Not a Get Rich Quick Scheme

Affiliate programs are a very easy first choice for newcomers to make money online. Just about everyone who is trying to make money online starts here simply because of how easy it is.

1. All you have to do is to join a merchant program as an affiliate and send visitors to the merchant site, free of charge of course. Why should you be paying anyone to sell their product for them? Anyone asking you for money upfront, I would stay away from.

2. Once your visitor has been sent to the affiliate site, all other work such as making a sale, delivering the product or service, receiving payment, handling the complaints or refunds, is all handled by the merchant site.

3. The merchant site also handles the payment of commissions that are to be paid to you when ever a sale is made because the visitor you sent to the merchant site has purchased a product from them.

4. You can also make commissions if a visitor you referred to the site joins the affiliate program, and they make a sale. This is known as a two tier system. You should investigate these systems closely, because there is a fine line between affiliate programs and multi-level marketing schemes or scams, you can choose the appropriate word.

Sound simple enough doesn’t it? But there is always a catch. I am willing to bet that almost all affiliates soon find that in spite of their best efforts they are making little or no money.

The reason behind this is simple. Affiliate earnings don’t depend on how many visitors that are sent to the merchant site, but how many of those visitors buy the product or service that the merchant is offering.

So just sending visitors to the merchant site is definitely not enough, because sending visitors to a site is very easy. Link exchanges, text links, or random posting to forums.
Your merchant site that you’re linking to will be seen hundreds of times but it will not make a sale. And the reason is very simple. These visitors are not qualified visitors. They don’t care what product you are trying to sell. They are looking at it to earn credits so they can show their site to others. If you want to make money, you need to qualify your visitors, get them primed for the product, use sizzle words, create some excitement, bait the hook so to speak, so the merchant account can close the deal.

So if you want to make serious income from affiliate programs, the thing to do is to send qualified visitors to your merchant site.

Who is a qualified visitor?
This is the visitor who reached your site by themselves. They are looking for the product you are promoting. This is why they took the trouble of finding it from a search engine or from the particular kind of ads or forums. Chose where you put your advertising links or text ads carefully, putting them in the wrong place could be very expensive.

Ensuring good ad placement, good ad context and great copy will create excitement. Make the visitor red hot for a sale. They are already interested in your product. If they find what they want on your merchant site, he is very much likely to look at the product's features, mentally compare it with other similar products, and ask for more information by giving his email address. All this can lead to a sale and a commission for you.

How to target interested visitors

The best way to reach qualified visitors is promoting your products through search engines submissions, placing catchy ads using adwords, or other pay per click programs, posting in forums or through your very own website. It all depends on your budget. If your just starting out, you may want to use as many free methods as you can. If you have a budget to spend on some pay per click programs, it can be a solid investment if done right.

This may sound terrifying to newcomers at first. Most people think that they need to be a master of html, but all these are do-able with a little effort and knowledge. You can get any of the help for mastering all these skills from the resources freely available on the internet. I know some of the guru’s might be cringing because if it’s free, they aren’t making any money.

Joining the right affiliate programs can also help a good deal to gain affiliate mastery. While great many affiliate programs give you a few text ads and banners and be done with you, there are some programs that give valuable training to succeed. There is nothing wrong with putting a little more effort than just spending a few minutes putting together some text links, or ads. Be creative; research the product so you can stand behind what you’re trying to sell. Remember luck favor those who are prepared.

Remember to be positive. Most newcomers trying to make money on the internet fail because they expect to be rich in a week, if not overnight or sooner. They expect once they post their site, link or ad. When this doesn't happen as it rarely does in real life, they get discouraged. The result -- they give up, frustrated.

The reality is that nobody becomes rich overnight in internet marketing. You have to work at it consistently. It may take weeks, or months of hard work. 15-20 minutes a day, just doesn’t cut it, no matter what the experts say. Let's be serious.

