent commission theft.
Tools for cloaking your links are readily available. People using WordPress can use plugins called Simple Link Cloaker or Pretty Links and it’s an easy, and free, way to cloak your links in just a couple of clicks. If you look around a little, there are lots of options like this available. I like WP Traffic Tools, which is not free, but has many advanced WordPress site management functions
Let’s look at tracking your sales next. It’s important to know where your sales are originating so that you can tweak your marketing efforts. Many of the affiliate networks provide tracking support. Because of this you can monitor which specific links were clicked on when a tracking ID is included. As an example, when you create a link through ClickBank they permit you to add a tracking ID to the end of each link. Other tracking options are available, like Prosper 202 (free) and Xtreme Conversions and they provide even more robust data.
As your affiliate marketing business matures, you’ll be increasingly interested in seeing where your business is coming from, and tracking all the details of your data depends on the tools you use. Some tools can track which keywords are most effective in sales generation. Other options will only track click rates and how many sales were generated. Ultimately, gathering this information will help you maximize your marketing efforts and increase you online income. If you haven’t started cloaking and tracking your links, perhaps today is the day to begin.
P.S. If you’ve been looking for a simple step-by-step way to build a list, create an online presence and succeed in social marketing, CLICK HERE. You’ll learn about the only government approved way to make money on Facebook (You will need to authorize the app to watch the presentation).
Image courtesy of jeckman on Flickr.com
Related posts:
Google Plus1′s On top Of SEO Packages
Excellent, I noticed your site from google and the articles actually interested me ~
I’d have to set with you one this subject. Which is not something I typically do! I enjoy reading a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!