How many affiliate links should I have in each article?

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Doug Cunnington, PMP

There are a lot of places to have an affiliate link (or watch my YouTube video on it), and the common knowledge is to have a LOT of affiliate links. When I first started with niche sites, I thought I should have as many options as possible to get a user to Amazon was the best thing to do.

So more affiliate links! Right…?

But now I like to have about 1 affiliate link per 100 to 300 words.

There are 4 three main reasons:

Google doesn’t like to have a site with too many affiliate links. Your site may suffer in the search rankings. If it’s really bad, Google calls it “thin content,” and your site can get a penalty for it.
Amazon Associates doesn’t want your site to have too much advertising content. That’s why I recommend having 50/50 informational content to affiliate content.
I don’t like it when I visit a site and there are tons of affiliate links. It comes off as desperate and pushy.
If you have the right visitor, you won’t have to be pushy. They will want to go to Amazon and buy. That’s the power of a buyers keyword and secondary keywords.

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About the author: Doug Cunnington is the founder of Niche Site Project. He shows people how to create Affiliate Sites using project management and a proven, repeatable framework. Doug loves creating systems, using templates, and brewing beer (but usually not at the same time).

2 comments… add one

ROD
Hi Doug,
I am a new subscriber to your NicheSiteProject blog. Got a couple of quick questions here…what’s a good ratio for writing articles for an Amazon product? Is it 50% informational and 50% product reviews? 2nd question: Must I separate informational articles from product review articles? Is 1,000 words/article the minimum?
- Doug Cunnington, PMP
  50% informational at a minimum, you can do more if you want, though.
  You probably should separate the info and review content. Think of the info content as how to content.
  Content can be shorter than 1000 words if it’s a quick topic. You can look at competitors to see how long their content is.