Affiliate Links: to Disclose or Not to Disclose?

There is a lot of debate as whether or not to disclose your affiliate links when you are writing reviews about a product you would like to earn commission from.

Some may argue that it is unethical not to disclose the fact that you will get a commission if someone buys a product you are reviewing, as a product review written by an affiliate has a higher chance of being biased.

On the other hand, affiliate links don't look very appealing to prospective buyers and only very inexperienced online buyers wouldn't know the difference between an original website link and an affiliate link. Some people, when interested in buying a product you are promoting, will click on a link and when they notice your affiliate link, will delete it from their browser and buy directly from the website; there is nothing to gain from this, as the product's price is the same, whether accessed directly or from an affiliate. This is called bypassing. Some, who are affiliates of the same product, will even replace your affiliate ID with their own in order to get the commission for themselves; this is called hijacking; I think it is very dishonest but unfortunately very common among clickbank affiliates, as you can spot a clickbank hoplink a mile away.

There are ways you can try and hide your affiliate links. I have not tried any so I cannot vouch for their efficiency. There is a lot of information on the Internet on how to do this but it is often a little too complicated for me; however, I just came accross Mouseover Link Hider/Status Bar Message Generator, which is very easy to use, doesn't require any sign up and best of all, it is free! Be aware, if you decide to use some of the hiding or cloaking methods, that search engines might react differently to these and also make sure that your affiliate program allows you to do this; I don't think I can ever say this enough: READ ALL THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS!

As I outlined in Write Clickbank Product Reviews that Will Sell, I think that once you do the hard work promoting a product, it is fair to expect some kind of commission if your review prompts people to go and buy it. When you visit a car dealer and the salesman convinces you that a certain model is the right one for you, do you say (supposing the price stays exactly the same): "Thank you very much, now I will go to the manufacturer and buy this car from him because I don't want you to earn commission on this sale"?

I haven't been hiding my affiliate links simply because I didn't have the technical knowledge so far and it seems like too much of a hassle (you can call me lazy if you like) so I am not sure whether I will or not.

I would just like to end this post saying that just because you can't see an affiliate link doesn't mean it's not there. The information found on the Internet is not 100% reliable so before buying anything, trust your own judgement.

Do You Think Clickbank Is a Scam?

After visiting a few online discussion forums, I came across a few posts claiming that Clickbank may be a scam. It is true that it can be a bit tricky to get your first cheque from them, but if you go through Clickbank's accounting policy, you should know what to expect from this affiliate programme.

If you are a new affiliate, when you reach your payment threshold, which can be set anywhere between $10 and $10000, you will not automatically receive a cheque, as there are conditions that must be fulfilled first.

You must have payments coming from at least 5 different credit cards in order to be paid by Clickbank, with at least one being a Visa and one a Mastercard, and this minimum excludes payments made with Paypal balances and eChecks.

If your Clickbank account is in credit but you are not eligible yet to receive your first cheque, after 90 days of inactivity, Clickbank will deduct $1 per pay period (2 weeks) from your balance. After 180 days, this goes up to $5 per pay period and $15 after one year of inactivity.

Unfortunately, even though Clickbank usually accepts payments made via Paypal, they do not use this facility to pay their affiliates or publishers; you will have to wait for a cheque to be mailed to you and for every cheque that is made out to you, $2.50 will be deducted from your account.

Being a Clickbank affiliate means that you will get typically between 50% and 75% of a product's net sale amount (calculated as follows: retail price - (7.5% of retail price + $1)). This is one of the biggest commission rates that can be found online so if you expect to earn almost 75% of each product you promote without any drawbacks, you are out of luck!

Even though it can be a bit of a hassle getting your first check from Clickbank, I don't think it is a scam; if it was, not only the accounting policy would not be so easy to access, but you would probably also be asked to pay a subscription fee before being able to promote their marketplace's products.

As with every other money-making opportunity you wish to participate in, you must read the information that is available on Clickbank's website if you want to make the most of your experience with them. Clickbank's accounting policy may not please everyone so if you don't like it, you don't have to join them!

My Evil Money-Making Plan: the Outcome

Last December, I wrote This Is How I Will Make Money In 2008, mentioning that I was going to write some clickbank product reviews containing my affiliate link on Associated Content.

For those of you not too familiar with Clickbank, or if you are just curious to read it, you can read Write Clickbank Product Reviews that Will Sell, my latest Associated Content article.

As I already mentioned, the inclusion of affiliate links in articles is against Associated Content's rules, and, as expected, they caught up with me: last Saturday, one of the administrators sent me an email to inform me that they had removed the articles containing my clickbank hoplinks from their website.

