Ways to take advantage of SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems

I have had a few questions on what you can do to take advantage of SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs.

SEO Link Builders
It really depends on what you are good at doing. If you just like link building, then you can concentrate on building links into the landing page. So you would link with the affiliate link they give you.

But you have to be really good at building links. This type of affiliate system will be hit by a duplicate filter. You will be bunched with the systems default landing page and other affiliates pages. There can really be only 1 that will rank the best.

SEO Content Builders
Content builders need to find ways to prevent the links being spidered. They want to keep their page ranking in the SERPs instead of the affiliate programs landing page from ranking in the SERPs.

These would be all the things you have learned to stay away from like:
1. Put the link in a flash button
2. JavaScript’s added to the link, like a mouse over.
3. Maybe frames? If you can get part of the frame to be indexed and the part that has your affiliate link not, it might work.
4. Search for the SEO no no's and see what they suggest you don't do to your links. Test doing something like that.

How will you know it is working? Well, if currently your affiliate link is ranking higher in the SERPs than your page. Then you will need to watch for your page to start showing up in that spot instead of the affiliate link.

What SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs should think about

SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs can be adjusted to allow affiliates links not to be hit by a duplicate filter. Here are some things they may want to consider.

1. Can we find a way to make each affiliates landing page Unique?
2. Will we need to give affiliates some type of control over the look or text on those landing pages?
3. What legalities can arise from letting affiliates have some customization options for the landing pages?
4. How will any customizations to the landing pages affect conversion ratios?
5. What other ways can we make each affiliates landing pages unique without giving them too much control?

The customization would have to be enough so search engines that have a duplicate filter will not see them as the same page. Is this possible? Right now I think so, but since search engines algorithms change frequently you will need to keep watch on everything.

There are many reason that Affiliate Programs should take advantage of SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems. But there are also reasons Affiliates may need to be cautious of them. If the affiliate doesn't understand linking or the effects of search engine algorithms then they may need some help from an Affiliate Manager.


Semi-SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs

These are programs that are getting hit by the duplicate filter but are not getting the advantages of PR transferring to the pages. These systems should look to see if they could use Mod Rewrite to become truly SEO Friendly.

They should also be able to prepare affiliates for this. With custom landing pages and a good Affiliate Manager to help affiliates with linking or customizing.

Feel free to come ask me questions over at Digital Marketing Online Forum. I would love to discuss this and the different degrees of this happening.

___________________________
Written by Tanya Martin from Over The Mark. Keep an eye out for more great articles and tips at her SEO Blog. Interested in having your linking methods evaluated or your affiliate system evaluated? Contact Debbie Bonventre at debbie@overthemark.com or 1.888.987.7861.