Make lots more money by choosing the right affiliate programs
If you want to make money on the internet, there are numerous
lucrative affiliate programs that you can join for free.
In basic terms, all you need to do when you join an affiliate
program is add a special link containing your unique affiliate
ID to your website or blog. Whenever someone follows that
affiliate link from your website and makes a purchase, you are
credited with a commission for that sale.
Affiliate programs are good for you because you make money from
your website visitors without having to worry about shipping and
payment processing. They are also pretty good for the owner of
the affiliate program too as they are receiving traffic and
sales that they wouldn't normally have received if they hadn't
come via your website.
If you already have your own website, it should be easy to find
affiliate programs that complement the theme of your site. For
example, if you have a travel website you can sign up with
Commission Junction for free and promote companies such as
Expedia and National Geographic. Or you could sign up with the
first ever online affiliate program, Amazon and make money by
reviewing and recommending travel books. Regardless of your
website's niche you should be able to find some sort of
affiliate program to help monetize your traffic.
Most good affiliate programs will provide you with banners,
images, links, sample ads and sometimes even articles and emails
to help you promote their products. They should also have a
support system for you to ask questions, plus statistics and a
reporting function to allow you to view your click-throughs and
sales.
Affiliate programs for companies that sell physical products
such as books and CDs, or travel related products such as
hotels, flights and car hire tend to pay a small amount of
commission, for example 5%.
If you aren't lucky enough to be getting thousands of visitors
to your site each day and you want to make lots of money from
affiliate programs the best plan of action is to choose an
affiliate program that has a combination of the following 1. A
high commission 2. A residual income 3. Multiple Tiers
Affiliate programs offering a high commission are usually
selling intangible goods. Examples of these include e-books,
software and membership sites. The owners of these affiliate
programs can afford to give large commissions because although
there is a cost associated with producing the product, the cost
generally stays the same regardless of whether the owner sells
100 copies or 1000 copies. This is why these affiliate programs
can offer a commission of 50% and sometimes more, meaning that
you can sell less of these products and make more money than you
would with a traditional affiliate program offering a 5%
commission.
Affiliate programs offering a residual income tend to be those
that offer a service such as web hosting or access to a
membership site. For example if you direct a visitor from your
site to a web hosting company that offers an affiliate program
with residual income and that person purchases a hosting
package, you would receive a commission every single month, for
as long as that person stays with that hosting company. The
power of this is that you can build up a more reliable income,
which means a steady pay packet during the months when new sales
are slow.
Finally, a multi tier affiliate program is one that rewards you
for recruiting your own affiliates. As well as receiving a
commission for sales that are made through your affiliate link,
you will also receive a percentage of the sales made from the
affiliates that you've recruited yourself.
So it pays to promote affiliate programs, but it pays even more
to be choosy when deciding on which affiliate programs to
promote. Choosing programs that pay high commissions and offer
multi tier or residual income can make a huge difference to your
bank balance at the end of each month.