...or "How Not To Make Money Online!"
Last Thursday we decided to go camping for 2 days as it was the end of summer and they were calling for good weather. I rushed to get a post done and get some new affiliate links added to my blog that night as I knew I would not be back till late Sunday.
Great, got it all done before we had to leave, I'm good...doing the happy dance! Didn't give it another thought.
Spent 2 days fishing, swimming, hiking and having a wonderful time! Came home on Sunday, but didn't get on the computer as I had a ton of things to do to get ready for Monday.
Monday morning I decided to check my stats...wonderful news...I had over 250 hits to one of my affiliate links.
But wait...no sales? How could that be...that was the link for George Pluss's Dime Sale and I almost always have sales from them. What was going on? What was wrong?
It didn't take me long to figure it out...I had not checked my affiliate links before I added them to my blog. I normally do this every time I make a post or add a link, but because I was rushing, I forgot to do it this time.
When I went back and checked, I found that 2 links I had added using a url shortening service were not going to my affiliate links and 1 link that was broken.
Did any of those hits to my links buy the product? Who knows?
But, I did learn a very valuable lesson: ALWAYS check your affiliate links!
Even if you are not shortening it or using a redirect, make sure the affiliate name or number coming up on the affiliate site is yours when you click on it.
After that, I decided to go ahead and check all the links (both affiliate and others) on my sites and make sure they were going where they were supposed to. I found I had 2 dead links to blog sites that I was recommending, but all the other links were okay.
From now on, I will be checking all the links on my sites at least once a month.
I would recommend that you do the same.
To Your Success!
Affiliate Disclosure
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Affiliate sales are not my cup of tea - do you mask the urls as well?
Hi Thiru,
Masking my links is on my list of of things to learn how to do.
Thanks for stopping by!
EJ, I've done that a few times in the past. I've found it usually happens when I'm, A) in a hurry, and/or B) when I'm going to be away from the computer for an extended amount of time. You were in the perfect storm of both A & B.
And, your post has made me decide to go check out my links. Sure enough, one of the WordPress plugins I was linking too has gone away. Lovely.
Keep up the good work!
Hi John,
That is exactly what happened. In a way I am glad that did, as I would not have checked my other links for a few more weeks.
It is said that everything happens for a reason, and I guess that was my wake up call to get back into focus with what I am doing.
Thanks for visiting me!
Sorry to hear about your misfortune. At least it won't happen again. Better to learn now than later when you have thousands of hits.
CHeers
=)
Hi Chesnoid,
Thank you, that is so true.
Please stop by anytime!