Top 7 Tips to Make Money Online as an Affiliate Marketer

With even more businesses finding their way online, and with all of them offering nearly the same products and services for almost the same prices, can there be any way for small businesses to be heard? And with the aggressive marketing strategies of larger, more established companies, can there still be a way for smaller businesses and even individuals to attract attention and still make money online?

Despite the apparent dearth of money-making options online, there are still ways by which you can make profits. You can join an affiliate program and earn money through commissions, which you can get when customers or visitors to your site click on certain advertisements available on your web pages. This pay for performance model of commissions has helped small businesses grow and succeed online, and has allowed businesses of all shapes and sizes to market their goods and services to a wider market.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

You can think of affiliate marketing as a pyramid scheme with only two tiers. That is, you have principal merchants or third party affiliate programs at the top paying the companies at the bottom. The companies at the bottom simply have to display advertisements of affiliate sites on their own websites. Programs such as Google’s AdSense allow commissions to be paid if affiliate websites are accessed through an advertisement posted on another site.

There are different ways by which you can earn commissions through affiliate marketing. In pay per impression, or PPI, you earn money for every thousand times that an advertisement is posted on your site. In the popular pay per click, or PPC, you earn money every time a visitor clicks on an advertisement posted on your site. If this click leads that same visitor to perform a major action at the affiliate site, such as answer a survey, subscribe to a newsletter, or start an account, then you may be paid on a pay per lead basis.

Commissions are even higher if you are paid on a pay per sale basis. That is, if a customer is referred to an affiliate site through advertisements on yours, and if that customer buys goods or services at the affiliate site, then you will be paid a percentage of the sale. Also known as revenue sharing, this is the most common model of compensation used by online affiliate programs.

With the advent of voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP technology, payment on a pay per call basis may soon be in the offing. In this case, you can be paid a commission for a certain number of phone calls that the affiliate program receives because of a referral made by an advertisement posted on your site.

Affiliate marketing also allows your site to display advertisements of products and services that are directly related to your interests and aims. At present, the most active affiliate marketing sectors are in the adult, retail, and gambling groups. Experiencing the greatest growth in recent years are the travel, finance, and mobile phone and telecommunications sectors.

How Can I Succeed in Affiliate Marketing?

If you are interested in joining an affiliate program, then take note of the following tips as you embark on your profitable journey.

1. Find a reputable affiliate program. Check the Yahoo! and Google directories for affiliate programs that are tailored to your needs and aims. These programs are arranged according to topics handled and sectors managed, so choose programs carefully. You may be denied approval of your affiliate program application if your website content does not adhere to certain program requirements.

2. Prepare your website for the program. Assign a conspicuous space in which the affiliate program’s advertisements will appear. Fix your layout so that the advertisement will not make your website appear text heavy or lopsided.

3. Prepare your website’s content. Make sure that all your keywords are in order, and that no terms are confused with each other. In order to make money, you must first have visitors to your site, so make sure that you have an attractive and easily navigable website to begin with.

4. Find a reliable web server. It is not the affiliate program’s duty to determine if your website is up and running. Make sure that you employ a good web server that will have as few unannounced downtimes as possible.

5. Do your research. Find out more about the affiliate programs in which you are interested. Interview people who have been involved in the affiliate program. Is it a reliable program? Are the advertisements well designed? Is the business lucrative to begin with?

6. Read the fine print. Familiarize yourself with the affiliate program’s terms and conditions. If you do not like a certain affiliate program’s rules, then stay away from it and move on to the next one.

7. Expect little, but invest much. Work hard at improving your site and making your content more useful. However, do not expect cash to pour in immediately. Affiliate marketing can be difficult to carry out, so be patient, and do not rest on your laurels.

Affiliate marketing can certainly earn you money, but you need to be wary of scams online. For more information, visit E-consultancy and join forums, especially those at Work at Home, where you can share information and experiences and enrich your affiliate marketing skills.

[image from Flickr Sara Johns]