How Pre-sell Pages can Easily Increase Conversions for Your Affiliate Links

Making money from a website often entails the use of proverbial income generators like product sales, affiliate programs and on-site advertising.
All of these monetization methods rely on inducing the visitor to perform a specific action such as clicking on an ad or an affiliate link, purchasing a product or subscribing to a newsletter.
Your success in getting the visitor to act the way you want often depends on the visual structure (design/ad placement) of your website and the type of content preceding or surrounding the product or promotion.
The success of affiliate programs are especially susceptible to the influence of well written copy and the power of personal recommendations. Nothing is more effective when you want get others to act upon your affiliate link.

Why Direct Affiliate Links do Not Work Sometimes
Direct affiliate links are links which point directly to an external website, of which you are the affiliate. These links send traffic away from your website and the effectiveness of getting a visitor to convert on it depends a lot on the host website.
If the website in question has a poor landing page or is weakly designed, you’ve just lost a potential referral. I’ve seen many websites which are simply not designed effectively enough to accommodate an incoming visitor’s initial interest.
Sending them directly to these types of external webpages is akin to affiliate suicide and I highly recommend that you create a well written presell page on your own website for greater conversion rates and overall success.

An Example of an Integrated Pre-Sell Page that Works

Brian Clark from Copyblogger has used two presell pages which are well integrated on a sitewide level on his blog. If you take a look at the left sidebar under the ‘Resources’ section, you would notice two text links. One for Midphase Web Hosting and the other for Glyphius Copywriting software.
These two webpages each promote a specific product. The Midphase Web Hosting page is created using an individual page format whereas the Glyphius copywriting software is converted from a blog post in which Brian reviewed the software thoroughly.
As would you expect, both of them feature great copy and are good examples to follow if you are planning to create your own presell page. The Midphase piece is short and utilizes a scannable list format while the Glyphius article features a more detailed review, which carefully avoids over selling.
I remember that Brian used to run the Midphase hosting webpage as an 125 x 125 ad square on the right sidebar as well so keep in mind that there are several ways to highlight your pre-sell page once it is created.

Benefits of Creating a Dedicated Presell Page
The benefits of developing a pre-sell page dedicated entirely to the product or website you are promoting are many. Here are just some of the most important advantages:

• Attracts Search Engine Traffic. Creating a pre-sell page means that you’ve have a keyword relevant webpage that will show up on the search engines. If optimized well, this webpage will bring you some extra search engine visitors who might be searching for information on the topic.
• Leverages Existing Visitor Trust. The use of a personal voice in affiliate promotions is one of the main things often overlooked. If your overall website is well designed and genuinely offers useful content, it will invite trust from visitors. Creating a presell page and offering your thoughts on the product instead of blindly linking out to an external site capitalizes on the trust you’ve already gained.
• Makes it Easier for Off-Site Promotions. A presell page on your website makes it easier for future promotions. Using affiliate links on forums, blogs or other public websites makes you look like a spammer. Instead, you can drop a link to your webpage which clearly explains the product or program in question. You’ll also be driving traffic to your website instead of purely sending visitors to the affiliate website. This allows you to gain new blog readers, customers and list subscribers.
• Can be Used as Future Reference Points. When you are creating content for your website, you can insert a link to your pre-sell page and use it as a reference point. For example, if you’re writing an article about web hosting, you might like to drop a link to your pitch page, instead of linking directly to the host.

How to Create a Pre-Sell Page on Your Website
Creating a presell page on your website is a rather simple process and involves several steps that can be easily accomplished by anyone. They simply involve developing a webpage with your copy and promoting it visibly on your website.

1. Create a new webpage and include your pitch and recommendation concerning the product. You can also use an existing blog post as well although I would suggest using a separate Page.
2. Make the new webpage visible by linking to it through a graphic banner or text link. Be sure to make this link highly visible either sitewide or on a special ‘recommendations’ page.

Seven PreSell Page Guidelines to Follow
The effectiveness of your sell page depends on several factors and strong, enticing copy is by far the most important rule you’ll need to observe. Here are some guidelines you can use to create a great sell page.

1. Do not oversell. Try to provide a balanced perspective on the product. Projecting objectivity and honesty is usually the best approach.
2. No redundant hyperlinks. Don’t link to other articles on your website or other external websites. The only links you should include are your affiliate links. You don’t want visitors to get distracted and go elsewhere.
3. Use multiple affiliate links. Try to use the same affiliate link multiple times within the pre-sell page. A good start would be to use it at both the start and the end of your article. Vary the anchor text as well so they don’t look repetitive.
4. Try cloaking affiliate links. Cloaking your affiliate link is likely to improve your click through rate although a lot also depends on your overall site look/feel and its reputation in the niche. If you’re undecided, try going with the regular affiliate link for a period of time and then cloak it for a similar period to measure click through rates.
5. Keep it short. A pitch page should not be too long. Visitors usually click away if its too heavy to consume within a few minutes.
6. Focus on Usability. Write for scannability, use subheadings and bold specific keywords or phrases to help increase the visual impact of your copy.
7. Offer Benefits. It’s very important to make sure that the visitor understands how the affiliate program benefits him or her. If you would like to provide an additional incentive for signing up under your affiliate link, be sure to include it as well.

Now you have all you need..
Setting up a basic pre-sell page should take less an hour and it usually doesn’t require you to maintain or update it. If you’re interested in making the most out of the traffic your website receives, creating a presell page for your affiliate programs is one of the most important steps to take.
I’ll be taking the weekend to create some webpages for several affiliate programs on Dosh Dosh and if you have some time, try to do up a page or two on your website as well. It’ll be well worth your effort in the long run.