When To Sign Up For Links ??

[old dead wood]

Hi:

Generally, do any affiliate companies need to see / approve a site
before they will sign you up and give out links ? My site is
ready, except for all the product links. I don't know whether to
have it hosted first, then apply for and add links, OR get the links
first THEN host it.

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi old dead wood,

Welcome to 5 Star.

Most GOOD professionally managed affiliate programs review sites before approving. Many won't accept you if your site is poorly designed or in a different niche than their products. They need to also review to be sure there is no adult content or gambling. If you had name brand products I think you'd want to check the sites who would be promoting your brand too.

So you really do want to get your site up 1st. Some affiliate programs don't check and auto approve everyone, but remember if they are not checking and take everyone you could be competing with some unethical marketers too.

Affiliate managers realize it's a catch 22 when you have a new site. But you really need to have some of your own content not just a bunch of affiliate links, so you should have at least a skeleton of a site up. You could even put a notice to affiliate managers that the site is new and waiting for affiliate products so it can be finished or something.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

[old dead wood]

Thanks for the info. It helps a lot. If you put up a site without product links will it affect the effectiveness of any search engine submissions or search engine webcrawler actions ?

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

"will it affect the effectiveness of any search engine submissions"

So you know, it's not advisable to submit to search engines at all. They will treat you better if they find your site through well targeted links from other sites. We have some threads about this if you need me to point you to them.

As far as product links, depending on how they are constructed, search engines may not even read the product links (if they are javascript for instance).

For spiderable product links they can be a double edged sword. Some search engines devalue sites with affiliate links - especially if they are duplicate content (product data thats on tons of other sites) and if the site is mainly affiliate product links, with little other unique content.

So that's another reason to launch a site with lots of your own unique content. But if you get spidered and ranked, then add affiliate links later it should be no problem. SE like it when you frequently update your content.

 

[Niche48]

Check out Commission junction, clickbank, Kolimbo for affiliate links. There are many others
Also you can do a google search for product name + affiliate to find appropriate affiliate programs

 

[genuwine4532]

answers

Other great affiliate networks:

Linkshare
Share-A-Sale
Google Adsense - Pay Per Click
Amazon
Pepperjam Network
Market Health (find them on this site)