Make Money Online: Website not included

Believe it or not you don't need to have a website to make money on the Internet. With a few simple steps, you can start making cold hard cash online. Here is a proven and inexpensive strategy to make money online without a website:

Step 1: Find an Affiliate Product: Best bet – Clickbank.com

Find a product to promote where you can make a good commission on each sale. After you sign up with Clickbank.com, you can search their marketplace to find a product that you want to promote. Generally, you will get the biggest commissions on digital products such as ebooks. A digital product can be described as something that is downloaded directly to a customer's computer after purchasing. A how to book, such as Google Wealth Wizard or software as adword analyzer.

There is no extra cost for the author per unit, no inventory for them to carry and certainly no shipping costs, the commissions are much greater than on regular products such as hardgoods. Commission on these kinds of products can be upwards of 50% to even 75%. The best place to find these products is Clickbank.com.

Sign up as an affiliate for a product that looks the most appealing to you, for me appealing means how much money am I going to make from each sale. You will have your own decision making process, but money is mine. It’s just as easy to sell a product where you make $10.00 a sale as it is to sell a product where you will make $30.00 a sale. After you sign up, you will get a what is called a unique affiliate link (your code that tells clickbank that you were responsible for sending the customer to the site who made the purchase) This also allows for clickbank to track your commissions and ensures it will be credited to your account.

Step 2: Get a Domain Name: Best bet – Godaddy.com

Why do you need a domain name, but no a website? Firstly, your name establishes a presence on the web; it gives you to some extent some credibility as well. Secondly, by getting a domain name it will let you redirect to your affiliate links. A domain name for those who don’t know is a .COM name (like www.67days.com). You can get it for $9.00 or less depending if you purchase any other services, but for this example let’s just assume its $8.95 at GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy.com will allow you to redirect your domain name to your affiliate link at no extra cost. Free is always good. I do have to mention that I have purchased several domain names from them never without any problems, their online support is outstanding, and make it so simple to get everything set up.

So when someone types in your .COM name in their browser, it will go to your affiliate link. The visitor will see the website with the product you want to promote, and the commissions will be tracked correctly. Cha-ching!

Remember, the reason why you need a domain name is that it's memorable, and your are trying to create your own brand so to speak, and it makes you look more trustworthy. Affiliate links tend to be too long and arouse suspicion, but also they can be altered. What does that mean to you? You don’t get the credit for your hard work sending the traffic to the site, or the sale. How much would that suck? For example, most people would rather click on the link www.domainpricesslashed.com as opposed to http://7dp39jp14.wizard1973.hop.clickbank.net.

A domain name will make your affiliate link look like it's your very own website. So basically, you will have a product to promote and a website to send people to and get commissions - without really having your own website. And what is the best part of all this? You have no paperwork to deal with, no customers to deal with, and it works 24 hours a day/ 365 days of the year. Completely automatic!

Step 3: Drive Traffic – This is a topic all to itself but here is a quick look at it.

In order to make sales, you need to get visitors to your domain name (which will forward them to the website of the product that you resell). You can pay for advertising and hope that your profit will be greater than advertising cost, or you can use free ways to generate traffic. Keyword advertising can work wonders if you choose the right keywords. If you choose incorrectly, it can be a very expensive lesson. Unfortunately I am speaking from experience, and made a whopping $17.00 but spent over $100.00 to do it. Ouch!

One of the most effective way to get free targeted visitors to your domain name is by writing and submitting articles to sites such as www.ezinearticles.com. You can write short articles on the topic related to the product that you promote. You can even right reviews of other similar products, or how the product works for you, or why this product is worth the $39.00 they are asking for. Just make sure at the end of the article, you include your author bio and your domain name link.

After submitting your articles to various article websites, and there are several, just google them. Give your readers the right to publish your articles as long as your link is included. Your articles will get published in many places on the Internet, because content rich articles are always in demand. These other sites will be advertising your affiliate link at no cost to you whatsoever. People will read your articles and click on your domain name link ready to buy.

Now just like the shampoo bottle says. Lather rinse and repeat. You can duplicate this method time and time again. After a while, you will build up a fantastic source of Internet income - without even having a website.