Working Commission-Earning Links into Content

How many times have you seen a web page littered with ads that just made reading difficult? If you spend any sort of time surfing around the internet, you see these pages all the time - ad after ad, box after box, seventeen different headlines and no real ideas behind them.

And naturally enough, these websites don't make any money for their owners. If you look at this site, we have tons of ads too - more than most - but they're a little more sneaky, a little more subtle, a little more ordered. And here's how.

STEP 1: Text links worked into your content.
Compare the following paragraphs of text and see which one you think works best:

Paragraph #1:

If you're looking for fast financing for your car, business or home, we recommend going to one of the advertisers below. They'll give you the best rates and fast approval, and will even give loans if you have bad credit.

Paragraph #2:

If you're looking for fast financing for your car, business or home, we recommend using one of our corporate partners. They'll give you the best rates and fast approval, and will even give loans if you have bad credit.

No contest, huh? The banners become one long blur that you barely even pay attention to, but the links in the text itself cause users to click the link, even if they don't know what's on the other end. And when they do, you earn a commission from the companies linked in your content.

People become blind to banner advertising after a while online, and when that happens, they begin to avoid 'marketing' and look for informed opinion on whatever it is they're looking for - be it insurance, free DVDs, or officially licensed sports jerseys.

See how we did that? It's like an ad, only it doesn't annoy you!

In order to do this, you have to have joined affiliate programs of companies in the industries you're talking about, but that's easy enough in this day and age, especially when so many multi-national companies have affiliate programs on their websites.

STEP 2: Turn your sales pitch into real information.

Nobody likes a hard sell. When I go to a website and it starts yelling at me that I COULD MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR, FOR LIFE!, I pretty quickly go elsewhere. The best possible sales pitch is a pitch that the customer doesn't even realize is going on. Take this for an example:

Halloween is coming!
At Searching The Searchers, we've been thinking about what our Halloween costumes is going to be like for a long time. We took an office poll and found that 4 of the 8 people we work with wanted to go to our annual party in scary costumes, where two of the others were going for comedic outfits.
The final two people, a couple of guys from our mailroom staff, said they wouldn't bother with a costume this year because it's just too expensive to come up with something decent. So we passed the hat around the office and raised $42 to help them out, and then sent them to BuyCostume.com's Clearance Costume section. Larry picked himself up a Harry Potter costume, which was totally goofy, and Earl did the superhero routine. All in all, it's going to be a great Halloween this year.

See what we did there? SOLD! It's content, but it's a sales pitch. It's a personal story, yet it's advertising!

The key to both these routines is ACTUAL CONTENT. Don't wimp out and just make things up, because people can sniff out a lie from fifty feet. Make a website that people will get something out of, and make your advertising a little more subtle than this:

posted by Oz @ 2:19 PM