Do you recommend affiliate products to your web page visitors and email subscribers? It certainly is thrilling to make an affiliate sale. But do you ever wonder if maybe you are missing out on some sales? It’s been estimated that as many as 35% of affiliate links either do not work or are somehow circumvented by the customer to rob you of the sale.

We won’t go into the psychology of why someone would want to cut you out of the deal, But never fear, there is a way to fight back.

First, let’s address the concept of links that don’t work. If you’re serious about selling affiliate products, you should be able to test your link. Contact the affiliate manager and ask if you can make a test purchase. If they say no, then it’s time to find a new affiliate program. Some companies will tell you to make the purchase and then ask for a refund, while others will cancel your order before it is processed. Either is fine.

By the way, if you sell Clickbank products, it’s easy to see if your affiliate link is working. Just start to order the product and on the payment information page, scroll to the bottom and it will tell you who the affiliate is.

Okay, so now we know your links will work. How do you protect yourself from customers cutting you out of the deal? There are a few ways.

1) Hide your affiliate link behind a URL redirect. Tinyurl.com has a great service for this.
2) Hide your affiliate link through a URL frame redirect. Your domain registrar can help you do this.
3) Change the text in the status bar of the browser to hide your affiliate link. The anchor text of the link shows the company’s home page, the actual link is your affiliate link, and you use javascript to change the status bar text (window.status=).
4) Add parameters to your affiliate link so that others are scared to mess with it. www.whateverprogram.com/?aff=you&freegift=true&verifylinkforgift=true
5) Offer a bonus if customers order through your link. Have them send proof of their order before you send their gift.

The above five tips should help you keep more of the affiliate commissions you deserve.

If you would like to know one more way to capture more affiliate sales (and it’s more effective than the 5 other ways combined), you must have more than 5000 visitors per month, be ethical in your marketing, and be willing to spend some money on the solution. Email me if interested: MoreAffiliateSalesAtRobGoyette.Com

Recommendation: If you want to learn how to make money on the Internet, Profit Lance is the best of breed.

A couple of days ago I signed up with LinkWorth for one of my sites (The Dividend Guy) and I have received a request to place a link on my blog in exchange for a certain monthly amount. I have subsequently approved the link and it is now live on my site.

The beauty of this system is that I now have a set amount of money that I will receive every month that the link appears. With Google AdSense you never really know how much you will make from one day to the next. A person can optimize their site, be number 1 on the search pages and have a pagerank of 10 but you will never really know how many people will click those ads. With LinkWorth, I know that I am going to receive $X per month for one link.

I do not have any experience with this system so we will see how it goes. If it goes well, I will consider it on my other sites. I will provide updates as I have them.