Do not put the links of your affiliate programs on your home page. Why?
Well you have slaved hard to get your home page ranked at spot number 5 on one of the major search engines for a popular term.
Your visitor arrives at your site which loads nice and quickly (only takes a few seconds).
And whammo!
They see a nice little affiliate link right at the top of the page and click on it. They think ‘Gosh, that was just the thing I was looking for.’
But wait a minute.
Who was that web site that directed them to the site they were looking for. Cannot quite remember them. It was just an affiliates links page anyway.
You may make a commission on a sale from this person but you have just missed an even bigger opportunity.
You just made a big mistake.
By not letting your visitor get to know you first you did not develop any type of relationship. It is unlikely they will come back to your site. Why should they? They found what they wanted at your site so there is no need to come back.
In fact they do not even remember who you are.
A way around this problem is to take the affiliate links to the affiliate programs that you promote off your home page. Put them on your subsidiary pages instead.
This way a visitor has to click through a few pages on your site to get to the affiliate link. And while they are doing that they are getting to know you a bit better.
They might find out that you offer a newsletter at your site or that you have some great articles that you or others have written. They like what they see.
And they are more likely to return again at a later date. You see they got to learn a bit more about you and your web site.
They still end up getting to the affiliate link that they wanted. It just took them a bit more time. And it meant that you left some sort of positive impression on your visitor.
There are so many web sites out there and so many people that are promoting affiliate links. The one opportunity you have is to develop a relationship with your visitor. By moving your links to subsidiary pages you might have a better chance of doing this.