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Site-to-site etiquette
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May 19, 2000: 10:53 a.m. ET
How your Web site can handle site referrals and product recommendations
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Dear Jane: I work on a Web site that targets a specific group of people looking for information and buying products. I don't sell the products but provide links and information to vendors. My question is, can I charge the vendors fees for putting links on my site? Is there a basic price to charge?
The Web world is very complex and every site-to-site business deal is different. If you sending potential customers from your site to theirs, you should be compensated in some way if a sale is made. There are all kinds of affiliate programs set up to keep track of the traffic and monitor sales.
Some sites pay a commission on each sale. Other programs pay you so many cents for a "click through" from your site to theirs. (One program we belong to pays a 4 percent commission on every sale, but the actual percentage varies from industry to industry.)
First, contact all the sites whose products or services you recommend. You want to speak with the person handling business development or marketing issues. Explain to them exactly what you are doing, what your site offers and how much traffic you expect to generate. You may want to put this pertinent information together in a one-page fact sheet and e-mail it to the person before you have a conversation.
If they aren't willing to provide any payment, ask for a reciprocal link from their site back to yours. If they aren't willing to give you either money or access to their visitors, you should find another vendor who offers similar products and work with them instead.
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ApplegateWay
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