Anything to stop me editing EZA resource box links to affiliate redirects?

17 replies
Hi

I've only just realised that you ARE allowed to have an an affiliate link in the resource box in your EZA article (stupid I know) if it is a redirect from a domain you own.

Is there any reason why I can't go through all of my Ezine articles that have decent ctr's, and change one of the links in the resource boxes to a redirect, and resubmit? Seems pointless directing someone to my own landing page when I can send them straight to the offer.

I mean - it won't count as a new submission and go to the bottom of the most read list etc?

Thanks in advance.

Dan
#affiliate #box #editing #eza #links #redirects #resource #stop
  • Profile picture of the author KateD
    Originally Posted by sentient View Post

    Hi

    I've only just realised that you ARE allowed to have an an affiliate link in the resource box in your EZA article (stupid I know) if it is a redirect from a domain you own.

    Is there any reason why I can't go through all of my Ezine articles that have decent ctr's, and change one of the links in the resource boxes to a redirect, and resubmit? Seems pointless directing someone to my own landing page when I can send them straight to the offer.

    I mean - it won't count as a new submission and go to the bottom of the most read list etc?

    Thanks in advance.

    Dan
    Dan,

    To be clear, you CAN'T have an affiliate link in your EZA article resource box. You CAN have a top level domain name that you redirect to your affiliate link. This is just semantics tough. I understand the point you are making.

    I just changed the links to about 35 of my EZA articles (some of the articles were posted back in 2006).

    Just go and edit your resource boxes. What EZA will do is have a "live draft copy" of your article available.

    EZA will have to manually review the changes you made before approving it. Once approved, your edited article will be live. Meaning, they won't take your article down until the edit is approved (which is good).

    Also, they approve these edits MUCH faster than they approve the original article submissions. I had my edits approved within about 6 hours.

    Much Success,

    KateD
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan700
    Originally Posted by sentient View Post

    Hi

    Is there any reason why I can't go through all of my Ezine articles that have decent ctr's, and change one of the links in the resource boxes to a redirect, and resubmit?
    Thanks in advance.

    Dan
    Yes, you can do it. But, there is a chance that your article won't make it past quality control. If your article is a few years old then the quality of it might not pass inspection the second time around. Has very little to do with resource boxes.
    I've edited my resource boxes because I've let some of my domain names have expired so I changed them to new ones. You can do the same.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
      I would advise against changing all of your resource boxes until you test for conversion rates. A lot of people say they get better conversions by sending viewers to their landing page first. Naturally, this will depend on how well the landing page does in selling the product.

      I would try just changing three of your better CTR articles to the re-direct and see if your conversion rate is affected. If it improves, obviously switch some more or even all of them. If it goes down, you only hurt your traffic minimally and then you can change the links back to the landing page.

      Tina
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      • Profile picture of the author KateD
        Originally Posted by TMG Enterprises View Post

        I would advise against changing all of your resource boxes until you test for conversion rates. A lot of people say they get better conversions by sending viewers to their landing page first. Naturally, this will depend on how well the landing page does in selling the product.

        I would try just changing three of your better CTR articles to the re-direct and see if your conversion rate is affected. If it improves, obviously switch some more or even all of them. If it goes down, you only hurt your traffic minimally and then you can change the links back to the landing page.

        Tina
        A couple of things.

        I believe that the OP was referring to the CTRs of the EZA articles as opposed to the conversion ratio of the affiliate offer. Changing the links in the resource box shouldn't really change the CTRs of the EZA articles themselves.

        That being said, yes, sending traffic directly from an EZA article to an affiliate salespage will most likey reduce the conversion ratio for that offer. A lot can be said for the power of proper "preselling" in landing pages and/or follow up auto responder emails.

        Can the OP change the links? Yes, definitely.

        Should the OP change the links? That's another question all together.

        Much Success,

        KateD
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        • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
          I believe that the OP was referring to the CTRs of the EZA articles as opposed to the conversion ratio of the affiliate offer. Changing the links in the resource box shouldn't really change the CTRs of the EZA articles themselves.
          I realize that but the conversion rate is ultimately what matters. That's why I recommended testing. Definitely changing should not affect CTR but it certainly could lower his conversion rate on that click thru traffic.

          Tina
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          • Profile picture of the author KateD
            Originally Posted by TMG Enterprises View Post

            I realize that but the conversion rate is ultimately what matters. That's why I recommended testing. Definitely changing should not affect CTR but it certainly could lower his conversion rate on that click thru traffic.

            Tina
            Tina,

            You are correct. Sending traffic directly to the affiliate salespage can definitely lower the conversion ratio. Totally agree with you on that.

            But the OP was not asking if it would be a better idea to change the resource box links. He only wanted to know if it was possible..which it is.

            But you are correct..even though he can edit the links, the OP should really think about whether it would be the best strategy.

