subject: How Affiliate Programs Can Help You Make Money Online [print this page] How Affiliate Programs Can Help You Make Money Online
Affiliate programs offer people some of the best ways to make money online and it also gives vendors a chance to reach a wider audience while only rewarding marketers who are successful. This essentially works out to a win-win situation for everyone. But in order to be a successful affiliate you need to be able to choose the right program. With hundreds of programs to choose from and each one offering to make you rich overnight finding one or two to start off with can be overwhelming.
Choosing the right affiliate programs
Now the best ways to find a good affiliate program is to find something which you are passionate about. For instance if you love to work out and have been working out for quite some time you may want to start off with bodybuilding or weight loss niches. The benefit of doing this is that you will start off already knowing a lot about the niche, its target market, and the people you are targeting, having said that you will also know whether or not the product offering a really big commission is actually good.
Primary and secondary niches
If you aim to squeeze every last inch out of your affiliate marketing efforts it is important to have a few secondary niches to go along with your primary niche. For instance if you decide that 'Bodybuilding' is your primary niche you might want to add secondary niches such as 'protein powder', 'pre-contest diet formulas', 'weight loss' etc... Ideally you will want to fit in sub-niches or primary niches which your visitors will be interested in, instead of something they find out of place.
Searching for programs
There are a number of websites where budding internet marketers can go to search for a good product to start marketing and earning a commission from. One of the most popular of these websites is 'ClickBank' with close to a million products and many more marketers this is where many people start their online marketing careers.
HoweverClickBank can be tricky as every product on there may not be good, and despite the refund policy you do not want to get your visitors tangled in a product they find useless because that's only going to kill your reputation. The best way to know if a product is really good is to visit the vendor's website, and then read independent reviews regarding that product. You should also go to forums and blogs to find out what people are saying about it prior to deciding to market it.
Start by building traffic
Once you know which products you are marketing you can start building a steady stream of targeted traffic to your website or blog. You may want to start off giving useful advice, answering questions and using PPC advertising to get the traffic your website needs to start selling. You can then begin to gradually weave the product you are affiliated with into your content i.e. soft selling them so that people are not up hauled by you directly asking them to purchase a product.
