One of the easiest methods of making money on the Internet and one that requires very little technical skill, is affiliate marketing.  Sometimes referred to as referral programs, affiliate programs are normally commission based sales, for someone else’s product.  You recommend a site to your visitors and then pick up a percentage of any sale that those visitors may cause.  You benefit from the commissions and the merchant benefits from the additional sales.

If you already have a website set up, you can run an affiliate program from it, or you can simply build a site to promote a particular product or service.  As long as it brings in more cash than it takes to build or to run it, you’ll be fine.

With any marketing program, you’ll need to be careful when you select an affiliate program.  The benefit of an affiliate program will give you another way to make money from your users. Instead of selling them a product, you simply send them to a partner site and then take a cut of the profits.

Even though it may seem tempting to go for programs with the highest commissions, those programs won’t pay you anything if your visitors don’t buy them, so it is better to recommend a decent product than a costly one.

The old story applies here. It is better to have 20% of 10 sales, rather than 60% of one sale.

Below, you’ll find some tips to help you select an affiliate program that’s right for you:

1.  Do not accept any less than 25% commission.  You can find many programs with great payment structures and high percentages of pay, in just about any field. Clickbank has a higher commission structure and you can easily find products there that pay around 60% or more.

2.  Look for statistic pages, that list the number of click throughs, sales, and earnings, so that you are able to see how you are doing. 

3.  Look for programs that offer a wide variety of tools to put on your web site, including banners, text links, and of course graphics. Pre written emails and articles also make it easier to promote.

4.  Find out how often you’ll be paid and be sure that the payment schedule meets with your own expectations.  Some programs pay monthly, while others will pay quarterly. Some pay fortnightly, but others pay out only after a minimum ceiling limit has been reached. Read the small print.

5.  Be sure that top level support is included.  If they can’t answer your questions in a quick and timely manner, you don’t want to work with them.

Once you learn what you are doing with affiliate programs, you can make a lot of money.  Some of the top earners on the Internet are affiliate marketers. If you are just starting out, you should always use common sense and not rush into anything.  As you become more familiar with how things work, you’ll be well on your way to making a lot of money - and enjoying making it. 

If you have to work hard, you’ll be glad you did.

One of the top affiliates in the world is a lady by the name of Rosalind Gardner. With no previous business experience, she found a way to earn over $500,000 in just a year! She tells her success story in her book “The Super Affiliate Handbook.” Get it here: http://www.dersalsites.com/superaff/

Derek Robson is a South African Internet marketer. He has a vision of empowering all fellow South Africans and other non U.S folk, to have equal opportunity and success on the internet, by finding solutions to the many obstacles facing them. He is a syndicated article writer. He and his wife Sally, have started a string of sites, resources, courses and articles, as part of Dersalsites. For daily postings and articles, on Internet marketing, South African online business, list building, affiliate marketing, article marketing, blogging, seo, the law of attraction, rugby and other general topics, visit Derek at: http://dersalsites.com/southafricanbusiness/

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