Link building on affiliate sites for SEO

Links on Affiliate Sites

[Anish]

Our company has an affiliate programme having about 3000+ affiliates. Over a period of time we have noticed that links on affiliate websites (homepage) help us in optimising our site on various search engines. We are now trying to get good PR affiliates to add links on their sites directly linking to our site.
Now my query is how beneficial will the same be in the long run? and second how do we make all our affiliates have links for the same? (what all marketing tools can be employed to get the requisite)

[eljefe3]

This is a tough one because the affiliates are out there to make money for both of you, not to pass on their PR so you rank well and they make less $$. You're not going to find any good affiilate that wants to pass PR on to you via affiliate links.

[jomaxx]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Affiliates want to link to a merchant committed to making sales, not hoarding PR. How about paying cash for direct links?

[Anish]

Buying links is fine but when you have such a strong product, that has a large affiliate base and is ranked in the top 5 searches of all search engines (in its sector/category), I believe "buying" can be delayed.
To make affiliates prosper (make more money) why not give them an added advantage if they give links give them a revenue share higher than the normal or something like that.

[jomaxx]

You're probably going to be approaching certain sites individually, so make an offer and if it's good enough they'll say yes.

Offering a higher commission rate would probably work better with affiliates that are already earning a decent amount -- that way you've got some credibility with them.

[Anish]

Currently, I am focusing on the top performing affiliates. A single pitch mail for the same did get me a considerable amount of replies. Next step is to send a reminder mailer to the ones who did not. Then call them up personally. The ones who do not follow suit will be the ones who I would pitch for more commission. Focus to the extreme is the key in here I guess.