Why you should NOT link
to an affiliate site

Author: Harvey Segal

When you act as an affiliate or agent for another company, which means that you receive commission for getting customer orders to the company,you will often be provided with your own personalised web site.

So does this mean that in your ads you can simply refer to that site ?

It does - but here's a better idea.

You should link instead to a page on your OWN site so that

1. You can provide your own introduction to the product. This can include
   • additional detail not available in the advert
   • your own personal experience
   • a review of the benefits
2. You can provide links to your own particular business
3. Your own site traffic statistics will indicate the response to your ad in addition to any stats provided for you by the company
4. You can submit the page to search engines.

And there's one final advantage: should the affiliate operation be discontinued you can inform and divert visitors at your own web site, rather than have them visit a non-existent page.

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