Affiliate programs like Amazon, Commission Junction, Linkshare and eBay are a big source of income for web content publishers.
These programs can also be pain in the rear to set up and as a result, many sites that could possibly benefit from affiliate links end up not using them at all. In the cases where they do use links, there are many times where the links don’t even work because of improper coding. Now, VigLink, San Francisco based startup is hoping to change that.
VigLink wants to automate the process of creating affiliate links. VigLink is taking special care to develop its own deals with many affiliate programs, then it offers content sites a service where they simply add a few lines of JavaScript to their site, then all the possible affiliate links are magically and automatically transformed into actual affiliate links.
For example, if I were to mention a book that happens to be listed on Amazon, that mention would in turn become a link where I would get a commission every time a reader clicks through and buys the book.
How cool is that?
I’m usually not one to jump on the bandwagon right off the bat and without running a thorough trial of a service before I began screaming it’s praises, but the fact that VigLink recently announced $800,000 in seed funding raised from First Round Capital and Google Ventures as well as prominent individual investors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, former Google executive and current LinkedIn Vice President of Product Dipchand Nishar, Niel Robertson, Hadi Partovi, Ali Partovi, Carlos Cashman, and Micah Adler.
Now, my thought process is this…
- I wish I could go back and get in on Yahoo when it first started and no one really wanted to touch it.
- I wish I could go back and buy Starbucks stock at $1.00 a share and sell when it was tipping the all time high a few years go.
- I refuse to let an opportunity that is supported by names of people who know their stuff!
Co-founder and chief executive Oliver Roup acknowledged that VigLink isn’t the first company to offer something like this — In fact, it’s competing with a London startup called SkimLinks. Roup pointed out key differences, such as location and connections, plus content publishers don’t suffer if VigLink’s infrastructure goes through occasional startup hiccups. If the VigLink servers go down, the links still work.
Roup compared VigLink to Google AdSense, meaning it can be a good fit for both large and small websites.
“We monetize the ordinary hyperlink,” Roup said. “By buying and selling small items that didn’t seem to be worth a lot initially, we could create a real link economy here.”
How Does VigLink Work?
When you write a blog post, you will generally create outbound links to product, services or other websites. You might be even doing this while writing a review. When you create these links, VigLink automatically changes those normal hyperlinks into affiliate links, but only once they are clicked upon, working silently at the back end without any intrusion to your readers. If for some reason that user decides to purchase something on that site, you receive a commission. Without VigLink, it would be just a normal link to that site.
After installing the VigLink script library (WordPress Plugin), it immediately monitors when visitors click on a link pointing to a different site. The library checks to see if the URL of that link is affiliated, and if so, the link is automatically transformed into an affiliate link. This process work behind the scenes, and your readers experience are not tarnished by those annoying double-underlines, pop-ups, and evasive forms of advertising we’ve all grown too familiar with.
When hovering the links they are completely clean, this process only works after the user clicks on that link. Very clever, isn’t it? VigLink will also not overwrite any of your existing affiliate links with the exception of Amazon unless you choose to do so.
What are you waiting for? Sign up for VigLink and find out just how much money you’ve been leaving on the table!
UPDATE: If you do sign up for VigLink, be sure to sign up for my newsletter at the link below or in the upper right. There’s some very exciting news coming that you won’t want to miss out on!
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