Erik Ortega is going to get a link from me for TriFilliate PayDay as he left a comment with a link to his review.
The reasons why I am mentioning this?
I think Erik represents the “good” human side of affiliate marketing and is learning his lessons well, and working hard. His affiliate blog is obviously wrtten by a person, not “admin”, has a privacy statement, and real about page which discusses why he is promoting the product as an affiliate, and lots of content.
But this also gives me the opportunity to offer a few tips.
It would be fairly easy to add some kind of disclosure statement in the sidebar about affiliate status, and depending on geographical location there might be a need for more contact details such as a P.O. box.
First link priority – Erik didn’t abuse my comment policy, but his second link with anchor text wouldn’t have counted, even if he had enough comments on my blog to get followed links, because there was already a link to the resource in his name field (where he used his name)
Email address – The email address used was for the new website – that might close some doors for spying out some of his other properties, but there are other ways to do that anyway, as I am sure he has multiple sites on the same domain, maybe common use of adsense etc.
However by not using a consistant email address over time, it is hard to build up a reputation on blogs like mine which enable dofollow links after a period of time, or after a certain number of comments.
The best practice, to be 100% above board?
- Always use a consistant email address
- Establish a real identity – gravatar etc
- Always use your name in the name field
- If your comment is just in response to a post, and won’t include a link to a resource, then you can justifiably link to your favorite money site (or maybe a pumper) as long as it is high quality and obviously yours (like Erik’s is)
- If you are going to include a resource, then for the name field link it is best to use a totally different domain, or at least link to the root domain there and use a deep link to real solid relevant content within the comment body
Including a link in the content you really need to be on target with a resource that is without doubt relevant to the conversation, something that if not mentioned would reduce the value of the discussion.
Quite often any link drop within the content will be held for moderation even on blogs where you have an existing high quality profile and reputation, so it must be up to human scrutiny.
8 Comments
Hi Andy,
I have been following your blog for sometime and I find it really rewarding being here, one thing I’ve noticed though is that as much as I wanted to keep track on the conversation, there’s no way for me to subscribe in the succeeding comments. I was wondering if you did it on purpose.
Just a question, if a blogging friend e.g. has been commenting for sometime and then after a while added a new blog and link to his new blog in the comments, will you allow it? In what terms can it be acceptable?
Subscribe to comments I have off until I can set it up through a service with functioning blacklist and ISP feedback loop. There is always RSS for the comment feeds – I know people miss it, but I also know tons of the emails would end up in spam folders.
I have no problem with people linking to other domains – it is what trust is all about – the problem always comes when an SEO builds up some trust, and then decides to use it to link to client sites which is over the line
I am really new in the field of blog marketing and I truly hope that you can give me some advice of what to do to increase my rank and get new visitors.
I am confused exactly with the do follow/ no follow links. What do you think?
Thanks
Based upon this…
I think you should probably concentrate on doing work on your own private portfolio until you are 100% sure what you are doing.
Hey Andy,
I really appreciate this! I majored in marketing in college with a minor in business ethics so I really believe in white hat methods of promotion. I have many sites that get dry, pointless, and generic comments and the posters must believe that I won’t recognize the fact that they haven’t read my post. We are all in this together with the same common goal, to make our websites successful so we have to provide value to each other.
Any time you need help Andy, just let me know, you’ve got my email!
Hey Eric
You are most welcome, though competition is tough so you might need to get a lot more links
I’ll take whatever advice/help I can get! I’m a law school student so money is extremely tight and I just want to succeed so I can focus more on my studies then worrying about whether I can pay for next semesters books lol
I never leave a link in the comment because 99.99% of the time it is nofollow.