Affiliate Marketing Programs

The basic idea behind an affiliate marketing program is that you promote someone else's product, link to their site using special HTML code, and receive commissions for each sale made by a visitor you refer. One of the oldest affiliate marketing programs on the Web is Amazon.com's Associate Program, which typically pays you 5-10% of each sale you send to their site.

Affiliate marketing programs really started picking up around 1999. It has since become one of the major ways to promote products over the Internet. Almost every large website now runs some sort of affiliate marketing program as part of their promotional strategy. I have run several affiliate marketing sites myself and can tell you for a fact that when done correctly, marketing other people's products through affiliate programs can make you a lot of money.

PROS: The popularity of affiliate marketing programs has made it possible to promote products in virtually any area of interest you have. Serious affiliate marketers, often called "Super Affiliates" make the bulk of the money, often making $100,000 or more per year.

CONS: There is a lot of competition in this field. I've heard that 90% of all affiliates make little or no sales. Only a small percentage of affiliates make serious money. To become successful with affiliate marketing programs, you typically need a diverse set of skills that include web development skills, writing ability, and marketing expertise sufficient to drive serious traffic to your site.

At it's core, the recipe for success with affiliate marketing programs involves two key things: 1) getting traffic to your site, and 2) getting potential buyers to click on links to your affiliates. While the idea is simple, to actually do affiliate marketing profitably, you will need to do a lot of market research before even getting started. Nevertheless, I believe affiliate marketing programs are probably the most sensible ways to get started with your own online business. You don't have to have your own product in order to start, and if you do it well, the income potential is very high.

If you are interested in becoming an affiliate marketer, I highly recommend the following resources:

Breakthrough Money Making Secrets

This is an excellent book that covers all the major techniques for making money with affiliate marketing programs. Topics include how to make money without a website, how to drive traffic to your sites, blogging, and more. Written by Holly Mann, a mother and veteran who moved to Thailand with her infant to save money. 4 months later, she was making over $12,000. Find out exactly how she did it. >> Find out more about this ebook

Affiliate Project X
	The hottest handbook on affiliate marketing programs on the market today. In Project X, an Internet expert puts his methods to the test by allowing a group of 12 newbies to try out his techniques for 30 days. The result? A majority of them were making hundreds of dollars a day by the end of the month. >> Find out more about this ebook

Super Affiliate Handbook
	A step-by-step guide on how to make an incredible income through affiliate marketing programs. This is one of the best books I have read on the subject, and perfect for people interested in running affiliate sites. Offered as a downloadable ebook written by Rosalind Gardner, who has made over $430,000 a year promoting affiliate marketing programs herself. >> Find out more about this ebook

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