One of the many things I see and use myself is links in people's posts. And me being me, this got me wondering. Just how effective are links, do people really use them? So I have been looking at what I can see among my own posts. And I thought all of you might find it interesting as well.

Two types of links

First I would categorize the links into two types of links. Affiliate links and links to your other posts. And I would differentiate between them as they have a distinct separate purpose, at least the way I see it. 

And in case you are unfamiliar with what an affiliate link is, it is a link that is personally tied to the person who posts it. Often it is a way for that person to get a little bonus for recruiting new members to the site. The site gets new members and the person recruiting them has an incentive to do so. 

The links to other posts, I see this as a way to try and get more readers or views, and ultimately to get more tips. At least that is how I view them.

And why separate the two types. Affiliate links require the person to not only click on the link but then register, or do what it is they need to do in order to count as an affiliate for you. If you compare this to simply clicking, I would argue that alone is a huge extra step. But then there is also the fact that some people might feel "why should that person get a bonus from me signing, I am not using the affiliate link" as well. 

As this post turned out to become longer than I expected it to be, I have retroactively decided to split it into two. I will of course put a link down below to the other part respectively in order for you to be able to find them easier. Part 2/2 can be found here:

How well do links in your posts work here on Publish0x? Part 2/2 post to post links

Affiliate links

I have had these in a few of my posts. Most recently in my second post in the series My Journey to Financial Freedom. Where I talked about sharing your bandwidth and earning money doing so. But I have also had three other affiliate links. And they are the following:

One I used in my first RollerCoin posts, and it was my link to join the game.

Two were for faucets, one for freebitcoin, and one for truedice.

The data

Let us take a look at the data for the different links;

Sharing bandwidth - 652 views over 1 post, 9 registered users. There were a total of 7 different affiliate links to these services in this one post, but one site got featured more than the rest.

RollerCoin - 2313 views over 9 posts, 1 registered user. I also have one post where I link to three older posts that all have my link in them, but this post does not, so I have not included it here.

Freebitcoin - 1785 views over 6 posts, 6 registered users.

TrueDice - 1261 views over 2 posts, 10 registered users.

A small disclaimer as well. Two posts with links to data sharing and the other with links to both faucets have been published on Loop. It is a similar site to Publish0x, but they do not show you any stats regarding views. If you want to check it out you can use my affiliate link to register ;) : loop.markets

I would argue that the number of views on Loop however is substantially fewer.

What do the data tell us?

First of all, I would say the data shows us that very few people use these types of links. It is "only" 0,43% of your views that use these links. The second thing I would say is that the success of a link looks like it very much depends on what you get compared to the effort the user has to put in.

By far the best turnout was the bandwidth sharing. Surprisingly enough the most features site got non of the referrals. This may be because it is probably the most widely used site. This site alone got a huge 1,38% conversion of view to referrals. 

If we take a look at my links. While RollerCoin appears to have a high number of views, the average number of views per post is only 257. I would therefore assume that there is a big overlap among the viewers, meaning the number of unique viewers probably is way fewer.

Sharing bandwidth, this link requires the user to register and download a program that they then need to keep running on their computer, in order to share the bandwidth. This might be a big no-no for many.

Regarding the two faucet links, I do not really know what they perform so differently. I would think that if you would sign up for the one you would do so for the other as well. But it might come down to report and appearance. The freebitcoin link I use and I promote that you can turn it into an auto faucet with a little work. And it might be this that has people put off. The extra work required. Especially as it involves investing ~$25. Not paying $25 tho. ANd downloading an app or an extension for your browser. And I would argue that is a huge difference. But these

Where the TrueDice is a "normal" faucet. But it lets you claim a much higher amount than normal faucets as this one is only once every 6 hours. So this might be why people find it more appealing.

My thoughts on affiliate links

I personally will continue to use affiliate links. But I might be more restrictive with my use of them than several others out there. Or I might simply just be so new to this space that I have not found and started to use everything yet. But I personally find it very offputting, when I have to scroll through 1 to 2 screens of affiliate links that are completely unrelated to the post in question. So while I still plan to use affiliate links, I will not turn into one of "those" spam bot persons. So I try not to do that myself.

I will only use links that are related to the post in question and I will only use links to things I myself use and found to be safe. This means I would never put up a link asking people to do so unless I myself have done so. And I always try and look into sites before I use them myself, so I will not knowingly promote something that is a scam or scam adjacent. 

But this is just me, and if you do not agree with me, that is also perfectly fine. Just because I do not do a thing a certain way or do not like a certain thing does not mean it is wrong to do it like that or like that thing. I just want to make that clear.

And if you are interested in any of the sites I have talked about above here are my affiliate links to them, and I would appreciate it if you would use them if you decide to register. If not, that is also perfectly fine;

Sharing bandwidth - My Journey to Financial Freedom - Trying new ways to earn money, sharing bandwidth has all the info you need about how they work and where to find them    

RollerCoin - https://rollercoin.com/ is a browser-based game that lets you simulate being a crypto miner.

Freebitcoin - https://freebitco.in and if you want to know how to make it an auto faucet this has all the info you need: First step towards freedom is to start earning a Passive Income.

TrueDice - TrueDice.win the faucet I have found that lets you by far claim the most crypto per claim, also lets you pick what crypto to claim among a few available.

Loop - loop.markets a site where you can read and write posts that are crypto-related.

I hope you have found this post to be interesting and informative. I am also curious about what your experience and thoughts are when it comes to affiliate links. Please share in the cement section down below. 

And if you would like to support me and the content I make, please consider using one or more of the affiliate links above. And if they do not cover something you find interesting or useful, please consider following me, reading my other posts or why not do both instead. You can find my other posts here and here. 

I have also just started a new series of weekly posts, that will go live every Friday. You can catch the third step here:

My Journey to Financial Freedom - Are you feeling Brave?

See you on the interwebs!

Picture provided by: Publish0x