Many are looking for ways to make extra money or replace their current income. This could be because they need extra money to pay off debt, send kids to college or just want extra money to do fun things. Or, it could be because they are tired of the boredom of their 9 to 5 job and want something with more flexibility to spend time with family. Whatever the reason is, the Internet offers many ways to make that extra income in order to live that desired lifestyle. One of the most popular methods of leveraging the Internet for extra money is through affiliate marketing opportunities.
Affiliate marketing is nothing new and thousands of people have made millions of dollars through affiliate marketing. One of the kings of affiliate marketing programs is Amazon. They have been doing it for years. And, they are a good place to start since they have products for just about any niche imaginable.
The way affiliate marketing works is simple. You pick a product that is relevant to the type of website you have. For example, say you have a blog on gardening. You would look through Amazon’s website and find items related to the site. These could include gardening tools, outdoor furniture and similar items. They will provide you with special links and ads to place on your site. You will place these on your site, and while your visitors are reading your article, they may see an ad for something that relates to the content. They will then click on the ad and be taken to Amazon. If they buy the product while there you will receive a commission because you were the one that sent them there.
All affiliate programs work in pretty much the same way. The trick is to match up the products with the type of content on your site. If, for example, you put up ads for car parts on the gardening site you would probably not get that many people clicking on your ads. You may get some, but the click through rate would probably be pretty low. The click through rate is a percentage that is derived from taking the amount of clicks on the ad and dividing it by the amount of times the ad is shown. However, using the same example, if you place gardening-related items the click through rate will probably be substantially higher which means more money for you and your website.
Affiliate marketing offers people the flexibility they need to make part-time or full-time income. Since the Internet is open 24 hours a day and spans the globe, it gives unprecedented power to people to market their goods and services and make extra money. It does take time and energy to make it work, but once all the steps have been taken it can prove to be a low maintenance venture. It will take some regular work each week to keep it fresh and up to date. But, the investment in time can be minimal after a while.
Low to No Start Up Costs with Affiliate Marketing
If you are worrying about what it would cost to start up an affiliate marketing business then you can lay those concerns to rest by knowing that you can start off with low to no costs.
Obviously if you have a bit of money to invest you can start off on a bigger scale but for those that are on a tight budget or want to test the waters you can do this without worrying about making a big hole in your bank account.
When you start affiliate marketing the most common method is to have your own website to promote the products you want to earn a commission from, but you can use other means to try and attract your traffic. But no matter what method you choose the objective is always the same you need to attract hungry customers willing to buy what you are advertising.
It doesn’t cost you anything except time to write articles which include your affiliate link and submit them to ezine (article) directories. A further advantage of writing articles for ezine directories is that you are able to gain trust from your readers by establishing yourself as an expert on a particular topic.
You will find that some article directories don’t allow the inclusion of affiliate links and you need to refer your article back to a website which you own.
The best solution is to have your own domain and hosting. You can buy a domain for around $10 and hosting from as little as $6 per month. But if you don’t want to outlay even that you can set up pages on web 2.0 sites such as Squidoo and Blogger that are totally free. These sites don’t look quite as professional as having your own website, but many have made nice incomes just from using these free sites alone.
Another way of advertising your affiliate link is to use pay per click (PPC) this can be costly if you don’t know what you are doing. But the simple version is you place banner or text ads on other people’s sites then, when a potential customer clicks on the ad the click amount is deducted from the amount you have deposited. The amount of the click depends on the value of the keyword you have selected to target your product.
PPC has a bit of a learning curve and it really is recommended you try the free methods such as article marketing until you understand the process, otherwise you can lose your money faster than you can blink.
The biggest advantages of affiliate marketing are that you can start up with next to no money, you don’t need any technical know-how and you can get started straight away. How big or small you want to grow your business is entirely up to you and the amount of effort you are prepared to put in.
The one important thing to remember is that to make any money at all you need to do something don’t procrastinate.
