Affiliate SEO is a topic I discuss often within my program. Many times, my affiliates are bloggers who understand general SEO concepts but want to take it to the next level for affiliate SEO. I am always looking for new tools to help my affiliates. As such I attended the SEO FAQs session at Affiliate Summit West 2015 in Las Vegas.
The session was led by Marketing Nomads Agency and Adam Reimer. Since the session was only 15 minutes long, below includes additional insight and research into the topics addressed
3 Buckets To Fill For Affiliate SEO
It is important to think of your search engine optimization strategy in three buckets:
1) Content – Google’s ever changing algorithm always has one thing in common…content is king! Having relevant, quality content is crucial for long standing SEO success. As a content niche affiliate marketing specialist or blogger using affiliate marketing for monetization, this is great news! Never stray from placing great content as the key part of your affiliate SEO strategy. Great content is shared and valued
2) Architecture – Did you know your navigation and other internal links within your site impact your SEO rankings? This is what an SEO specialist mean as your site architecture. Make sure you have a relevant site map and navigation to increases your crawlablity without sacrificing your usability.
3) Popularity – The search engines define popularity by outside links to your page/site as well as traffic.
Of these three buckets, Popularity is the most weighted in the algorithm.
“Outside links are important, but you need 1 and 2 to be effective” explains Scott from Nomad Marketing Agency. “However 80% of your ranking is more about off-site factors than the optimization of the site itself.”
The Right Tools for Affiliate SEO
The panel agreed that you can take advantage of the many tools available for Affiliate SEO. Since most of my affiliates work within WordPress, I recommend WordPress Plug-Ins like Yoast and WordPress SEO. Based on my research and the consensus of the panel, Yoast reigns as the top tool for SEO for affiliates. It is easy to use and comprehensive.
However, you need to have a basic understanding of search engine optimization to use these tools properly. Great resources to get you up to speed include The SEO Journal and Search Engine Land. I higly recommend subscribing to their newsletter. Get started with the basics by Googling “seo 101 search engine land.”
Tips on Getting High-Quality Linkbacks
As a content niche or blogger affiliate, you naturally create great content. To increase your rankings for affiliate seo, you need to do more than just create the content. You need to have an aggressive and strategic outreach. Below are some ways to get more linkback (as known as a backlink)
- Create ‘shareable’ content and broadcast on your social media channels
- Develop a network of high quality like-minded sites that will share your content
- Guest blog post on quality sites. The key here is quality sites. If your site is linked to a spammy site, the search engines will identify your site accordingly.
- Reach out to like minded sites and request a backlink.
- Don’t forget to include a link back to your site in your social media profiles such as your LinkedIn Company Profile Page, YouTube channel page, Slideshare and more.
Be Wary Of the Following Mistakes
- Too many links on your page “Try to keep it at over 20 internal links per page especially the home page” states Adam Reimer. Remember your navigation is an internal link!
- Don’t over optimize. Keep your copy flow natural. The user is always the priority for both you and Google.
- Do not get links back from low-quality sites. Low-quality sites will be penalized by Google and other search engines.
This post is a brief overview of some of the tools and techniques used to optimize your pages for affiliate marketing. To get in-depth with your search engine strategy, I recommend reading