Update: The sale for Affiliate Link Pal is now LIVE at $27.00.
We’ve now updated the plugin and zip, so if you go back to your personal download page you’ll find there’s a new version in there.
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This Friday I’ll be releasing an exciting new plugin called Affiliate Link Pal.
I hope you’ll agree that there’s a little spark of genius in this one. Ahem.
If you use a third party affiliate scheme like ClickBank or Infusionsoft or e-Junkie or whatever, then the problem is they don’t let your affiliates create links that point back to YOUR site. So your affiliates are always boosting the rank of those third party sites instead of your own.
Or maybe you use a self-hosted sales centralisation script that includes an affiliate scheme.
It might work great with your main site as it gets all the backlinks from affiliates, but it’s not so good with your satellite sites as they don’t get any links at all.
And it probably even creates long and complicated “unfriendly” links too.
It’s an annoyance we’ve probably all had to live with at one point or another, and if not, then it’s just waiting to happen.
Until now.
Using Affiliate Link Pal will enable your affiliates to create a “friendly” URL that points back to your individual site regardless of the actual affiliate link. When a prospect clicks the friendly link, the plugin redirects the prospect off to the real affiliate link.
So it goes like this:-
Friendly Link >> Unfriendly Affiliate Link >> Final Landing Page
Now you might be wondering at this point why the affiliate should bother to take this extra step, and not just use the original unfriendly affiliate link instead.
There’s two good reasons.
The first is, what do you think looks better for the affiliate of these two links? (Don’t bother clicking them, they don’t go anywhere.)
http://domainA.dom/aff/hop.php?aff=fred&item=65
http://domainB.dom/secret-free-trial/
Now I *hope* you’ve said the second one, because that’s the kind of link your affiliates will be able to create. 😉
I’m sure you can see how your affiliates will be excited to be able to create interesting links with a little bit of imagination.
The second reason your affiliates will be eager to create these friendly links is sales page customisation.
We’ve included the ability for you to create customised short code tags such as their name, which then allows you to mention them in your sales copy, giving it the more personal touch.
You must have seen custom created pages that say things like “Fred Bloggs and John Smith introduce…”, well the John Smith bit could be your affiliate’s name.
So the combination of “interesting” URLs plus page customisation is a double whammy to get your affiliates to take a few moments to create an SEO friendly link for you.
Their benefit is better, more clickable links, and yours is more links pointing directly back to your individual site. It’s a win-win for both of you.
As far as I can see, this plugin will work with ANY affiliate scheme. Affiliate Link Pal is NOT an affiliate scheme plugin itself, it’s meant to complement any existing affiliate scheme you may be using.
This coming Friday (4th March) at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), the Affiliate Link Pal plugin will go on sale at a starting price of $10.00 for the first 50 sales.
-Frank Haywood
Frank, I will be on a trans-ocean plane trip at the time of the opening of sales, so I won’t be able to buy until 10 hours later. Can you create a “pre-order” process that lets somone sign up (and pay, I supppose) in advance of the opening, so that we can get the plug-in at the initial sale price? Delivery would wait untiol after the opening os sales.
In the past, I have suggested that you create a subscription plan so we can sign up to regularly get all of your plug-ins at the opening price. If you can do that, it would also be a help.
Thanks,
Phil
@Phil ullum:
I’m still thinking about that one and the best way to approach it. No really good ideas on that front yet though I’m afraid. I have a few things on my plate that I just *have* to clear first, then I’ll sort something out for you.
-Frank
O.K. My $10 is on my virtual desktop once again. I’m waiting for the buy button with baited breath. This one will come in very handy for a project I have coming in a few months. The affiliates should love it because they’ll be able to create memorable URL’s that they like rather than me giving them one that they may forget. Once again Frank, you’ve created a very useful plugin that marketers can use.
@James Dunn:
Yeah and you know me by now. I have some related stuff that I’m keeping close to my chest for now. This really is exciting stuff that’s coming, and I’m bouncing up and down about it.
One thing at a time though. 😉
-Frank
Well, the 2 links here in your blog do look different and the 2nd is better. The 2 links in the email I got – almost no difference. Not enough to spend a dime on. Which way will it be when I send out my own emails?
Here’s the 2 links I got:
(Aweber click tracking links removed.)
@Tom Giezentanner:
D’oh!
Sorry Tom, I should have turned off the dang Aweber link tracking as it replaced my links that you see in this blog with it’s own. I’ll try to remember that for next time I do something like this.
The links will of course look like the links here in this blog post.
-Frank
Hello Frank,
I am an Amazon Affiliate, I am using wp-no-external link now, but i got some error sometimes when wp upgraded to 3.1. I’ll be waiting for this kind of product. I have subscribed your newsletter and please give us a notification when it lauched!
Thank You,
@abebudi:
I just looked at that plugin, and I’m afraid Affiliate Link Pal doesn’t do the same thing.
Hmm… Should I do a drawing maybe? I know it isn’t completely obvious what this plugin does, but once you get it I’m sure you’ll pounce. 😉
-Frank
Hi Frank
Not sure if I follow you on the description. I read it twice and I’m still figuring out abit.
How is it any different from setting up a PHP redirect to make the link appear nice or “friendly”?
Regards
Tom
@Tom Mulvey:
Yeah I know, it takes a little getting your head round this, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing out there like this plugin. It allows your affiliates to create SEO friendly affiliate links on YOUR site, NOT theirs.
We figure it should work with *any* existing affiliate scheme – it’s not an affiliate scheme itself.
So they get to customise:-
#1 – Their affiliate link.
#2 – Your sales page.
The format of both of these is under your control, so you can set a prefix for the friendly affiliate link such as “secret-” or “special-” so that they don’t generate affiliate links that clash with real pages you may want to create.
Secondly you can also set the customisation fields (or none at all) so they can add their name or whatever else you might come up with, which will appear on your sales page.
As I said, I’m fairly certain this is unique. 🙂
-Frank
Hi Frank,
oh year, my 10$ you have also, nice to become again a nice plugin from you,
but hey Frank can you not make some parts for us, like who have buy the most plugins from you, he will become some special offer or sometimes a free plugin or something like this?
best regrads
Olaf
@Internet Marketing Olaf:
Okay, I think I get it. The more you buy, the cheaper it gets?
Maybe a points system or something simpler…
I’ll have a think.
-Frank
Brilliant idea, Frank, as in the genius category of, “Why hasn’t this been done before?” 😉
Affiliates will love it, coders will emulate it, and all will appreciate the elegant implementation of a simple concept.
“I’ll be there or be square.”
(Link) love is in the air.
Thank you, Frank.
Hi Patrick,
Thank you. And yeah why hasn’t it? 😉
There’s a bit more to all this than meets the eye. I’ve seen a simple solution to a similar problem and while the concept was brilliant I didn’t think the next level of thought had gone into it. The idea is tied very closely to this plugin, and I think what I may do is release a plugin and standalone script based on that other concept and include the functionality of this plugin into it.
What I’ll then do is offer everyone who buys this plugin the bigger one discounted by the price of this one. I’ve done this before and it works quite well for both of us.
The bigger plugin is quite a LOT bigger and will certainly take a while to code up, but well worth it to us all when it’s done.
That’s for another day though.
😉
-Frank
Do i get it correct?
It is a Redirect and Shortener for two different places with exchange of the appearance of what is shown on them?
I got mine!!!
Normal value from you Frank! I always check out your offers because they present so much value for money. Nice one Frank!