Affiliate Marketing

Can You Make Money with Affiliate Programs?

Affiliate marketing is selling other companies' goods through your own, content filled website.

Amazon.com was one of the first companies to have an affiliate program. You pre-sell the books or other goods Amazon offers on your website and if your visitor buys the product, you get a commission.

There are literally thousands of companies that have affiliate marketing programs. The commission rates run from 2% up to 50% (mostly for electronically delivered goods). For hard goods the average is about 10%.

Most of the larger companies, such as American Express, Walmart or Sharper Image use agents such as Commission Junction or Linkshare to handle the transactions and paperwork for them, while others, such as Amazon run their own affiliate programs.

Contextual Advertising

You can also supplement your income by using contextual advertising programs such as Google Adsense or Yahoo's Publisher Network - soon to be joined by a similar program from Microsoft. By using special programs that detect the content of your web pages, relevant ads are displayed. You share the income generated by these ads with the publisher's network.

There have been many studies performed which indicate that these types of ads really don't reduce your own sales. Mostly you are making money from visitors that are not impressed by what your site has to offer.

Many people are making a fortune from contextual advertising. There have been many books written on the subject. One of the best is not really a book, but a series of videos, produced by a Adsense webmaster who makes over $19,000 a month from the program.

I highly recommend these downloadable videos produced by Michael Cheney.

Advertisers are learning that traditional advertising venues such as network TV and even newspapers are losing customers while the internet continues to grow. There is more advertising dollars available to website owners than ever before.

Affiliate Marketing Resources

For an excellent overview of affiliate marketing, visit Sitesell Affiliate Marketing. You will find a clear explanation of the pros and cons of affiliate marketing, along with good reasons why Site Build It is the program to use as the foundation of a successful affiliate marketing site.

Also visit The Affiliate Masters page and download your free copy of the Affiliate Masters Course. This book contains more information about affiliate programs than you will find in other e-books selling online for $60 or more.

You will learn about writing compelling content to drive pre-sold customers to your merchants' sites. If you want to create a valuable and profitable home business, the insights in this course are truly priceless.

Private Domains Needed

Unfortunately, most companies that use affiliate marketing require that the affiliate have his own domain (website). Read Are Free Websites Worth It and Build Your Own Website? for more information about domain addresses and to find resources for setting up your own website. It is not hard to do or very expensive.

Of course, I am very partial to Site Build It.

This website was built using this program, which I consider ideal for those of us with little website design experience.

The program's manual takes you step-by-step, from finding a good "niche", to keyword research, to a simple page building module that just involves stacking "blocks" of text to make your page, to sophisticated page submission and tracking tools.

Furthermore, I have found the company to be very responsive to my needs and quite trustworthy and reputable. It has a great reputation in the internet world. I really can't recommend it highly enough. SBI websites are consistently among the top ranked sites on the Internet.

If you have questions about Site Build It, you can contact actual Site Built It webmasters who will answer any questions you have.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is not as easy as some gurus would have you believe. You need to find the right niche and spend time and effort writing content for your website.

Then you have to market your site to get sufficient traffic to make your affiliate website pay.

However, if you find the right formula, affiliate marketing can be quite lucrative. Your site will make money 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And contextual advertising has made this form of website more lucrative than ever.

You will probably not get rich overnight, but you can create a nice replacement income for yourself. It's definitely worth looking into.

Since website marketing is so important to affiliate marketing, I would also suggest you visit Marketing Your Website.

Here are some other home business opportunities to consider.

Make Decorative Art Stamps
For those with artistic talent and knowledge of computer graphics. Tap into the crafts market by making quality original decorative stamps.

Drop Shipping
Using mail order, online auctions, virtual stores or your won website, sell products that will be shipped directly to your customer in your name by the wholesaler.

Glass Etching
Purchase kits that allow you to make beautiful etched glass pieces.

Self Publishing
Share your knowledge and experience with the world. Information products are some of the biggest sellers on the Internet.

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