Set up affiliates

[CommT]

Hi Mozzers,

As a response to Rand's recent (ish!) whiteboad Friday (http://moz.com/blog/my-customers-wont-amplify-my-content-whiteboard-friday) where he talked about how many verticals will never gain much in the way of links because they aren't fun or exciting products/brands. I think my sites fall into this - we sell mortgages! Not the most exciting or sexy of products, but try buying a house without one!

With this in mind, I am looking at building an extensive PR campaign, but this will take a fair bit of time to get going. In the meantime, my boss has asked me to find some paid link opportunities. I've been trawling through our main competitor's backlinks like a demon (so much trash in there though, why hasn't Google noticed it yet??) and one of our main competitors looks like they are running an affiliate scheme.

I have absolutely no experience in this area. None. Zip. Nothing.

I want to change this! And get some good relevant (converting) traffic to my site. I personally think this would be more beneficial than buying links (my boss understands that any paid links I get will have to have nofollow and therefore would be built for traffic) because we'd only pay when we made a sale - right? I think this is the way it works?

Anyway, I wanted to know how to become an affiliate? Sorry if I've got the terminology wrong here - like I said before I have zero experience in this. Please can someone point me in the right direction? I've found a few companies that appear to act as the middleman but I have no idea of what is good and what isn't in this area. Steep learning curve for me....

Any knowledge you wish to share with me on this would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

[Ryan-Bradley]

Moz has an affiliate program here: http://moz.com/partnersBut if you're looking to sell a lot of different products through affiliate marketing try visiting Clickbank.com or CJ.com

[CommT]

Thank you - I didn't know Moz had a network. I'll look into it, but I think we need a UK company purely because the products we sell are for the UK market only (mortgages) so need to get in front of a UK audience... However, I'm saying this without even checking it out! I will, thank you!

Am most grateful for your comment! I must admit to being a little disappointed not to have had any more input from fellow mozzers, but I can't complain: I don't always answer questions myself so would be somewhat hypocritical to complain, don't you think?

Please - if anyone has any nuggets of info they are happy to share about being an affiliate advertiser don't be shy!