Affiliate Marketing for Publishers With Business Websites

Regardless of what type of site you have decided to start and create, you should enroll in at least a couple of affiliate marketing programs. As a publisher you are paid a commission based on the number of leads or sales you provide each month. We have already touched on this topic in the Selecting a Site Layout – Affiliate Sites section of the book, but we will reiterate it here: choose affiliate programs that compliment your site. Every site can pull in additional revenue through affiliate sales. If you are starting a blog site, include links to affiliates that would interest your typical reader. Retail sites can provide affiliate links to sites that offer other brands of the same products sold on your site or products that can be used with the products you sell. For example, if you start selling furniture, you could include affiliate links to home financing companies or homeowner’s insurance providers. Additionally, you could include an Amazon affiliate link to books on home décor. Also consider you sell baby strollers but are not able to offer your customer’s Fisher-Price brand strollers. You could become a Fisher-Price affiliate and offer a link to your customers for that brand. Remember, some customer’s are searching for a specific product and even if you do not offer it in your store, you can receive a portion of the sale by directing the customer to a store that offers the product. Retail sites need to use caution when implementing affiliate links. You want the largest portion of your revenue to come from sales on your site. Do not overplay the affiliate links you feature. You can keep it simple with text links or non-animated banner ads discretely placed on your site. Furthermore, do not offer an affiliate link to your direct competition! This is like telling your customer, “I think you should buy it from those other guys instead of me!” Now that you have considered the type of affiliate links you want to include on your page, let’s review how to use the code provided to actually get the ads to appear on your site. This is a very brief description broken down by different site types. If you have decided not to use any of the programs mentioned, you will need to visit the support forum for your specific software.

Zen-Cart
Sites using Zen-Cart can start to add affiliate links with ease. Here are the steps:

1. Log in to Admin Control Panel
2. Mouse over tools and select Banner Manager
3. Select the banner you want to edit (i.e. Sidebox-Banners appears in the left of right column, BannersAll also appears in the left or right column, Wide-Banners appear below your footer)
4. Click Edit
5. Change banner status to active
6. Give the banner a title (Make this something you will remember to make editing easy in the future. For example, the name of the company it links to.)
7. Leave Banner URL and Banner Image blank
8. Copy and paste the code provided into the HTML Text box
9. Set the sort order for this ad (The sort order determines when the ad will be presented after a customer enters your site. For example, a sort order of 1 will make it the first ad presented in the sidebox.)
10. Save your banner.

That’s it! The new ad should be viewable on your site.

osCommerce
This process is similar to Zen-Cart’s process.

1. Log in to Admin Control Panel
2. Click Tools
3. Click Banner Manager
4. Click New Banner
5. Insert Banner Title (Make this something you will remember to make editing easy in the future. For example, the name of the company it links to.)
6. Select the banner group
7. Leave Banner URL and Banner Image blank
8. Copy and paste the code provided into the HTML Text box
9. Save your banner

Finished! Your affiliate link is now viewable on your site.

Wordpress Blog
Adding affiliate links to Wordpress can be a multiple step process. Depending on the origin of your link (i. e. Amazon, eBay, Commission Junction, etc.) you will need to install the plug-in that handles those sources. Here we will cover a general plug-in installation and you can use this plug-in to handle most of your affiliate links. To get starting with this:

1. Log in to Dashboard
2. Under the Plug-Ins Tab click add new
3. Using the search box on this page search term “advertising manager”
4. Several results will appear, find the Advertising Manager plug-in and click install (you can try some of the other plug-ins later if you desire)
5. A pop-up window appears (you can read the information provided)
6. Click Install Now
7. Once installation is complete you will be returned to your Dashboard
8. Click the activate plugin link
9. Under the Tools tab you will have a new link entitled Ads
10. Click Ads under the Tools tab
11. Copy and paste the code provided into the box and import
12. Fill out the information about the ad on the form and click save
13. On your Dashboard click Widgets under appearance
14. Click Add next to the title of your ad
15. Click Save changes

Your ad is now active on your blog!

osDate
Publishers, adding affiliate links to your dating web site is a breeze. First you need to log in to your admin control panel, click on Banner Management under Content. You are now ready to create the new banner using the code provided by the affiliate marketing program.

1. Click add banner
2. Copy and paste the code into the text box
3. Click Submit

Your ads will now display on your site. Only one ad will be displayed at a time along the footer of your page. It will rotate through the ads each time the page is reloaded.

Web Building Software
Publishers, this starting format allows you the most control over where your ads will appear. Open the page where you want the ad to appear using your web building software, insert a HTML code box, copy and paste the code provided by the affiliate marketing program into the box, and save. You can change the size and location of the HTML box so it will appear anywhere on your site you desire. Repeat this process for all the affiliate links you want to add to your site. Remember it is good to use a mix of ad formats such as text links and banner ads. Publish the changes you made to your page and your ads will be visible for your visitors.