AuthorMark McMeekin
LinkedIn
Digital PR’s relationship with affiliate links
Affiliate links are often the scourge of Digital PR’s, our remit typically is to build clean organic links that are going to positively impact organic performance, but more and more top tier publications are leaning towards affiliate links wherever they possibly can. Whilst for a brand's organic performance, this is far from ideal, there are some crumbs of comfort that we can take and all is not lost when a brand lands an affiliate link in a top tier publication.
Whilst affiliate links may not directly impact keyword rankings as a clean organic link will, they still offer clear indirect benefits. These links, among a raft of other benefits, contribute towards brand building which in turn, can have a positive impact on your keyword rankings over time. So although the impact may be indirect, by focusing on strengthening the brand it lays the foundations for impact further down the line.
In addition to the indirect benefits of affiliate links, there are also more tangible benefits in the short term, with metrics such as referral traffic and referral revenue coming into play, with both another aspect of the broader picture of what impact affiliate links can bring.
Looking beyond SEO
It is difficult to remove yourself from the sphere of purely SEO performance, but it is key when analysing affiliate links that you do so. Fundamentally as Digital PR’s we’re looking to impact the bottom line, we want the work we do to have a positive impact on revenue, this is a key driver when delivering work and it’s the factor the majority of brands look at when deciding whether a project has been a success or not - affiliate links can directly support with this.
Typically affiliate links are associated with a product led strategy, for eCommerce brands in particular, content with a product focus such as a gift guide, product review or a product listicle usually drive a good number of links, albeit affiliate.
With this kind of product led content, comes three major positives:
- The content is typically produced by publications with a high domain authority and a huge amount of traffic
- The content typically ranks very well, which means a lot of people read the content
- The search intent behind the search terms people use to find this content is usually driven by the desire to purchase
Taking the above positives into account, it’s clear that although we likely won’t see a benefit to our overall organic performance, affiliate links can still have a huge say in impacting the bottom line and driving tangible impact to the overall organic picture.
Product-led content at the top of SERPs
As touched on above, gift guides, product roundups and generally content with a product focus tend to rank at the top of the SERPs. It’s not uncommon for IndyBest to outrank brands when people are searching for specific products, this presents a huge opportunity to land in these top publications, but it also brings a threat as if a brand doesn’t take seriously the power of affiliate links and more broadly a product led focus, as there’s a high chance that competitors will, meaning competitors take the real estate in these publications and at the top of SERPs.
Thinking from a purely brand perspective, landing in these publications becomes critical as put simply, when users with a purchasing intent are searching, we want our brands to be front and centre, so when users are ready to make the purchase we aren’t just in one article from one publication, we’re in multiple.
It’s worth repeating too, that if you miss out on these opportunities and don’t value them because affiliate links don’t necessarily pass SEO value, your competitors will get in there instead. This will mean you’re missing out on qualified traffic and most important of all, you’re missing out on potential revenue.
A great example of the importance of landing these opportunities can be seen in the mattress niche, the keyword ‘best mattress’ is dominated in the SERPs by product led pieces from huge publications - IndyBest, The Telegraph & Good Housekeeping - Simba Sleep are a brand that take this tactic seriously, they land in each individual article. This activity and subsequent coverage has to be having an indirect impact on non-brand keyword rankings.
Case Studies
Like with anything, the proof is in the pudding, and we have first hand examples of how affiliate links have positively impacted a brands domain.
Aiming to build links to the sliders PDP for our client Kudd.ly, we collaborated with a cleaning expert and launched a campaign around the dangers of bringing dirt and bacteria in your home when wearing indoor/outdoor shoes, such as sliders.
From this, we were able to build 3 high quality links back to the sliders PDP, however they were all affiliate links.
When looking into this, we still found that keyword rankings for the sliders category were increasing, without any on-site/SEO changes to support.
Working with one of the biggest activewear brands in the UK, we launched a product campaign around their ‘BBL jacket’, which had a huge monthly search volume of 12,000. We secured 7 links from the campaign, all of which were affiliate links and alongside no other SEO activity managed to go from not ranking for the term, to consistently ranking in the top 3 search results.
These are two examples among many others that shows the direct and indirect benefits of building affiliate links and looking to understand their impact.
Conclusion
While affiliate links might not directly impact rankings, they still carry a huge amount of value in a holistic Digital PR strategy. They provide a brand with exposure to top tier publications, to referral traffic and to users that have a desire to purchase.
Journalists and publications will continue to publish product-led content, because it drives revenue for them. Our job is to leverage this as best we can and make it work for our brands.
It is time to stop ignoring the value of affiliate links and time to start taking seriously the impact they can have.
