The Site Affiliates Newbie 101 Guide New Affiliate Techniques

What is an Affiliate Program? The best way to describe what an affiliate program is to note that you get a commission for each sale made through your website. All website owners should consider signing up with an affiliate program to help with the costs of running their website's.

How does it work? You sign up with a company or an affiliate management system and you promote a product for that company. They then give you a special link to place on your website and when someone clicks that link, and actually makes a purchase you will be credited for the agreed amount when you signed up with the program.

Is it just that easy? No. The mistake most new affiliate members make is they just start adding affiliate links to their website and hope for the best. In reality this will not work. The correct way to use affiliate links is to promote a product that fits well within your website. A bad example would be a website about roses, and they site owner put up affiliate links to sell web hosting plans. This would not be ideal, as the visitors to the site about roses will not be going there to buy a web hosting plan, but rather read more about roses, and gardening. A good example would be that same rose website having affiliate links on rose seed packets, and or garden planning software.

Will visitors trust these links? It is not a question of the visitor trusting the links, it is the visitor trusting you, and your website. Let's face it if you were to visit a website where you find many errors, and can clearly their website content, and layout are messy would you trust clicking on any of their links? The answer is likely to be no, and I do not blame you. Now, if you visit a website that looks professional, and it has proper privacy policies, terms, and the site has been around for many years with updated content that was cared for... would you consider their links? Again, I will assume you would trust them more, and feel more confident about clicking on a link in their website. The ultimate answer here is just like any other website out there you have to maintain a quality website that is safe, and keep it that way before someone will trust your site as a safe and trustworthy environment. Even with those qualities, it still is not enough to make affiliate links worth your while. You cannot expect to gain anything from sales if you do not gain trust in the community.

Can This Hurt Site Ranks? Affiliate Links Are Not Bad

Will Google rank my site low if I use affiliates? The answer is yes and no. If you have a website with a mish mash of affiliate links then it is very likely that Google will just see you as a site that is just looking to make a quick dollar or two. This is a common mistake most new affiliate users make when they first start off with the program. They later realize the effective way to properly use affiliate links to be relevant to the sites content, and add the links tastefully. If you promote one item that is highly relevant to your site, it is likely Google will find the site tasteful and not put a negative mark on the site.

How many links should I use? I personally would never want to promote more then what I can handle. If your website is about graphics, and your site is specific to a certain title then sure why not offer an affiliate link to that product. However, it would not be wise to add multiple graphic design software affiliate links to the site unless the site offered quality content about that software then sure it would fine. However, I would stick to the rule of no more than two products and not more then two links on a page for that affiliate.

How Much Can You Make? Affiliate Truths

I hear rumors of people making thousand a week from affiliate sales, is this true? First we need to consider where these rumors came from, and whom is saying this. Yes, it is possible to make thousands a day, but its is very unlikely you or I will ever see that kind of income. I am not saying that you or I cannot make that kind of money, but the truth is you need to have one hell of an incredible website, with large amounts of unique visitors. The main point I am trying to make here is that you need traffic to the website first before you can even consider making money from affiliate sales. The next point is attracting the right type of visitors for what you want to sell. On average it is very common for a website owner to make enough money each month to pay their Internet Provider bill or even a car payment. It is not that common to be able to retire, and even if you were making that kind of money from affiliates it would not be a reason to retire. Why? Because if you put your life in the hands of another, such as an affiliate you are making a big mistake. Just as fast as an affiliate came into the picture they can leave, and then you're left with nothing. This brings up my next point.

The reality of a typical income: If an affiliate only offers you 10% of each sale made through your site, and the product their selling is only $39.99, and you make one or two sales a week then income is far from impressive. This is very typical in the affiliate community and if you want to make decent money at this you will need to sell at least 20 products a day, and that is even hard to do in a private shop somewhere in town. Face it your website is no Ebay and the only way you will see a decent income is if you provide a quality website that is trusted, and gets a decent amount of traffic. This in all takes a lot of work and it is a full time job so be ready.

Should I build a website just for affiliate sales. I would not be so quick to make crazy decision like that. You need to base your decisions on building a website for maintaining its quality content. What this means is you must truly enjoy being a webmaster before you can even consider any type of income from affiliate sales. I would not run out there and start tossing up website's just so that you can add affiliate links to it. This would be a major mistake because one it will not rank well as a trusted site, and two the affiliate program could close and now you have spent money on a domain and site that was meant to promote a certain product. Now, I will not be so dull to say you should never do this, and that is why I said do not make crazy decisions. You can however build a site with quality content, and as long as the content is flexible you can safely build a website for affiliate sales. What does this mean? If you made a website about Mims Graphic Software, and Mims goes out of business or they decide they no longer want to have affiliates, what will you do then? There will be no more product income from the site, and your stuck with having a site that wasn't intended for just content. Now, if you had considered this in the first place you could have made a site about graphic software which then would allow you to fill in the spaces when an affiliate closes their doors.

HINT: Big company names. If you want to start a website about a specific piece of software and your main goal is to achieve an income from affiliate sales, then go for it. BIg names in the business tend to hold their ground, but they do and can go under at anytime so keep that in mind when you are building the website, and allow for other niche content.

Other Important Tips Making It work

Do you truly want to give this a shot? If so then you need not worry about setting up any affiliate links at this time. You should spend this time building a quality site, and running analytics to see what drives traffic to your website. When you have this information study it and improve it even more, and when you feel confident your site is receiving a decent amount of traffic, you can then consider signing up with an affiliate to promote a single product. Again, do not rush this, you first must gain respect and trust in your community out there.

What affiliates should you use? Well, I am not going to offer up a full list of affiliate management companies here. This is something you must research yourself as it is you that ultimately has to make your decision. It is important that you research them on your own and not let anyone point you because it is likely an affiliate link itself and you will just be getting fake advice. There is one I will list here to get your started and I can assure you I get nothing for this. It is one of the better affiliate programs out there, and their reputation is better then most. If you're interested visit www.cj.com which is short for commission junction. See, I did not even make it a link as I want you to know for sure I get absolutely nothing for recommending them.

Best Wishes!