Affiliate Programs
The Whys and hows of using other peoples products to make money
With affiliate programs, other websites pay you to direct traffic to their site. The way it works: you place a link that contains an affiliate code on your website. Every time someone clicks the link, you earn money. Usually it’s just a few cents per click, but those clicks can add up—and some affiliate programs will pay a percentage of purchases made by visitors from your affiliate links.
It’s hard to build an entire business around affiliate links, but they can create a nice supplemental income for your website. Here are some hints on running successful affiliate programs:
- Build your website content. This is the information your website contains for your visitors, such as articles and other resources. Most affiliate programs will only accept websites offering quality content that relates to their site. A popular example of this is the Amazon affiliate program. If you can relate your products or services to something offered on Amazon, usually books, you can sign up for their affiliate program.
- Choose complementary affiliate programs, not competitive ones. If your website is geared for new moms, and your main product is an e-book featuring time-saving beauty tips, you wouldn’t want to enroll in an affiliate program for a website about beauty tips. Instead, look for affiliate programs that target new moms in a different area, such as natural baby food or infant sleeping tips.
- When you’ve selected your target affiliates, contact them and explain why your website would benefit their customers. Affiliate programs will also often include links to your website from theirs, and they don’t want to promote businesses their customers wouldn’t like. It’s bad for their image, and for yours. Be sure you have plenty of content on your website before you contact affiliate programs.
- Place links wisely on your pages. Many websites create a separate page for affiliate links. This strategy has limited effectiveness, as not everyone will visit your “links” or “resources” page. Instead, consider featuring a few of your best affiliate links on your website’s home page. Another good strategy for maximizing your affiliate links is to place them within the text on your website. For example, on a website about time-saving beauty tips for new moms, you may have an article or blurb about conquering under-eye shadows resulting from sleepless nights. At the end of this information, you could include a sentence that says, “Click here to learn more about helping your baby sleep through the night,” and hyperlink the words “click here” with your affiliate code for the website on infant sleeping tips.
There are thousands of online affiliate programs to choose from, so you should be able to choose those programs that work best with your business. Also, remember that the more traffic you generate for your website, the more likely you will be to make money with affiliate programs.
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Money from someone else's Trees - Affiliate Programs
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