An affiliate is someone who makes money referring people to the products and services of others. This can be a very profitable business and it virtually has no expenses since no inventory is held. The best way to make money as an affiliate is to create a website with many products and services for sale all in one place. That makes it easier for customer's to shop and easier for you to advertise. This way you advertise one website link instead of 100 affiliate links.
Instructions
1. Get yourself a website builder unless you know html like the back of your hand. There is no shame in getting help to build a website, and in fact that is what most people do. If you are new at building websites, Site Build It (SBI) is a good place to start. They take you step by step through the website building process, including inserting the right keywords to get the search engines looking at your site. Site Build It costs $299 per year and includes hosting and domain name. Basically everything all in one place. If you don't want to spend the $299 you can use Yahoo's Site Builder for $144 per year, but it won't help you get your site ready for the search engines.
2. Decide what your niche is. You don't want a website that offers vacation packages, flea medication for cats, and exercise equipment. It will confuse the readers and will let them know you are not an expert in any of these fields. They won't stay on your website for long. You want to stick to one topic per website so that you become an authority on the subject. If you chose exercise equipment as your main focus than everything on the website should deal with stay healthy.
3. Sign up for some free sites like Share-A-Sale that list the companies you can promote and earn from. As an affiliate you can earn a percentage of the sales made through your website, get paid per lead captured, or get paid per ad clicked. You should use a combination of all three on your website to maximize profits. Make sure the companies you sign up with are legit and pay on time. Here are some more sites that are upstanding: Clickbank, Commission Junction, and MaxBounty. It is best to sign up with each so that you can find all the offers in the niche you chose.
4. Add some articles to your site. This is extremely important. You don't want products only because that will let people know you are only interested in their money and not really in providing them with valuable info. You can get articles for free online if you don't want to write them yourself. You will have to include the author's byline and a link to the author's site. It is best to write the articles yourself so you are not sending people to someone else's website, but if you are crunched for time and you don't feel you have the writing skills this is a great option. A great site to get articles is Ezine Articles.
5. Choose a domain name based on your niche. It should be as short and memorable as you can get it. Don't use your name as a domain name because no one is going to search for it. If you are selling exercise equipment you want words that people looking for exercise equipment are going to search for. Obviously try exercise equipment.com. Some other suggestions could be equipment4health.com, exerciseequipment4u.com, exercise4life.com. Make a list because most of your suggestions are going to be taken already.
6. Add Google Adsense ads to maximize your site. The more traffic you get the better you are going to do with the Google ads. It's free to do and once you set it up you can pretty much forget about it and just collect the checks when they come. Just remember to check back with Google before you get your first check to submit your info as requested.
7. Combine all of these aspects on your site. Add graphics or pictures that you may have taken with your digital camera. You can get free pictures at Stockxpert. Your site building programs will guide you on add graphics and add all of your affiliate program links and banners. Make sure that if you don't use Site Build It that you study keywords and select several for your site. These are the phrases people choose when searching for your products. The more advertising you do with your keywords the higher your site goes on the search engines. That means more people are going to get your site listed as a result of their search.
Tags: your site, exercise equipment, domain name, search engines, Site Build