When you own a blog /website, you can customize it in any way you want to get your link noticed. You can cloak it, have it on a banner, regular text, a redirect, or whatever. Most forums have policies against putting affiliate links directly in a post, but most of us have probably done it anyways. When you want someone on a forum to go right to an affiliate link, a link shortener looks suspicious and probably gives it away for most people (since link shorteners are only necessary on sites with limited space like twitter, as far as I'm concerned). Do you have any tips or tricks for posting an affiliate link on a post that won't get look suspicious or otherwise get negative attention?
Honestly, the best method for me was to just add affiliate links in my signatures and post in relevant forums.
Forums have rules, regarding affiliate links, otherwise it would be just posts filled with links ARGHH!! who wants that! I would obey the rules of the forum, otherwise you can find yourself, in hot water. Do the right thing, that promotes you as being ethical, do the wrong thing, you can lose a lot of standing. My point of view anyways
My strong recommendation is to rely on the value you provide in your contributions in the forum to build your reputation (which includes your determination to maintain the highest ethics) and in doing so people will gravitate to your link in your sig naturally. You cannot hide online and anything less than constantly demonstrating your high ethics will trip you up badly somewhere down the line.
Hiding in the signatures or any sort will only help you so long as you're not caught or reported, which usually do happen. Like what AllanJames said, build a reputation in the forum of your niche and eventually people will be very willing to click on anything you promote, even if the blatant "AFFILIATE LINK" is flashing in their eyes.
Good point; obviously they're not paying more money by making a purchase through an affiliate link. its just that the main company makes less money on the sale. I think most people who would rather click a normal link to buy the product vs the affiliate link do so because the person posting the affiliate link is a spammer. I'm the same way, if the person posting an affiliate link isn't offering any value I'd certainly not click it and report them instead. "Good day, for that I'd go here: [affiliate link]"
Just to add to the general theme of "do the right thing" - it really is short-sided to try to build a business on deception. And truthfully you need to realize that there are lots of forums that have very loyal members who are very protective of their community. In fact, they will often check out a new poster and their links and if they smell something wrong, they don't hesitate to alert forum moderators. So I join others in recommending you take the long view of building relationships and your reputation and avoid the temptation to try to "trick" people into clicking on your link. Best wishes in your efforts.
I was told before that blogs were done for Google only. Blog commenting was not so important as article submission, but i don't think so now. Both two are important for promoting a website.
This dude is right on. I hate when I think I am clicking to view someones blog and end up at some survey taking garbage. If you need to include an affiliate link, please don't cloak it with "Check out my blog" or "Free money" or similar garbage. Thank you and good luck.