The focus should always be in providing great content to the reader. When and why we use affiliate links, is also done with the reader in mind.
When we post a link to a product or service, it’s only because we see that there’s a benefit for the reader in using it. So what we do is, talk about the product or service to explain what it is and what it does. Then we explain what the benefit to the reader could be if they use it correctly.
It’s our goal to provide the tools and perspective to become a successful entrepreneur. Even when it requires us to recommend our readers to get tools or specific information from another source.
What Is An Affiliate Link
An affiliate link is a hyperlink that leads to a website, product, or service in which there is a something for sale that the reader can purchase. Here’s what one may look like: https://www.bluehost.com/track/profitvswage/
In this case, this is an affiliate link for website hosting at Bluehost, where we host this website. As you can see this link doesn’t just stop with bluehost.com, it also says “/track/profitvswage/”. That part of the link tells Bluehost that we (ProfitVsWage) sent the person there.
The last part of the affiliate link could look many different ways, depending on the way the affiliate partner registered and the way the provider set up there linking system. It could just be a small series of numbers and symbols, or it may be a very long string of characters.
In any form, it’s just a very simple way of allowing people to get a commission for referring a buyer, which is why we use affiliate links. The identifying characters lets them know who to credit for the referral.
So if we love a product or service and know it provides a great value to us, and they have an affiliate program, then this is where we would use an affiliate link. If they don’t have an affiliate program, and the source is great for our readers, we send them there anyway.
Affiliate Ethics
Affiliate programs are a huge part of the internet. Most websites use them to recommend products and services, but there’s some of the largest web-sellers that offer affiliate programs to these sites. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, Ebay, etc. all offer the ability for web content creators to join their affiliate program, and then recommend products from their website.
Not every website has your best interest in mind, however. There will always be people running their business with only themselves in mind. However by the nature of business, most self-concerned business owners never reach the long term potential they could have, if they had operated with integrity.
You may also notice that some affiliates register in a way to make the link look as though it’s NOT an affiliate link. If someone registers using their identifying characters as “sale”, the affiliate link may look like this: www.companyname.com/track/sale/
Then when the affiliate is describing the product, they may tell you the product is at a great price. Then when you look at the link, you might assume that this is a straight company link to their sale page. There are many different words to use to imply something that throws people’s perspective off, but we believe in long term success. Don’t try to be tricky.
There will always be people with a negative mindset. Don’t be ashamed or try to hide your affiliate name/link. If you’re providing a link for the right reason, it’s perfectly OK to get rewarded for your good intentions.
Does It Cost More Using An Affiliate Link?
If a product or service that we recommend has an affiliate program, we sign up for it. We don’t ask people to pay for consuming our website content, but if there’s a commission available on one of the products or services we recommend, then we let that company give it to us. This is why we use affiliate links, and it would be foolish not to!
So should you be concerned that the product or service cost more because of finding it through an affiliate link? No, absolutely not. You won’t be able to by the product or service for less by going straight to the seller. In fact, sometimes the affiliate partners are provided a special link for a lower price than what’s available on the seller’s website directly.
These affiliate partnerships can prove beneficial to everyone. The seller is happy to provide commission on a sale they would have never gotten otherwise. Remember, the buyer never knew about it until the affiliate presented it. The buyer is happy learning all about a great product or service that’s going to make an aspect of their life easier.
Why A Seller/Provider Loves Paying Commission To Affiliates
As I mentioned above, the provider can only reach into so many markets. The provider’s marketing is certainly going to be extensive, but the internet is a BIG space.
No matter how much effort and money they throw at their marketing, they will never come close to reaching everyone that may be interested in what they have to offer.
So that being the case, every person that visits the provider’s product page via an affiliate link, never knew about the provider prior to this. Now here is the most amazing part for the provider.
THEY NEVER PAID ANY MONEY AT ALL, TO GET A VISIT FROM THIS POTENTIAL CUSTOMER!!!
