I am writing an article to submit to ezine. Now at the bottom of the article I want to put a link, now do I put the link that I get from clickbank with my hoplink in it or do I buy a domain and send it to the hoplink? I do not have my own website yet so I am direct linking.
Typically you can't link straight to sales pages or affiliate pages. Create a domain and add content, and direct people to your affiliate links from there.
I have noticed that alot of the ezine articles, the clickable work that are highlighted go to a squidoo page or usfreeds page, review type things. Is this the way it is usually done? Also when I click on anything on the squidoo page, I see the web address before the hoplink says tiny url. What is that?
Using squidoo or usfreeads before sending them to the affiliate page is known as preselling. It is the best way to get higher conversions. If you're new then you should start with direct linking to know what kind of articles convert. Tinyurl is for shrinking and encrypting your hoplink. You can either buy a domain and redirect it via your hoplink or slap some presell content on squidoo, hubpages, weebly, blogger or wordpress (all end with .com) and send traffic to there. Either way it works but everyone prefers the former. If you're just starting affiliate marketing, which I assume you are, then you should go for those web 2.0 sites that I've mentioned above. Good luck and hoping to hear a sale from you Cheers
If you don't have your own website, then I suggest writing a Squidoo page. I have a squidoo page but it's not getting any traffic at all. I prefer a personal blog or website.
You will be much better off with a blog that you have total control over. There are too many cases with people posting content on web 2.0 sites such as squidoo etc and them having their content deleted. You do not want to put in 3 years of work and start bringing in 5k per month in income then all of a sudden have all your content deleted because the owner decided to change their policy. The more diversified your traffic is and less reliant you are on a certain money making model, the better off you will be in the long term.
A blog that you update with quality writing that targets problems visitors face within a niche will give you credibility. Before people pull out their wallets, they have to trust you. A squidoo page doesn't cause me to trust someone, because it seems too easy to throw up a Squidoo page within a few minutes and anyone can do it. A blog gives the illusion that you're (sort-of) an expert that can be trusted. This is especially true if you add rich, quality content that helps people solve problems.