Finance James Beckett on 27 Feb 2008
Is Affiliate Marketing The Easiest Way To Start Earning Online?
Affiliate marketing is not a new concept, it has been on the scene for over ten years now. But only recently have average everyday folks started to look at it as a legitimate way to make residual income that comes automatically. Basically, you are selling useful products that are offered online, which can be anything from televisions to articles, and receiving a commission for each sale. You are given payments based on a special affiliate link that sends a report to the owners website that you directed the paying customer to them.
You can apply to most websites online today to join their affiliate program, but when you are just starting off you probably don’t have the prestige to get them to accept you, or if they do then there is no guarantee that they will actually pay you. That is why I suggest you sign up to an affiliate network that manages a group of sites. You get instant access to those sites to promote them and the network deals with all the money so you know you are not getting cheated. Clickbank is a popular network you should try out.
Paydotcom.com is another network recommended network, they allow you to be paid straight to your PayPal account instead of waiting for a cheque to come every 2 weeks from Clickbank, but they do not have anywhere as many products to promote.
Now that you have your access to an affiliate network then you need to find products you would be willing to promote. If you already have a website up and running then look for complimentary offers. The networks will have stats on each merchant they lists so you can see exactly how much money you make per sale, and how the site is performing at the moment within the network.
The number of returns is also a consideration but unfortunately that information is harder to find out. You do not want to align yourself with a horrible product that gets many complaints and poor feedback. Google the name of the site and see what people are saying about it, if it is positive you are probably alright.
Other more mainstream sites like Amazon.com allow you to set up affiliate accounts also. You can choose products to sell depending on how useful the products are. For instance, around SuperBowl time, HD TVs will be very popular and sell well. People are buying these things all day long so you might as well make some money by being the person to refer them to the site!
The final element of making cash as an affiliate marketer is to get traffic to your affiliate page or link. Most affiliate marketers do this by creating websites that are full of articles setting their affiliate links inside those articles and other content. The subject matter draws visitors from search engines (with some additional work) who then see your offers and hopefully go through and buy things.
Affiliate marketing can be outsourced in the end. When you are making money then you can pay people to do the boring stuff that you don’t want to. This allows you to build your business quicker and make more money. To get started then I recommend you visit a relevant forum and start to read what people are saying, then buy a good product on the subject that will fill in the blanks you have about the subject and get you moving forward.