In the world of flashy advertisements, annoying marketing campaigns, invasive businesses, and online money making ideas, you have to know the ins and outs of online marketing in order to get your slice of the online income pie. Many people seek to make money through online stores, niche sites, blogs, and even scams, but many of these online money making ideas wouldn't be possible without the benefits of affiliate marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
According to the ultimate online information source, affiliate marketing is: "a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts...Affiliate marketing-using one website to drive traffic to another-is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers..."
What does all that mean in non-internet geek speak? Well, in simple terms, affiliate marketing is basically how one online business scratches the back of another. Google is one of the world's largest affiliate marketing programs. Google Adwords users are participating in affiliate marketing by paying to advertise on websites linked through the Google affiliate program. Businesses pay for their ads and links to their sites to be posted on other people's websites. When someone clicks on an affiliate ad, the website owner gets a PPC (pay per click) rate. The more people who click on the affiliate ad, the more money that website can make.
How to Break Into Affiliate Marketing?
Breaking into affiliate marketing is a lot easier than people think. Before you can even think of getting into the money making business of marketing through affiliate programs you need to have a website. Using programs like WordPress, Codefight and JVPress you can build a website, usually some kind of niche blog, and link it to affiliate programs. The smartest thing to do is to build one great blog on a specific industry, product line or idea, and build affiliate partnership with businesses linked to the topic of your blog.
For instance, you can create a blog focused on the iPad and iPhone. Your blog could talk about information such as accessories, apps, new technology, news and celebrities who use the iPad and/or iPhone. With so many topics on your blog, you can link to affiliate programs through Amazon.com, Google.com, and other websites that sell the iPad and iPhone and accessories. Every time someone visits your blog and clicks on a Pay Per Click link or buys a product following the link on your website you get paid.
Best Affiliate Marketing Methods
As stated before, there are many methods for getting involved in affiliate marketing, another method for using affiliate marketing is to build a squeeze page with the intention to get visitors to sign up to an e-newsletter and then advertise affiliate products through the newsletter. Furthermore advertising the squeeze page through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook allows you to reach millions of people without spending thousands on advertisements. You could even pay to get your ads listed on other people's websites (blogs, directories, encyclopedias, etc...), and receive an income through their visitors buying through your adverts.
If you don't want to go the affiliate marketing road alone, you can choose to join affiliate marketing co-ops-beware, these cost a bit more because of the elitism involved and restricted memberships, but the security and steady income you can make may make up for the initial investment.
What Are the Best Affiliate Programs?
If you're serious about breaking into the money making arena of affiliate marketing, you need to know where the best programs are. Some of the most popular affiliate hosts are Clickbank and Commission Junction. Other affiliate hosts include sites like Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Target.com, and any other online retailer with a link at the bottom of their homepage that leads to information about their affiliate marketing programs. The truth is that there are millions of businesses online that are willing to join you in making money through affiliate programs. Which of these will provide the most bang for your buck?
Before you climb onboard with an affiliate program you need to do your homework. Is the business your affiliating yourself with a business with potential? Does it provide services or products that will get them and you into trouble? Can you see yourself growing with the company and settling into a more established relationship in the future? When it comes to affiliate marketing you have to make sure that you aren't joining forces with weak, illegal, or shady businesses that will only hurt your money making dreams.
Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest money makers online today, and getting your own piece of the delicious and lucrative pie is simple and effective. Good luck in your online endeavors.