12 Types of Affiliate Links for Your Blog

Affiliate marketing is what dragged me into building niche sites.

I still remember the day I read about the concept.  I knew immediately that I wanted to start a niche site with affiliate links.  That’s all I did for a few years.

Now I use display ads across my niche sites, but I still do plenty of affiliate marketing.

I also use all kinds of affiliate links in my blog posts and articles.  I try different things to improve revenue.  Here’s a list of different types of affiliate links I use and you can too.

Text link

A text link is text that links to a merchant.  It can be one word, a phrase or entire sentence.

While it’s one of the oldest forms of links, it’s still very effective.  It’s easy to create urgency or mystery.  Examples:

• See price here

Or you can be more transparent with:

• “Visit Amazon to learn more” link text.

Button

With all kinds of page builders and shortcode plugins it’s easy to create buttons that are affiliate links.  Whether they’re more effective than text links, that varies niche to niche, page by page and product by product.

I typically stick with text links instead of buttons, but many successful affiliates use buttons.

Here’s an example:

Image link

I like linking images to merchants.  I do it quite a bit, especially for Amazon promotions.  I use AMZImages plugin for all niche sites which makes adding Amazon product images super easy and includes my affiliate links.

You can also easily link regular images with affiliate links.  Here’s an example:

Native ads with links

The Amazon native affiliate ad widget is a good example of a native-looking ads

Poll link

With Opinonstage poll software (and others I believe) you can put in affiliate links for the response buttons.  You can ask “do you prefer a white sneaker or red sneaker”.  Each response links with an affiliate link to a merchant.

Quiz link

Like the poll links, with Opinionstage quiz and survey software you can add affiliate links on the results screen so people can click to buy the outcome recommended product.

Skimlinks

With Skimlinks (read my review here) you can automatically turn every merchant link on your site into an affiliate link.  This is a huge time saver on many levels (no creating affiliate accounts and no time wasted inserting individual affiliate links).

Email sign up redirect

Some merchants, especially those selling informational products include free resources as part of the selling process such as videos and white papers.  Those merchants also offer affiliate links to those free materials.  You can then offer those resources in exchange for visitors signing up to your email, at which time you redirect with the affiliate link to the resource.

Software free trial link

Some software offers embeddable versions you can put on your site that includes affiliate tracking for everyone who registers and uses it.  If your niche has such software, it can be a very, very good way to promote as an affiliate.

Menu link

I used to do this on one site, but no longer.  You can put affiliate links in your navigation menu.  If you promote software, you can have a menu option “Software” that links to the software.  I don’t recommend this, but it might be good if the merchant is running a huge discount or promotion.

Social media links

You can put affiliate links into social media posts such as Facebook and Pinterest. Just be sure your merchant permits this.

Jon Dykstra

Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.