If there's one characteristic that defines a good internet marketer, it's adaptability. The online marketing world moves so fast — faster than any other industry around — and those that make their fortunes online always move faster than anyone else. From the arbitrage heydays to the modern era of CPA affiliate products, top internet marketers are always looking a step ahead, and are always looking for the ultimate advantage.
There's one aspect of internet marketing that attracts its fair share of controversy and discussion. It's link cloaking, of course, and the discussion is around whether it's really necessary for affiliates. For those who don't know, link cloaking is simply a visual disguising of affiliate links, leading the URL to appear as an in-site page, when in reality it's an outbound link. Why is this so important to affiliates? Well, let's have a look.
To begin with, link cloaking is important for affiliates that make most of their sales through blogs and personal recommendations. A large portion of affiliates, particularly those who operate large scale online companies, keep a personal or professional blog. While it's rarely their major income source, most affiliates occasionally use promotional links on their blog. The problem is that many readers are instantly skeptical of what they view as paid recommendations. Whenever they mouse over a link's anchor text and see an affiliate code, they back away and don't make a sale.
This is where link cloaking can help with a direct sale. Rather than having readers shy away from a great product, link cloaking can help marketers direct reader to the product. When they see an inbound link with a domain that they trust, they're sold. All that's standing between them and the sale is the quality of the product itself.
Secondly, link cloaking is essential for certain marketing channels. While Google Adwords has often been a favorite for affiliates, they've recently changed their policies and appear to be taking a harder stance on affiliate products, particularly those with unclear conditions and slightly misleading terms. While this isn't a problem for most affiliates — the majority of whom promote products that fall well inside the terms and conditions — some affiliates are having trouble getting their PPC ads to show, after being struck with a poor quality score.
This is where link cloaking can again save the day. Rather than having a direct link leading to an affiliate page, direct-to-offer PPC advertisers can cloak their links and have them redirect through their own server. This isn't just perfect for avoiding the infamous Google slap, but also for adding tracking data and inter-offer landing pages.
There's a third, top secret, advantage to using link cloaking. While most affiliate websites offer long-term cookies, few will cover multiple products. With the right strategy, you could incorporate multiple affiliate links into a single cloaking redirect, leaving you with the potential to earn twice as many commissions per clicker. Alongside the other great benefits of link cloaking, this really sweetens the deal, and makes link cloaking an absolutely essential practice for serious affiliates, full-time internet marketers, and dedicated online entrepreneurs.
To learn more about link cloaking,
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