by: Ron Hutton
If you find that your site visitors have developed a high level of resistance to clicking through your affiliate links, you're not alone. What is it that makes affiliate links suspicious to people? They're certainly not meant to be offensive.
I believe that it's the same kind of thing that automatically activates your defenses when you walk onto a used car lot and are promptly accosted by a guy wearing a green and orange plaid sports coat, pink neck tie and white patent leather lowtops that zip up the side.
Do you hate the feeling that someone is "selling you"? I really think that it's the same thing when visitors see what's obviously an affiliate link (or a poorly disguised affiliate link) and start looking for a way to buy "straight from the source" thinking that they're going to get a better deal!
If your website sells affiliate products, here's a simple "Sneaky Link" tactic that will help you with affiliatephobes.
Note: This article has a free corresponding step-by-step video tutorial that demonstrates the exact steps to creating your own "Sneaky Links"...
http://www.gothrive.com/sneaky-link-video.htm
Street-smart webmasters and marketers understand the importance of taking every possible step to get visitors to let down their guard. We seek information but we resist being sold.
So, the following sample source code can be used on any web page to create "sneaky links" that don't have the appearance of affiliate links. You're not running a non-profit organization are you? No? Well, let's just let someone else believe that you are.
Here's an example of source code that will bare your soul to the world. Note: the tags are altered with a period that needs to be removed if you intend to edit and use this source code in your web pages.
No mysteries here:
Now, let's get sneaky. ;~)
http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/
To assist in understanding how the "sneaky link" works, let's do a little link anatomy study. Here are the pieces and parts of our link:
Part 1, Beginning anchor tag:
So, what's the trick? It's in part 3, the mouseover attribute. This nifty little piece of source code tells the web browser what to display in the status bar (very bottom of the browser window), and if the "window.status" is the same as the link text, it appears as though there's no trickery going on. But, we know better.
Is it possible that this link could be found out, discovered and revealed for what it really is? Sure. If someone were to apply a single right-click to the link, the web browser will reveal the actual target URL. However, the average user won't know this so the "sneaky link" tactic can be very effective in getting people to let their guard down.
End result... your click-through rate goes up, you make more sales and we all live happily ever after. Go forth and create some "sneaky links" now.
To view this article's free corresponding step-by-step video tutorial that demonstrates the exact steps to creating your own "Sneaky Links"...
http://www.gothrive.com/sneaky-link-video.htm
There's a zip file available for you to download (no cost, of course) with the exact source code that's shown in the video.
Copyright 2005 Ron Hutton