By offering other web business owners the ability to become an affiliate partner, the provider gets all that FREE traffic to their website! In most cases the provider ONLY pays out a commission on the visitors that decided to purchase their product or service. The traffic was all free.
Getting targeted traffic to your website through your own marketing efforts is expensive. Once you calculate out the percent of your paid traffic that actually become customers, you need to be really good at conveying your message, or you lose money. So it’s a much better system to get free targeted traffic, and then only paying based on the actual buyers.
Targeted traffic means that the people clicking on the affiliate link, have already been briefed as to the benefits of that product or service. The other thing is, that this traffic is coming from a site that has visitors that are interested in their type of products. Clearly affiliate programs are fantastic for the provider.
Why An Affiliate Partner Loves This System
Most products and services have affiliate programs now. Why? Because again, it’s beneficial for everyone involved. Amazon being the biggest retailer in the world, has the largest affiliate partner program also. Amazon uses this platform, because of the unbelievable amount of free, targeted traffic flowing in on products that the customer have already been prepped on.
As an affiliate partner, you don’t need a product or service yourself in order to add value to someone through education and demonstration. So if you wanted to start a new YouTube channel or a blog, how would you get paid for your efforts?
With either of these, getting paid can’t be your first concern. However, as you build your influence and relationship with your followers, you’ll want to make a profit from your work. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll start out with your own product, so it’s fantastic that you can leverage other people’s products. You also don’t have to stock any products, let alone, create them.
What Do I Sell?
I just want to repeat this…. Do Not focus on yourself making money when you’re starting out. Your focus has to be on your readers and viewers. The one and only thing that matters is adding value to them and helping them get the information that will help them grow.
If you help people get what they want, eventually you will be able to monetize your work. Just wait until you prove that you’re actually helping.
There’s another way to apply affiliate links into your content that’s much easier. VigLink is an affiliate program that automatically places relevant affiliate links into your content for you. They do have thousands of affiliate partners and some of the biggest, like Amazon, Ebay, etc.
Profitvswage.com doesn’t use this platform. Mainly because we want to have control of the exact recommendations we make. If we had more general / unimportant site content, this may be an option. However we only want very specific and quality information and products being recommended to our visitors, that will get them the success they’re looking for.
As far as what you may want sell. You sell/recommend products and services that match up with your message. And ONLY products that are good and trustworthy, with excellent support. The products and services that you recommend, reflect back on you, so make great choices. Be sure the product or service has the ability to benefit your followers, if used correctly.
Do thorough research to find the very best. We want our followers to get great results from every aspect of our influence. When you find that perfect product or service, it’s highly likely it has an affiliate program. But if it doesn’t….. recommend it anyway! Focus on what’s best for your followers.
Affiliate Products Are GREAT For The Purchaser
The very best way to hear about a product, is through a trusted friend. You know who your friends are, and how to accept their recommendation. Your friend has your best interest in mind. They want to tell you about things that are good for you.
If they saw a great movie, they’re going to tell you about it. You would do the same for them. Well, the same goes for affiliate marketing products being recommended by a trusted source. A trusted source who has been providing valuable content for you.
There certainly are YouTuber’s and websites out there that want to make money off you as their primary focus. However, those are easy to spot. People are observant for the most part. They can spot genuine content offered up in a way to help, that’s focused on helping.
These are the places you want to take a look at their recommendations. Notice I said “take a look”. I didn’t say purchase. Remember, any recommendation, whether it’s an affiliate link or a direct link, that’s offered by someone providing you with great information, is certainly worth looking at. Judge the product or service for yourself, based on what you know.
Buy Or Don’t Buy?
Trust the good content providers enough, to just take a look at what they recommend for you. For instance, if we suggest a product or service, you need to click on the link to take a further look, as we are a trusted source. You shouldn’t discount our recommendation until you’ve gone to the source and gotten more information right from the provider.
Remember, you’re only trusting us enough, to know there’s likely great value worth looking into further. You’re clicking the affiliate link to get deeper information from the original source. After you went through the provider’s information, THEN you make the final decision as to whether you want to purchase.
