Earlier this month, Emilee discussed the Building Blocks for Compelling Content. She impressed the importance of weaving Affiliate links into your post in an unobtrusive manner specifically using product links from Merchant Product Datafeeds.
Let’s expand on this idea with a little 101 Tutorial: How to Add Product Links to a Blog Post.
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Emilee’s Post: Building Blocks for Compelling ContentGreat content boosts and helps to maintain readership. So, where do you start? There are several Building Blocks for creating quality content and today I’m just going to focus on one. I wanted to illustrate my point for this post with a food analogy (as I tend to do with so many other things).
via: blog.shareasale.com
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STEP 1: Search for Appropriate Products
Emilee had recently posted a taco recipe on her blog and one of the main pieces of equipment she used was a mandoline slicer. I have no idea what this is, but in her words, “This handy dandy slicer makes slicing veggies paper thin a breeze.” So, let’s search for a mandoline slicer…
MERCHANTS TAB > SEARCH FOR MERCHANTS
Search using the “Keyword” option, and be sure to select “Start with: Products” as opposed to “Start with: Merchants”.
Look at all those options!
STEP 2: Get Product Links
Now that we’ve found a good selection of mandoline slicers, it’s time to get the product links. Remember, you need to be approved for a Merchant Program before you can get an affiliate link. So, if you are not already approved for the program click [JOIN PROGRAM] to apply.
If you are already approved for this program, click “Get Link” next to the product.
You will now be directed to the Product Link Information Page. Here, you can decide exactly how to promote this particular product. You can choose from three higher level options:
- Text Links
- Thumbnail Image Links
- Large Image Links
A text link would work great if you want to hyperlink the word ‘mandoline slicer’ within your blog post. Large image links work well if you are doing a big image feature on a product. Today let’s talk about using the Thumbnail Image Link options.
You can choose to display your Thumbnail Image Link in a number of different ways.
- Thumbnail Image Link
- Thumbnail Image Link with Name
- Thumbnail Image Link with Name and Vendor *Example*
- Thumbnail Image Link with Name, Vendor and Pricing Information
- Thumbnail Image Link with Name, Pricing and Description Information
Once you’ve decided how to display the product, simply to copy-paste the designated HTML Code. And you have your link!
STEP 3: Adding Additional Products
You can certainly just promote one mandoline slicer in your blog post, but let’s take it a step further and add a couple additional products to a quick table. You can add it at the bottom of your blog post as “Recommended Mandoline Slicers”.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 to choose your products and get your links. Create a quick table with 2 rows (one for a title, one for products) and three columns (to feature three different products).
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Need a Quick Tutorial on HTML Tables?A table is divided into rows (with the
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| tag). td stands for “table data,” and holds the content of a data cell. A | tag can contain text, links, images, lists, forms, other tables, etc. |
Ta-Da! An easy product feature for your blog post.
| Recommended Mandoline Slicers: | ||
 Stainless Steel Bron Coucke Mandoline Slicer from: AbestKitchen.com |
 Jaccard Stainless Steel Mandoline Slicer from: AbestKitchen.com |
 Chef’s Secret® Mandoline Slicer Set from: Giftwarehouse.com |
The ads on your site can go anywhere but that does not mean they have to go everywhere.
Lala says
July 23, 2013 at 10:13 amThis is exactly how I have blogged for years. However, the only hiccup is response time with being approved. There usually is a gap delay which means your posts sits in draft waiting for that one approval. But other than that, this is the perfect way to blog in my opinion.
Brent Kozlowski says
November 4, 2013 at 11:48 pmThe title of this article is very deceiving…Where exactly is the part where you use a datafeed? This is all about going in and manually adding products. Extremely labor intensive and more a headache then anything. Don’t need to be negative, but I was hoping to learn something about datafeeds.
Brian Littleton says
November 6, 2013 at 12:08 pmBrent,
I can see your point, sorry to disappoint you with the post. We’ll see if we can write one up soon that deals only with datafeeds and how to work with them not using the interface, etc…
Harry says
August 28, 2015 at 4:09 pmAs a longtime webdev, I recently decided to enter the affiliate world. Maybe I am too close to the subject but I am having a struggle determining what kind of website I need. My experience has been mainly data-driven informational sites. Nothing to do with shopping carts. When I saw this article I was hopeful – but my feelings are the same as Brent’s.
Brian stated an article using datafeeds would be forthcoming 2 years ago, but I can’t seem to find it. I really don’t want to build another wheel when I think there must be an affiliate web package available – driven by my datafeeds. Any help, direction or advice here? Thanks
James Harrison says
December 12, 2014 at 2:29 pmGreat stuff! We’re hoping to get this done today with exporting our products to create a custom feed in our shopping cart platform. Is there any way for us (the merchant) to see through the eyes of a potential affiliate, for lack of a better phrase, to see what the process looks like for them on the frontend in regards to applying for programs and choosing products?
Brian Littleton says
December 22, 2014 at 7:33 pmJames,
I’d recommend definitely getting an Affiliate Account (free) and taking a look at your program, and others, from that perspective – it will greatly help you on these kinds of things.