Let's start with how affiliate links can help your SEO efforts - especially when the affiliate links have your domain in them.
As you know, the number of incoming links to your web site is an essential part of SEO. The more incoming links you have, the more "popular" Google believes your web site to be, and the higher your site shows in search results. Sure, “do-follow” is better than “no-follow”. But no-follow links are still way better than no links at all! And that's where having an in-house affiliate program - like the built-in affiliate module that DigitalAccessPass.com (DAP) comes with - can be such a HUGE advantage over, say, a third-party affiliate program like with ClickBank.
Now, there definitely are some advantages to using a third-party affiliate program like ClickBank - like getting access to their built-in network of affiliates. But remember that just because you sell through ClickBank does not mean you're going to get all of them - or even most of them - to promote your product. You will still need to promote your program to recruit any of them. So I don't recommend using ClickBank just because you think all those affiliates will promote you. There are other real benefits to using ClickBank, which I will be addressing in an upcoming part of this affiliate series.
So, unless you're already making 5 or 6 figures a month, having an in-house affiliate program can give you a huge advantage.
Then I talk about Refunds and Clawbacks.
(listen to the show for the rest)
Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/
So How Much Should you Pay Your Affiliates? The answer to that depends on a bunch of different things. Let's start with your product funnel - like... is this a lead-generator or a loss-leader followed by one or more back-end products?
Is there an instant 1-Click Upsell after the purchase?
Do you have a mature product line where you can upsell them in the future?
And it also depends on your sales goals: How much do your products and services cost, how much do you wish to make per sale - is it just for this specific launch, or is this a lifetime funnel? What's your cost of after-sales support? What is your profit margin?
Is it digital product or a physical product? With physical products, you have overhead - like shipping and handling and return shipping and damage and delays - you won't have any of that with a digital product.
(listen to the show for the rest)
Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/