This optimization tutorial was written by Orange County SEO Expert Steve Wiideman. Learn how installing or creating your own affiliate program can increase your web traffic and help you rank higher in the search engines. Read more below.

Affiliate Programs

Having an affiliate program on your website is one of the most effective ways to get other people to share your link and help you increase your website's visibility. There are two types of programs we'll discuss in this tutorial, internal affiliate programs and external affiliate programs.

Internal Affiliate Programs

Having your own affiliate program installed on your website is referred to as an internal affiliate program because the affiliate never has to leave your site to sign up. The benefit of using an internal affiliate program is that the affiliate gets a more professional user experience, since your layout and navigation never have to change.

The disadvantage of having an internal affiliate program is the cost (and or time) of having it installed on your website with your template applied. The installation usually doesn't cost much, depending on who you purchase the software through, but applying your website template to the affiliate program pages can be a real hassle.

The Best Affiliate Program

I sell affiliate products and services at OC Internet Advertising, my dba company. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll find a link to Join Affiliates, where you'll find a tool I purchased from iDevAffiliate for only $99 (okay $149 installed). Using this internal affiliate program allows me to decide how much I'm going to pay to my affiliates. The best part is that I have don't have to cough up a transaction fee for some third party affiliate engine.

iDev Affiliate Program Interface

I've been extremely happy with this program, and you can't beat the cost at only $149 installed. Try it yourself at iDevAffiliate.

External Affiliate Programs

The obvious difference in using an external affiliate program versus using an internal affiliate program is that you'll have to guide users away from your website, thus breaking the user experience. The advantage is that you're only a few clicks away from having your affiliate program up and running, versus having to purchase, install, and customize an internal affiliate program. You'll also have to give up some dough for the 3rd party hosting your affiliate program. If you're interested in going this route, here are a few different programs you can check out:

1. MyAffiliate Program offers a suite of affiliate tools.
2. Affiliate Clicks is another external Affiliate Program
3. AssocTrac - see a screenshot below.

The Choice is Up to You

My recommendation: Go with an internal affiliate program, pay the $149 for the software and another $200-$300 to some lucky Guru.com Freelancer. That's $450 tops and about 20 days of work. That gives you 345 days left in the year to recap the money, so is it worth it? In my opinion - it's worth it.

Having any type of affiliate program is better than not having one at all. Just picture several thousand people using the Internet specifically to drop one-way links to your website. We're talking blogs, forums, MySpace.com, TagWorld.com, Hi5.com, Yahoo! 360, etc. That's literally thousands of potential one-way links, and all you had to do was give up a few cents of the massive revenue this type of Internet marketing can provide. Like anything unknown that you know have to do, you're just going to have to get over the uncertainty and choose an affiliate program. If later you decide to switch, at least you didn't lose a year's worth of sales decided whether or not to have an affiliate program, right?

Steve Wiideman is an Orange County SEO Expert who specializes the design and marketing of search engine optimized sites in "The OC" Orange County, California. Steve is the recipient of the 2006 CCA GREAT Award and as earned Congressional Recognition for his post-graduate achievements.