If you're going to promote a product or company in a post and plan to use your affiliate link in the body of the text, make sure any images in the post are attached to your affiliate link as well.
Many bloggers include an image, but if a reader clicks on that image, they are only taken to a separate page on your site where your upload is stored.
An example…
So let's pretend I'm an affiliate for Tell Your Time. <–That text link is my affiliate link.
And now let's say I want to insert an image in the post too. Click on this image and you'll see that I did not link it with my affiliate link:
See how it takes you to just a dead page on my own site and doesn't take you to the place where you can actually buy the book? If I was an affiliate, I might have just lost a sale.
Make sure it's linked.
Here's how…
In WordPress, I would insert an image as usual. I would get the following screen after uploading. Before you click "Insert into Post" paste your affiliate link into the field which says "Link URL":
Easy peasy!
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Loved this post, Amy! Thank you for keeping the tips timely and detailed. Within a few moments, I can improve my blog while using time wisely. Win-win. Love it. Keep up the great work.
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(By the way, loved your previous post on leaving the first comment.
OK, so this is possibly a totally dumb question, but doesn't linking an image to an affiliate link mean that it will more than likely be blocked by adblock software?
Hi Amy – Wondering if you think that recipe photos need to be linked as well. It takes a good bit of extra time, so I'm wondering if you think the extra time is worth it.
Thanks! I don't do too many affiliate links (I need to do more) but I did link the images
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I only link images that are clearly an affiliate product. So for example, Tell Your Time is an affiliate product, but I wouldn't link all my images (like a recipe photo) unless that particular recipe photo included an affiliate product. Does that make sense?
BTW – great tip! That makes linking so much easier!
I just had one of those why didn't I think of that moments.
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Thanks for the great tip!
Do you know how to do this with Blogger?
Heather, to do it in Blogger, insert your image into the post as usual using the "insert image" icon in your New Post window. Once it's in there, highlight your image. A little window should popup that allows you to edit the link. You'll put your affiliate link where indicated. Hope that helps!
I just discovered your blog a few days ago, and I am loving it! Thank you so much for all of these wonderful tips and ideas. Every post I've read so far has been easy to understand and so very helpful!!
Ok, not sure about this totally but when I upgraded to the newest version of wordpress it already does this for me.
That's a great tip and I try to do it every time! Thanks for spreading the word!
Thanks for the great tutorial. I cover yarn, tech, and life on my blog (http://twyste.com) and haven't done anything with advertising yet. I've seen some sites where people have a disclosure statement that they receive income from clicks. Is that necessary, required, or good to do?
I second Heather's question…would love to know how to do this in Blogger!
See above or here ya go.
Awesome! Thanks so much!
Thanks for this tutorial. It's so simple yet I never thought about it,lol. Thanks Amy.
So, for some reason this doesn't work for me with my Amazon affiliate links.
I know they create links for you, but I don't think they look pretty.
I'd love to be able to paste one in as you've described above.
Does anyone else have this issue, or am I just doing some obvious thing wrong? I know Amazon has forums for their affiliates and gobs of how-tos, but I find them very challenging to wade through. Again, it may just be me.
If you are grabbing the whole snipped of code Amazon gives you, it won't work but if you extract just the part from http:// to the next set of quotes, it should work.
Does that make sense?
I also just found that, if you like the picture Amazon has up, when you click "link to this page" select image only and amazon will affiliate link the image for you! So then you just select the HTML text like usual.
I hope that helps, I know it will be a huge time saver for me.
I have been linking photos, but I don't like that the link is brought up into the same page as my website. I would like it to open into another tab, so whoever is going to the link can still be connected to my website and not have to look for it again after they click through to the affiliate link. If I link text, I see where I can choose: open up in new tab, but I don't see how to do this with a photo. Anyone know?
Hi Alina, you need to add target="_blank" to your links. Or, if you get a popup window when you add a link (are you on WordPress??) make sure the "open this link in a new window" box is checked. Hope that helps!
Thank you! Yes, I'm using WordPress. I'm not sure where I would add the target="_blank", but when I went to edit the photo, I saw another tab for "Advanced Settings" and I see there where I can request to "open in a new window", not sure why I didn't see that before.
I have always done this because as an artist, I realize the importance of images, and as a not-so-savvy computer person, I know that if I can't find something I often click on the image. Thanks for the reminder!
I always link images to affiliate links as well. I just remember basic advertising guidelines of repeating something 3x. So once in the image, possibly once with the company's name and a 3rd time with the deal or offer I'm linking to (not always , i.e. if it's a short post). Also as a reader, I like to get where I want to go quickly, and often it's by clicking the post image. It's also good to "nofollow" affiliate links in the html.
Yes, thanks Ann-Marie!
I am not understanding "no follow" can you explain that?
Hi Amy!
Thanks for the very informative post. It's really a great help. I'm new to using affiliate programs so I'm tryna get as much information as I can.
Is it possible to link directly to a particular product with my affiliate code or does the link have to take the viewer to the affiliate sites landing/homepage?