Make Money With Affiliate Programs

Learning to make money with affiliate programs is a great way to drastically increase your income and create a steady flow of income from various sources.

This is a way of making money through referring readers to other products or websites and making money promoting them. Amazon.com was one of the first to do this with their associate program. You can sign up for a free account and put links to books and other products that they sell so that when one of your readers goes to the amazon.com (or whatever) website and purchases the product(s), you get paid a referral fee.

To find affiliate programs just use Google and search for affiliate programs and your keyword. Then search the website for the affiliate program. Sometimes they are hidden and not easily found. The one for amazon.com is on their main page at the bottom of the page in a link to associates and it can only be accessed from the main page.

Another way to find affiliate programs is to use websites like bizrate.com, shopzilla and other websites that compare products and stores that offer them and then take a look at the stores and see if they have affiliate programs. Most do these days.

If you are a massage therapist, one of the things to look for is a company that sells massage tools, lotions, oils, aromatherapy, chairs and equipment that you could sell to your readers and clients. This way you don't have to carry any stock or deal with products.

Some of the things to consider when choosing an affiliate program are the company's credibility, customer service and products they offer. Be sure to read all of the contracts and agreements so you know what you are responsible for. Know what percent you will be paid and when you will be paid. Some companies delay payments for various reasons. You also need to know how they will pay you - checks and direct deposits are the most common these days but some will charge you to get a check.

The other main things to look for is how long the 'cookie' referral will last and if there is a residual income available. Companies that have monthly or yearly memberships will help you make more money.

There are also affiliate programs such as the SBI! affiliate program that has a lifetime referral program which means that when people purchase a website through and they purchase additional sites or renew their site you will continue to get paid. Programs like Amazon.com don't do that- the cookie that gets put on their computer when they click through your link only lasts for a few days. It does apply to other products that people buy so if someone goes on a shopping spree you will get paid a referral for all of the products and not just the one item that they clicked through. The rules will vary and change with each company. I am only using the example of amazon.com and SBI! because those are two that I promote and use to make money online.

If you find a few good reputable affiliate programs and products that you are particularly interested in and knowledgeable about you can create a whole niche site on them just to promote them.

Know what you are getting into so that you can create a good relationship with the companies and your readers.

The Site Build it! Affiliate Masters Course will teach you how to build a website to promote affiliate products. The best way is to have a content rich site that attracts the search engines and traffic. The content builds trust so you don't really have to sell - you presell products.

The Wealthy Affiliate Program puts the Affiliate Masters Course on steroids! You can actually start making a small amount of money without even having a website. What you do is research hot topics and create a niche on it. Like a very hot topic online is weight loss but that is too broad of a topic. You learn to narrow it down by researching keywords and researching what people really want in that sector. People are more likely to search for 'lose weight in two weeks' or 'lose weight for wedding'. Taking these keywords you can then create an article marketing campaign to promote your products. You can create 3 simple sites with the Wealthy Affiliate Program to just create landing pages or small informational sites to refer people to. The key is researching and testing and writing articles which still takes time.

I think the perfect combination is using Site Build it! first to create a website where you can write articles on a specific topic and then do the article marketing campaign to get more traffic.

See also: Making money with affiliate programs - How to choose affiliate programs