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Sunday, January 4, 2009

Maximize eHow Earnings with Affiliate Links

Do you earn income from affiliate products you recommend in your eHow articles? If not ... it's time to start. I encourage you, if you have a library of eHow articles, to take some time to add affiliate links or links to your other sites and blogs, under the Resources section of your articles. Don't waste time on social promotion, Digging and Stumbling articles that really aren't going to appeal to those social communities. Instead -- maximize your earnings potential by adding another residual income revenue stream to your content.

For this post, I'm going to assume you've joined the affiliate programs and can navigate them enough to generate the code for the products. Here's how to add affiliate links to your eHow articles for several of the affiliate programs I use.

Amazon.com

To build affiliate links to Amazon products, choose the "text only" option, to simplify the HTML code you'll see. While the program generates HTML code, you are just after the link -- you can NOT copy and paste the entire HTML code into your eHow article or Resources section.

Here's what it looks like when you're getting the affiliate code for Amazon products (click to enlarge):
Select the URL that begins http:// and is located between the quote marks. Do not inlcue the quotes, but make sure you have highlighted every character in between. Copy this web address to your clipboard by keying CTRL + C or by right-clicking your highlight link and then selecting "Copy" or "Copy to clipboard" in the menu that appears.

You now have the affiliate code for the product you wanted to recommend -- and if someone buys it form your link, you'll get credit -- and money. Scroll down to "Putting it All Together," below, to see how to add this link to your eHow articles.

CJ.com

Commission Junction is a great affiliate network, and I'm averaging around $100 a month from affiliate sales through CJ, even with a very low number of links online. I'll be adding more CJ links to my articles and sites in the coming months.

After choosing the product or site you wish to promote, choose "Get HTML" for the link you want. You'll see the following dialog box:

Select the affiliate link between the quotes. You'll use this in your eHow article ... scroll down to "Putting it All Together" to see how.

eJunkie

My ebook is hosted with eJunkie, and there are scores of information products on the site that offer affiliate programs. (If you're not an eHow ebook affiliate, you should be! You can earn $12.50 per sale by promoting my ebook in eHow-related articles, money-themed how-to's and even your blog. )And then you'll have the code:


Select only the link between the quotes, which in this case I have underlined in blue.

Putting it All Together: Adding the affiliate links to eHow articles

After generating your HTML code, selecting the appropriate link, and copying it to your clipboard, you're ready to add the link to your eHow article. Open the article for editing, and scroll down to the last few sections of the Write Article tool.

Screen shot of the eHow Write Article tool, to illustrate (click to enlarge):

Paste the affiliate link in the "link" section and then write or copy and paste a descriptive phrase about the product or site. Keep it short and simple. Hit publish. Now view your article, and click the link to make sure you added it correctly.

From the outside, your affiliate link simply looks like a helpful resource (which it is):



There you have it. Easy-peasy, right?

Don't expect huge overnight earnings ... the Resources section is so far down that most readers never see it. But some, intrigued by the information in your articles and wanting to know more, keep scrolling and see your resources. Some click, some don't. Some buy the products you recommend. Most don't.

But just like the adsense clicks, day in and day out, it adds up over time. A few minutes to build a link can translate into many dollars over time. My best-performing link has earned me hundreds of dollars over the past few months. This is passive income at its best -- enjoy it.

10 comments:

Jamie said...

I've been using Amazon links, but haven't had a whole lot of success with them so far. That said, my page views and earnings are just starting to pick up. I'll definitely look into the other affiliate resources you mentioned.

Anonymous said...

Maria,

I was considering doing this on a few of my eHow articles, but I had one question - Do you feel that adding an affiliate link will discourge the regular ad clicks? I was wonding about that, if maybe it gives people another reason not to click the ads, and really you only make money if someone buys something from the affiliate links correct? So do you feel that is an issue, or have you seen your click through rate drop on articles after you have added affiliate links? And if so - do you change the wording of your article to compensate for this somehow?

-Brian

Maria said...

Jamie -- Keep with it. Try to add at least one related product or link to each of your eHow articles. You'll see results with time.

Brian -- Since people have to scroll past all of the Google ads to get to the Resources, they've generally already clicked or not clicked by the time they come to your affiliate links. So you could look at these affiliate links as your last shot to get some money out of your articles. On the other hand, affiliate sales can be highly profitable and thus preferable to ad clicks in many cases. I've never done a detailed enough study, but I do not think that adding affiliate links has decreased my eHow earnings in any way. My eHow articles generate about $200 to $500 in affiliate sales each month in addition to the regular How-paid revenue.

Anonymous said...

Thanks! As an eHow newbie, I was wondering if stuff like this was considered acceptable there, so thanks for answering my question! I do a lot of reading myself and like to recommend books, so I'm especially pleased that Amazon links are okay.

Anonymous said...

I just tried this an eHow says "you cannot post HTML or Java content." So unless I am doing something wrong, which I don't think I am, they are no longer allowing this.

Tim said...

Thanks for this information Writergig! I will try to incorporate affiliate links into some of my ehow articles!

Veronica said...

You cannot leave affiliate links in the resource box for ehow. This is against their policy rules. Also, you risk your article being deleted by eHow as SPAM. If you have your own site, send your referrals there, from which they can click on your affiliate link.

Maria said...

Veronica,
As long as the affiliate links are not spammy and there is no advertising in the article itself, affiliate links are allowed by eHow.
Rich, community manager, has confirmed this policy on the forums himself.
Best,
Maria

Rich Pargeter said...

Thanks for the info. I must admit I haven't considered eHow before as a potential money earner as an affiliate. I'll now take a look

Crystal said...

Recently got your eBook and am enjoying it very much. I did want to check in on whether affiliate links are still allowed on eHow. What's the latest word? Is the info in the book still valid? Or have they banned affiliate links?