            KateD
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            • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
              But the OP was not asking if it would be a better idea to change the resource box links. He only wanted to know if it was possible..which it is.
              Oops, the way I read it, I took it to be asking for opinions on any reasons why it might not be a good idea. Oh, well...lol. At least he now has another thing to think about.

              Tina
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              • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
                If you already own the domain that is in the resource box, just change it to redirect to the landing page and EZA won't even know what you did.

                If conversions go down - change it back, and they still won't know.

                If you are thinking about buying a new domain and doing it, make sure that you only do one or two articles a day - anymore than that and they will start declining them for being similar or "not enough info" on landing page etc...
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  • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
    Originally Posted by sentient View Post

    Hi

    I've only just realised that you ARE allowed to have an an affiliate link in the resource box in your EZA article (stupid I know) if it is a redirect from a domain you own.

    Is there any reason why I can't go through all of my Ezine articles that have decent ctr's, and change one of the links in the resource boxes to a redirect, and resubmit? Seems pointless directing someone to my own landing page when I can send them straight to the offer.

    I mean - it won't count as a new submission and go to the bottom of the most read list etc?

    Thanks in advance.

    Dan
    Dan:

    Ezine considers these new submissions. So you need to make sure your articles comply with the current rules as well before submitting.

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author VeitSchenk
    if you want to go straight to the affiliate offer, have you considered sandwiching a video-sales page in between? You know, the Keith Wellman style thing (and Ryan Deiss has pretty much the same concept in his Total access club this month): replace sales-letter by video (all you do is read the most interesting things from the sales-letter, put it in a powerpoint and put the odd bit of scarcity in there, I'm converting all my stuff to this at the moment, conversion go up in most markets).

    works great when you can then jump straight to the sales-page and you've already set the affiliate cookie. paydotcom and clickbank should be fine.

    Veit
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      Please excuse a possibly contentious viewpoint, but all the article marketers I know think exactly the opposite, and wouldn't dream of sending the reader to a sales-page rather than to a landing page with which they can (a) pre-sell and (b) build a list - both of which should dramatically increase the conversion-rates!

      I guess it depends on if he is talking about clickbank or CPA...

      CPA visitors, especially in some of the "trial offer" niches, I routinely send to the offer page, because it converts better like that.

      ClickBank is a whole other beast though
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  • Profile picture of the author sentient
    Thanks everyone for their responses, KateD particularly.

    My plan is to change one of the links in my resource boxes on articles that have a decent CTR, but where the landing pages don't send much traffic to the actual offer. As Jeremy pointed out, these will particularly be the type of CPA offers that have a free offer.

    I don't build lists, due to the type of products I promote, so I only use my landing pages to push people to the actual offer.

    I already use Monsterclicks cloaking to do a 301 redirect of a whole site to an affiliate offer, but wanted to do it a bit more legitimately. I don't want to redirect the domains that the articles currently point to, because some of them get decent organic traffic.

    As I've got your CPA Drifter course Jeremy, I should really have got onto this for my old EZA articles. I've got around 80 that are still getting decent views and clicks that I can use better than I am now.
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  • Profile picture of the author imageworx
    Does anyone know if you can use a "descriptor" in your Ezine link Like "www.youdomain.com?MO12 " for example for tracking purposes. Does anyone have any actual experience using a link like this in Ezine?...thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author Nicola Haxby
      Originally Posted by imageworx View Post

      Does anyone know if you can use a "descriptor" in your Ezine link Like "www.youdomain.com?MO12 " for example for tracking purposes. Does anyone have any actual experience using a link like this in Ezine?...thanks

      Hi Sentient,

      I don't believe that you can do that (someone please say if I'm wrong). Ezine Articles are pretty strict on URL's. However, if you're wanting to see how many views your article has had an how many times your URL has been clicked, then Ezine Articles provide all that information for you.

      Log in, go to the 'Author Tool's' tab and then select 'view my article reports'.

      From there, you can get a breakdown of statistics for each of your articles. There's even a pie chart

      Another way is to log into your hosting account and look at 'awstats'. I always prefer the first method as I feel it's more accurate.

      Hope this helps,

      Nicola
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      • Profile picture of the author imageworx
        Thanks for the info Nicola,
        Yeah, someone had told me that you could use that type of link as long as it was for tracking purposes thru EZA, I suspected not as they have a hair trigger TOS thing going on from what I hear.

        My purpose is to track the conversions for each article which seems virtually impossible unless I assign each article to it's own redirected domain.

        ----

        Originally Posted by Nicola Haxby View Post

        Hi Sentient,

        I don't believe that you can do that (someone please say if I'm wrong). Ezine Articles are pretty strict on URL's. However, if you're wanting to see how many views your article has had an how many times your URL has been clicked, then Ezine Articles provide all that information for you.

        Log in, go to the 'Author Tool's' tab and then select 'view my article reports'.

        From there, you can get a breakdown of statistics for each of your articles. There's even a pie chart

        Another way is to log into your hosting account and look at 'awstats'. I always prefer the first method as I feel it's more accurate.

        Hope this helps,

        Nicola
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