What is Affiliate Marketing?

 An affiliate program is put in place by the owner of a product. This could be an eBook, video series or a line of products. You have probably heard of Clickbank and Amazon, you may have even purchased products there yourself. Well these are large businesses that have put an affiliate program in place.
What this means is that they encourage people to sign up as an affiliate. Then you go out and promote these products. When you get sales the company will pay you a percentage of the money. This could be as little as 5% or as high as 75% or more. Basically you are a sales person working on a commission basis.
This is a very simple concept which is why affiliate marketing holds such an appeal to individuals wanting to make money online. But of course there is a learning curve that needs to be done.
As an affiliate marketer your main objective is to drum up traffic to your affiliate links. Your link takes the prospective buyer straight to a sales page where the company takes over. From here it is up to their sales copy to sell the buyer and make them click on the Buy Now button.
Your goal is to send targeted buyers to these sales pages as then your conversions will be higher. This equals more money in your bank account.

Benefits of Being an Affiliate

• •     Low Risk
• •     Market Worldwide
• •     No deadlines to meet
• •     No initial investment
• •     No inventory to store or purchase
• •     No products to create
• •     No sales copy to write
• •     Promotional material usually provided
• •     Unlimited income potential

Choosing a Niche

Before you do anything you want to sit down and choose a niche to promote. The biggest money makers online are those to do with money, relationships and life. This includes niches such as:

• •     Dating
• •     Make money online
• •     Skin care
• •     Weight loss
• •     Work from home
• •     And the list goes on….

Now these are referred to as broad topics. You can categorize many sub categories under these main topic headings. For example let’s take a look at the skin care topic.
Skin Care

• •     Acne
• •     Anti aging
• •     Blackheads
• •     Dry skin
• •     Eczema
• •     Psoriasis
• •     Warts
• •     Wrinkles

These topics are known as sub niches and the great thing about these niches is that there is less competition in them. This means you can get your pages to rank higher in the search engines so people will find your link and purchase from you.
Your next step is to head over to the Google Keyword Tool and put in these terms. Take a look at the results and make note if there are any Ad words on the right side of the screen. These are paid promotions and are a good indication that people are making money with this niche. Also look at the number of searches returned by Google you want to target something that has around 50,000 searches per month. As you gain experience you can target higher amounts but remember we want to keep things simple!
For now you want to pick one of these sub niches and start to promote it. In time you can add additional niches and products. But for now it is best to start with one and work your way up.

Choosing Your Affiliate Program

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of affiliate programs to choose from. As a beginner it is probably best to start off with one of the more well known companies. These would be Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction and Linkshare.
When choosing which program to sign up with you want to take a few things into consideration.

• •     Check that they take affiliates from your country.
• •     Commission %
• •     Find out what payment method they use, check or PayPal are the most common.
• •     How often do they pay?
• •     Is there an earnings cap?

These are all important points that are worth a little extra explaining. Some companies like Amazon are now having restrictions placed on where they can do business. For instance people in California, Colorado and Illinois cannot do business with Amazon.
The majority of affiliate programs pay out via check, direct deposit to certain countries or through PayPal. Check to see if you can receive money to your country with these methods. PayPal is adding more countries to their list but there are some restrictions.
Note: If you don’t have a PayPal account now is the time to set one up and get it verified.
The frequency of your commission payments will vary. Some programs pay out immediately while others can take up to a month or more. Clickbank for instance pays out once every two weeks. It is important to check this so you will understand why you haven’t received a commission check yet.
Many affiliate programs put a minimum requirement on your earnings. What this means is that you will not receive payments until certain conditions are met. These normally are:

• •     Certain cash number required often $50 – $100
• •     Certain number of sales achieved

Before signing up to promote a product you want to know what percentage you will make on a sale. Is it 5% or 75%? This will make a big difference on your cheque. Look at the price of the product and then determine what your commission would be. If you are happy with this amount then go ahead and sign up as an affiliate.
Some programs like Amazon will pay you for whatever product someone buys from your link. For example say you are promoting a book on skin care the person goes from your link to the gardening sections and buys gardening tools. You will still get the commission. So in essence you are promoting every product in the Amazon store! This could end up netting you a large income.
You can also join affiliate marketing forums and ask questions about what the best affiliate programs to join are. This way you can get feedback and suggestions on who to go with and which products to promote.

Creating Your Account

Once you have decided which affiliate company or product you are going to promote then you will need to create an account. Approval time varies depending upon the company. You could be approved immediately or you may have to wait a couple of days.
Note: Some companies require that you have a website or blog before they will accept you as an affiliate. So you may wish to do this step first.

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