Earning Money With Affiliate Programs for Small Business Websites

There is some good money to be made by joining someone else's affiliate program. I can tell you this first hand because a decent portion of my money generated every month is directly through doing this.

Here 's a screen shot from one of my four Clickbank accounts:

The column which is pointed to shows were where affiliate related sales are indicated. These are sales that I receive money for within a week or two.

Yes, even with my own sites and my own products I still sell other people's products. The reason I do it should be obvious.

Its still making me money.

If you pay attention to this series of articles, I can pretty much guarantee that you will learn some profit making tips. Even if you have no intention of adding affiliate products to your current website, I may be able to motivate you to create minisites with the sole purpose of creating multiple streams of income.

Once they are up and running, they are on autopilot generating money for you.

There's no need to start from scratch because I am going to share with you some hard learned lessons from over the years.

Putting Things In Perspective

Here is what happens day in and out at your web site...

People visit and check out your offer. They either buy from you or they don't. A far majority of them do not buy from you. (IF that isn't the case, I would love to talk to you about how you are managing that one!).

Once they have passed on your offer they go on their way clicking to some other site.

Don't take it personal.

You can't appeal to every person who comes to your site. They get there for a variety of reasons. Some are looking for what you have to offer while others aren't.

Since they are going to be clicking away to other sites anyways, you might as well profit. The smart thing to do is offer other items which may appeal to them and you get a commissionon on. They should be related to your own products but not in competition with yours.

Visitors click on a special link and when they order the other product, you earn money.

It may seem pretty straight forward and it can be. But like everything else in life, there are right and wrong ways to go about it.

My Personal Experience With Affiliate Programs

Believe me, I strongly prefer selling my own products. That is the surest route to success.

For many small business web site owners, their first goals may not be to sell other people's products. They are trying to get their own goods or services sold.

To totally ignore the possibility of earning money via affiliate programs however may be a mistake. I'll share my direct experiences I have had along with things I've learned along the way.

Getting Started With Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are pretty straight forward.

Another company is giving you money anytime that someone you sent to them either buys from them or performs some other action. For example some sites pay you just to have someone fill out an application (such as a credit card affiliate program) after you referred them.

Your commissions are tracked through the link that they click on. A cookie is placed on their computer and if they buy, you are credited with the sale.

Finding Affiliate Products

I keep things nice and simple. The far majority of products I sell via affiliate links are managed by either clickbank or Commission Junction.

If you don't have an account yet, go ahead and sign up now. It will take less than a minute and it is absolutely free. They basically just need to know where and who to send the checks to.

I use clickbank for digital products (like ebooks) while Commission Junction focuses more on "real" products that get shipped to a customer.

These represent 90%+ of all affiliate products I make money with. The reason is simple. Clickbank and Commission Junction:

• Make it easy to get started
• Have online, real time statistics to see how you are doing
• Payout regularly and reliably
• Have a large selection of products to choose from

The first step in promoting a product is finding one with an appropriate affiliate program.

Both Clickbank and Commission Junction make this very simple. You can search for keywords related to the products you want to promote. You can then look through the available products.

Quick And Easy Way To Find Affiliate Products

As always, Google to the rescue.

Simply type in the search box the following:

+searchterm +clickbank +affiliate

(Where search term is a word related to what you want to promote).

Make sure you include the "+" plus signs in front of each word as shown.

You will be rewarded with a list of products that you can immediately start promoting once you have signed up with clickbank for free.

Your "homework assignment" until the next article (if you are up for it), is to locate up to 10 possible products related to your business that you could promote. We'll go over what things you should consider when deciding which product to promote in our next article.

You will also learn:

• Ways to dramatically increase your click through rates on affiliate links
• A variety of ways to promote affiliate products successfully
• Strategies to promote products without risking your own sales
• and many other hard learned tactics to make you a nice additional income