It’s common knowledge that text links kill when it comes to converting potential customers to affiliate commissions, but why, and more importantly, how? Some would say banners get ignored or that surfers know to click on blue text, etc, but I guarantee that slapping a bunch of text links on your pages will not see those higher conversion levels that pull up the curve. The reason text links convert so well is not that they’re text, but because savvy affiliates have learned how to use them effectively.

Text links placed within and as an integral part of targeted content can be extremely effective (obviously) because they’re active links. Banners sit around flashing and shouting “click me, click me”, but aside from the shout, they’re passive. Sharp affiliates have learned to merge content and marketing in a way that actively engages the potential customer, gives them a nice boost of consumer confidence and sends them off ready to buy.

An affiliate recently asked me for some marketing tips for a specific merchant and I suggested adding targeted and effective content and gave an example to illustrate what I was talking about. My example was to write a page about Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas that promoted a book called Fee Mining Adventures in the Eastern US. Okay, writing a whole page dedicated to pushing a single book may sound silly, but the page could just as easily incorporate digging equipment, maps, area hotels, other travel related books, etc. The book and subject mentioned are just an example of the perfect product/content combination.

Why is it perfect?

1. Crater of Diamonds is one of the few places in the United States where visitors can, for a fee, dig for diamonds and keep anything they find. Anyone searching for Crater of Diamonds is expressing an interest in both fee mining and the geographic area covered by the book. Searches may be specific to the single location, but digging for diamonds is a vacation activity and vacations generally involve several stops in a specific area. A guide covering those potential stops is a likely purchase (if the customer only knew it existed).Here you have the type of activity they’re interested in and where they want to do it. At that point simply closing the page with “For other places to dig your own gold and gems in the Eastern US, pick up a copy of Fee Mining Adventures in the Eastern US” should nail it.

2. You’re providing authoritative content. The visitor, through your coverage of a subject they’re interested in, now trusts you as a wise old salt…err…something like that. In any case, they trust you because you know your stuff. If you now suggest a product or merchant that will be of further assistance, they will trust your advice and likely make the purchase or at least bookmark the site for later.

3. Crater of Diamonds shows up regularly on the Travel Channel, in the news, etc, so people, interested in that sort of activity will search for it. I’d wager there’s a spike after every airing of one of those shows, so there’s potential traffic out there.

4. You can rank for it. Good, authoritative content about a specific “informational” subject is often easier to rank for than sales focused product content. Not everybody agrees that content is the holy grail of affiliate marketing, but I think we can all agree that good content isn’t all that hard to get indexed and ranked.

Sum all that up and you have highly targeted traffic ready to take your advice and buy. Better than a banner?

The above example is pretty elaborate, but the concept is what’s important. The idea is to use content to target potential customers, gain their trust and actively market select offers integrated into the content. It’s all pretty obvious, but so rare in practice that you’d think it was reserved for Mensa members only.