What is Affiliate Marketing?
These days money can be very tight for many people and most of us can definitely use some extra money. There are many different ways to make money online, and unfortunately many of them are nothing but “get rich quick schemes” that never work or sometimes even outright scams. However, if you want a legitimate way to make money online, one of the most popular ways is through affiliate marketing. What is affiliate marketing and can you really make money with it?
Basically affiliate marketing is a way of making money online by marketing products or services for other businesses. You do this by putting links, banners or specific product information on your own website or blog. You are not creating products you are just affiliating yourself with an existing company and marketing their products and services to others online.
There are two different types of affiliate marketing. First, you put a link on your blog or website to the business you are marketing and when someone clicks on the link it will take them to a page where they can purchase something from that particular business. You make money this way by getting a certain percentage of the sales.
The other way is by referring someone to the business website where the person is able to sign up for something or leave their contact information on the businesses website. You make money simply from them giving their information. There are many different types of affiliate programs available so finding a company that you are comfortable advertising for that will also match your website or blog is a lot easier then you think. A great place to start is the Clickbank.com marketplace.
The popularity of affiliate marketing programs has grown tremendously in recent years because of the ease of entry and the desire to make money online. There are also many individuals needing to find ways to supplement their income and affiliate marketing can be a great way to do that. It is quite possible to make a decent income from affiliate marketing you just have to invest the time and effort needed to build a successful online business. You won’t get rich quick so don’t even let that thought enter your mind!
There are many websites/blogs that offer free information about how to start an online business with affiliate marketing, and also plenty of forums available that you can use to find tips and tricks to help get you started. The nice thing about affiliate marketing is that you can do it in the comfort of your own home and on your own schedule, if you want to do it part time or full time that is entirely up to you. Just remember that it will take time to build a decent income from affiliate marketing, but once you become familiar as to how things work you will be surprised at the amount of money you truly can make by marketing for other companies.