Think of the affiliate partner as the first level of insurance (they clearly have experience). The provider’s information as the second level of insurance. And the product guarantee as the third level of insurance. When you start out with a trusted content provider’s recommendation, along with the other levels of insurance, how can you go wrong? You don’t get anywhere near this when you go to the store and buy stuff!
Why we use affiliate links posted by a trusted content provider, is really no different than trying a restaurant that my trusted friend told me about. It just makes sense!
Many People Think Like This (What A Shame)
Too many people get jaded and guarded because of being around negative people too much. We discuss this throughout this website, because it’s a major hurdle to people working on becoming entrepreneurs. Your growth can make others feel worse about themselves.
No matter what some people say, they feel bad when you move past them with your growth, independence, and finances. Sadly, this is common among the “common”.
As your growth expands, so must the level of people you surround yourself with. Once you’re surrounding yourself with “positive” people who are further along than yourself, they’re rooting for your success. They provide valuable information to help you move forward.
Until you get your network of people right, you may struggle with negative input.
What Does This Mean?
In relation to clicking on affiliate links, some people have a self-defeating mental outlook. I have spoken and coached many new entrepreneur wanna-be’s. Most start out with the mental thought that everything is a competition. “Someone has to lose in order for someone else to win”.
I never blame them for having this mentality. It’s ingrained in people who are trained to be employees (almost everybody). None of us want to admit to ourselves that we think this way. But I’m glad you’re here and can see that everybody can win.
Don’t avoid taking an action that may lead to someone else making a profit. In the case of affiliate links, as explained above, the product or service costs the same or less by using the affiliate link. So don’t try to avoid it on purpose. If you are, then you’re still struggling with the wrong mentality.
A person who goes and consumes content, products, or services and then doesn’t pay for it, is forgetting that the provider had to put out a lot of effort to provide it. So the idea that this person would try to avoid letting the provider get compensated for their work (even when it costs this person nothing), is insane. However, it does happen sometimes.
Example Time
I’m going to give you a real life example from my own experience that shows this poor mentality. Several years back, a friend of mine told me about a line of amazing products. These products would help me lose weight and provide me with excellent nutrition.
This was from a network marketing company. My friend was a promoter/independent distributor/representative/advocate (so many different terms for the same position). I first ordered the product as a customer. Then I lost 40 pounds inside of two months, and was back to my high school weight! I felt amazing! (True Story, I don’t make things up.)
All my family and friends were asking what I was doing to get such awesome results. So naturally, my friend/promoter said I should become a promoter and recommend these products to everyone who was asking. I would earn a commission for doing what I was already going to do anyway. “Telling people about a product or service that made my quality of life much better”.
I joined the company as an independent promoter and helped a LOT of people get healthier and live a MUCH better quality of life. (This is the exact same reason why we use affiliate links when available. We are recommending the product anyway, because it can help people get the results they seek.)
Enter Mr. Negative
So I told my brother about this product and he said there is no way it can be healthy. He’s 50 pounds overweight and in poor health, so he clearly knows about healthy.
Now he saw me get great results and feel amazing. But, instead of trying what works, he “tried” everything else under the sun first. All that time and expense, just so he wouldn’t buy my products.
He has always despised my success. Later, I found out he had purchased the products I was selling through a different promoter.
It’s so sad that people get jealous to the point that it hurts their own progress. I know I could have helped him get to a healthy weight, but some people just can’t be helped. The moral of the story is:
Don’t be a hater, because it’s likely going to hurt only you!
By avoiding clicking a known affiliate link, just because you know the content provider is being commissioned if you end up buying, is only hurting you. Trust me when I say, there are a LOT of clicks on affiliate links across the internet. There are Billions being paid out! As I said, almost every product and service can be affiliated. The fact is, MOST of the links you click are in fact affiliate links.
My lesson for you is this:
Don’t try to beat them… Join them!
Affiliate links to great products and services can make big money. But more over your profit, affiliate links can lead to the products and services for others to create the growth they seek.
