Affiliate programs, also known as associate programs or publisher
programs, are actually quite simple. You get paid for selling someone
else's product or service. It is like being a salesman. All you have to do
is sign up with the affiliate program of some company, such as Best Buy or
Circuit City. You will then be given an account and a link, banner, or
other advertisement. You place that advertisement on your web sites and
when someone clicks on that link, their visit is tracked. If they decide
to make a purchase, you will earn a percentage of the amount that the web
site selling the product earns on that sale. For example some companies
will pay 10% commission so if a visitor to your web site clicks on your
affiliate link and makes a purchase of $100, you will get $10 (these type
of programs that pay you per sale are normally called pay per sale
affiliate programs).
There are many different types of affiliate programs so not all of them
will pay you per sale or a percentage of a sale. Some of these different
types of affiliate programs include pay per lead, residual income (also
known as recurring commission, recurring income, lifetime commission and
lifetime income), affiliate networks, cpa networks, two tier programs,
popups, popunders, ad networks, and contextual ads. No matter what type of
commission these affiliate programs pay, you still will earn from them.
The amount you earn depends on how much effort you put into working with
them.
Most major companies and retailers, such as Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay,
Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Sears, Macy's, GameStop, Circuit City, and thousand of
others have affiliate programs that pay at varying rates so you should do
your research before placing an affiliate link on your web site.
To be successful with affiliate advertisements, you must select a
company that offers a product that your customers will be interested in.
For example, if you run a video game site, don't place associate links for
1 800 Flowers or Home Depot on your web site, they will seem out of place
and do very poorly. You have a much better chance of making money by
placing affiliate links to Game Stop, EBGames, GameFly, or other video
game companies that have affiliate programs.
Also, make sure that you do not have too many affiliate advertisements
on your web site because it will draw visitors away and you will not make
any money and lose traffic.
One great way to make a lot of money using affiliate or publisher
programs is to create a product review web site. You can review any
product you like from cell phones to MP3 Players to furniture and
everything in between. Place an affiliate link to a web site where the
product being reviewed can be purchased. This is especially useful if you
gave a certain product a very good review and tempted readers to purchase
that specific item.
Something that those who are new to affiliate programs do not know how
to do efficiently is find high paying affiliate programs that well best
complement their web site. There are a number of ways to go about this.
First of all, you can go to the web site of every company that sells
products related to the topic of your web site and check if they have an
affiliate program and see how they pay. However, a much better and quicker
method to finding quality affiliate programs is to visit affiliate program
directories such as this web site. We have links to hundreds of the
highest rated affiliate programs in dozens of different categories. We
cannot make any guarantees, but chances are, you will find the best
affiliate programs in your category, no matter how specific it is, here in
our affiliate program directory.
Affiliate programs are a great way to monetize your web site and you
should definitely take the time to look into them.
