There are plenty of ways your online signature and personal profiles can help you to start earning affiliate commissions. Read on for some helpful tips:
Create A Signature
Create a signature in your email account as well as in web forums that you frequent. Link to your blogs, sales landing pages, mailing list opt-in pages, and social media profiles. Not only will people that see the link consider clicking and visiting but search engines will see the link as well.
Take care in creating your online social media profiles as well. Include links and write a great profile and you’ll increase your chances of getting clicked.
Search Engine Optimisation
Every link that points to your site is considered a popularity vote. By using links in your signature and on your personal profiles, you can increase the votes to your site or webpage and these votes increase the chances of your site getting ranked for the keywords you are trying to rank for. Carefully consider the links you create, using keyword research while working to entice people so that they will want to click.
Forums And Social Media Sites
Join niche-related forums and social sites that give you an opportunity to network with potential customers. Every post on a forum equals a backlink and if you link from forums that are relevant to your niche and with a decent pagerank, you will gain valuable and meaningful backlinks in the eyes of the search engines.
If you hang out on a forum related to fixing appliances and your signature links to your website that offers downloadable appliance manuals for a price, you can see how this may benefit you. You’re not going to want to tell everyone “click here!” without providing value, though. Add value to the conversation and people could click because you build trust. Be helpful on social media sites and people could click through to your profile to learn more about you and then click through to your sites where you can work on convincing them to buy.
Signature Marketing Tip
Rotate signatures on forums so that people don’t become blind to them. If you are a prolific poster at a forum or send out a lot of emails to customers and prospects, your signature will peak in terms of being interesting enough to click on. Subscribers or regular readers will probably not visit the links in your signature or profile more than once. By updating once in a while, you increase the chance of having repeat visitors to your sites, giving you more opportunities for earning affiliate commissions.
Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketer
Learn Affiliate Marketing with Year Of The Affiliate © 2012
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
You need to be very careful with forum signatures. You do not want to just start participating in a forum and have a few links in your signature straight away.
Give it some time. Make a few posts first and be an active member. Then you can enable a few links in your signature. Otherwise you can risk being banned from the forum for blatant advertising.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Power of Positive Thinking =-.
Good advice there Cemil. Generally it’s the same for all forms of online socialising, without being active and providing some form of worthy communication, your efforts will be wasted.
Hi Cemil,
thanks for an excellent tip. As usual it is all about building trust, so making some helpful additions to the forum before pressing the point that there is even more to you (like an affiliate product) is a great way to go. It shows other members of the forum that you are serious about adding value to the forum first and foremost.
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
I was wondering about this because as of yet I haven’t felt comfortable with putting a link in my signature on topic related forums as I feel people will only think I’m there to sell them something.
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Types of Child Anxiety Disorder =-.
Hi Jackie,
I never know when is the right time to do this either. I try to focus on being a contributing member of the forum first. You know how they say you have to give before you get.
I also think if you build relationships with people in the forum, they’ll naturally click through to have a look at your profile. At least I hope they do.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion =-.
I have to agree here,
Depending on what your particular niche is it does pay to be careful as I have been kicked from forums for this very reason before. Sometimes I’ve found that you can get away with early link posting as long as you are contributing quality interaction with other members.
.-= jeremy´s last blog ..jlagatule- RT @tonyrobbins For you night owls still upCome be the first to have a sneak peak of R Breakthrough insiders site http-bitly-caSRxw =-.
Good idea, in my opinion this is a smart strategy to begin internet marketing today
There are lots of strategies that are beneficial for affiliate marketing Lintar. This one can work well, as long as you are an active member in the forums etc that you are participating in. Have fun
Hi Sean,
These look like great ways to make earning affiliate commissions even easier. I’m trying to fix all of my social media profiles at the moment. But, I’m still not using links in my forum signatures.
I think it’s important to be a contributing member in a forum. I’m still having trouble working out if I’ve provided enough value to start adding links to my signature.
I guess I just hope that if people are interested in what I post, they’ll click on my profile to check me out. I’m taking the subtle approach to making sales.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn – It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint =-.
Being an active forum member and building reputation is the way to go Jazz, keep it up
Hi Sean,
I have put my main blog in all of my profiles at the moment, but it looks like I have to become a bit more selective and specific in the future to make sure it is targeted to the audience and offers them real value.
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
Hi Sean,
I’m not sure I fully understand the meaning of this article. I guess that by creating a signature I will become recognized by my signature.
It could mean then that someone recognizes me by my signature. If they then like something I said they may possibly click on a link I have to a blog site or product. Is this a correct understanding?
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
I don’t know how to create a link in my signature but it sounds like a great thing to set up but to use wisely. I will have a look around on forums for people who are using this technique.
.-= Melanie Braggs´s last blog ..Building Chicken Coops =-.
Thanks for these great tips Sean .. I am sure i have said that on many occasions but really all of your blogs are so helpful.
The social media side of things is still a learning curve for me when it comes to marketing but in time I am sure i will learn how to find the time for more forums.
Great to hear you are benefiting from the information Helen, that’s what it’s all about
I am going through all my profiles at the moment for all the social media sites I am a member of but I haven’t included any links in the about me page. Looks like I will hve to start again.
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Types of Child Anxiety Disorder =-.
Hi Sean,
Earning affiliate commissions through your forum signature is really cool! I agree that it does take some work at contributing quality interaction & growing a positive reputation but I find it extremely rewarding just to see when someone has clicked through that link, even if it doesn’t lead to a sale.
.-= jeremy´s last blog ..jlagatule- RT @tonyrobbins For you night owls still upCome be the first to have a sneak peak of R Breakthrough insiders site http-bitly-caSRxw =-.