Affiliate links

[mobil844]

What do you think about adding affiliate links to my Resources pages on my ecommerce site? I have several resources categories and could add the links that are relevant to that category. I would not add to my content pages.

Thanks for your help.

[ECSuite_Russell]

Is there anything to lose by doing so? If not, I say go for it, might drive some extra revenue.

[vbeal]

If you are promoting your own Web shop, I'm wondering why you might want to send potential customers anywhere other than rather than right back to your own storefront?

Vangie

[ECSuite_Russell]

If it's not a product or service he offers himself it could be worthwhile. For example he offers mostly fishing and hiking equipment and an affiliate link sends a customer to a hunting shop.

Sending affiliate traffic isn't exactly lost revenue either. A lot of programs have a 50% rev share. You don't have a product, your affiliate does, your customer clicks the affiliate link and purchase the product, you just made money you wouldn't have otherwise.

[marc77]

You should be carefully not to send potential customers to your competitors this way. Although I consider third party advertisements on a business website as poor practice.

However if you have general informational websites at hand that closer describe your kind of business or certain aspects of it, use them instead of. This provides extra value to your website visitors and you can be sure not to lose customers.

For example, have a look at our website at http://www.sunnyscript.com - you find such general links (about CGI and Perl programming) on our front page. While I can't say anything about SEO impact so far, we thought that it is a good idea to go with.

[marc77]

By the way, don't overweight the extra income from such affiliate links... if you do it only for that reason, your time would be better spent elsewhere.