I did not write this post to whine about Associated Content, as I admit I knowingly wrote the articles in question. I should count myself lucky that I have not been banned from submitting articles on their website and I will write articles that comply to their rules from now on.

I just thought I would mention that for the time my first article was on the Associated Content website (about 4 weeks), it received 248 page views and 4 of these converted into sales, allowing me to earn $58.48 in commission from Clickbank.

There are some article submission websites that allow affiliate links in the body of your articles, but submitting those will reduce the chances of having your articles downloaded by webmasters and republished on someone else's blog or website. Nobody wants an article that contains someone else's affiliate links on their website!

I think that the best option is to write your review of a clickbank product containing your affiliate link in your own website or blog, and then submit an article about the same product without the affiliate links. If you include your blog or website's address in your author box, your article will get more chances of being chosen by webmasters and viewed by their readers as well as by those who happen to read it on the article directory's website. As publishers are obliged to include your author box when uploading an article, the original review containing the affiliate links that you wrote on your own website will get exposed to more people, and as you already know, the more people that will read your review, the more chances you will have to earn some clickbank commission!

Get Paid to Blog with Smorty

After reading a lot of good reviews on Smorty, I decided to join them. I did not want to write this post until I knew a little bit more about this other get paid to blog website, so now that my lovely little blog has been accepted, here we go!

There are people out there that want to advertise on blogs and people wanting to get paid for blogging: Smorty is one of the websites that allow these people to do business together.

Getting paid to blog is so far the most lucrative opportunity I have experienced so far on the Internet. Sure, you won't earn enough with one blog to give up the day job (if you have one), but Smorty will pay your sponsored post a minimum of $6; the higher your blog's page rank, the higher paying posts you will be able to write and Smorty's website claims that a sponsored post can be paid up to $100, so if you are willing to advertise on your blog while staying in control of the ads' content, then you can blog for money.

What I love the most about Smorty is that it is a very easy website to use and they pay on a weekly basis, so as long as you have some approved posts every week, you will be able to fatten up your Paypal account each Friday, just on time for the week-end!

I think that blog advertising is a great way for advertisers to get more exposure on the Internet, as well as for bloggers to earn a little money. It seems that this new type of advertising is getting more and more popular, so if you have a blog that meets the minimum criteria, and you are looking for a way to monetize it, I recommend joining Smorty.

Got a Digital Camera? Make Money Online

The Internet is so great; everything seems to be an opportunity to make money.

Digital photography is another money-maker. Anyone who owns a digital camera can make money by submitting photographs to some websites. I did a quick search on the Internet and found Shuttershock, which pays $0.25 anytime one of your submitted photos is downloaded.

There are a few other websites that will allow you to sell your photos online, you can easily find them by doing a little Google search so I am not going to list them all.

I am going to pass up on this one since all the pictures I take are from my children and I don't want to have them plastered all over the Internet; I am waiting for someone to create a "get paid to eat chocolate" website (keep dreaming, girl!).

Conscience Money

You may think I am completely off-topic but this relates to money and I thought it was an interesting subject, so here it comes:

On December 24, 2007, some crazy anonymous person (only in Ireland!) left a parcel in the Galway Tax Office, containing €25000 in cash. There was a note asking the said office to have an ad published in the newspapers to confirm that the money had been received.

Speculations are now open in our city: who and why? The tax office, having no way of knowing who paid this amount, could actually find this person liable for tax in the future; if put in this situation, it would be very difficult for the person in question to prove that he or she is the anonymous donor.

When I pay my taxes, I always make sure I keep my receipts, and I would go to great lengths to make sure I don't overpay them! If I had extra money to give away, I would certainly not give it to the Irish Revenue; I would rather give it to a deserving charity.

I wish I had known this person and persuaded him or her to give the money to me instead!

My Advice on Payday Loans

Don’t you find it difficult sometimes to pay all your bills on time? January is one of the toughest times for consumers: after most of your money has been spent over Christmas, it is now time to face the music.

If you are lucky, you may have managed to pay your credit card balance in full each month; if not, maybe you have thought about getting a bank loan with fixed interest rate so you don’t have to worry about high interest charges on your credit card.

If your financial situation is so that you are not eligible for a classic bank loan, there are such things as payday loans you can avail of, in order to tie you over until your next pay day.

Before applying for a payday loan or any other type of unsecured loan, you must do your homework: make sure you read all the terms and conditions before agreeing to any contract; if you cannot repay your loan by the agreed date, your interest can double and you may end up even more deeply in debt that when you started out. Work out a budget in advance, to make sure that you can afford the repayments on time. If necessary, visit your own financial institution (even if they have just refused you a loan) and ask for advice.