Before we get into affiliate marketing strategies, let's understand what affiliate marketing is.
What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is just a revenue sharing agreement between you (the website/blog owner) and an online merchant.
The online merchant can be a small guy who works from home or a giant like Amazon.
com and ClickBank.
com.
The website owner promotes these products by using (affiliate) links to drive traffic and potential customers to the merchant's website.
This is done in exchange for a share of the profits (commission).
There is a contract between both parties that explain paid commissions and payout triggers.
Generally in affiliate marketing, you make money and get paid 3 different ways.
Some merchants will pay you to send people to their website, these are called pay per click.
Other merchants will offer a pay per lead or pay per sale programs.
The Best Affiliate program does not exist, and neither does the best affiliate marketing strategy.
But the mechanics of making money with affiliate marketing rests on the following 3 easy and simple steps.
The steps never get more complicated, but rather each step may have several sub-modules within it.
Step 1: Choose a Product or Product Category Before you decide upon an affiliate marketing strategy, you have to decide what you want to promote or sell.
You need a product.
The best way to choose a product is to sell something that you like and are interested in.
I love Apple and cellphones/technology, so I put together an iPhone niche website just to promote my iTunes and AT&T affiliate programs.
Go to Linkshare.
com to find some very good products.
Whatever product you like, you can craft a promotion around it.
Once you have decided upon a product, you write 5-10 articles, or reviews, or classified ads for this product.
Or you can even create 5-10 3minute videos for YouTube.
com.
Step 2: After you have decided upon a product or particular category, you need to sign up to a few Affiliate Programs.
Start looking at Amazon.
com, Linkshare.
com, ClickBank.
com and you can do a Google search to get other programs to match your interests.
Once you sign up to the affiliate programs you will get links to publish on the Internet.
These links will contain your affiliate link code so your traffic and sales can be tracked.
Keep all your affiliate programs and their prospective username/passwords sign up information in a safe place.
Step 3: Once you have signed up to one or more programs, you are ready to go.
You now are ready to promote or market the affiliate links.
This is done primarily by sharing your links around the internet.
The more eyeballs you have looking at your affiliate links and images, the more clicks and the more money is generated.
In step one, you created 5-10 articles or classified ads (or videos) to talk about the product or category of products you are selling.
If you are a lover of technology, perhaps Apple, you might write some articles about their newest iPhone release.
Perhaps another article about iPhone vs.
the Blackberry.
Controversy and exciting topics will get your articles, and videos shared across the internet.
If you have a Social network of at least 1,000 people then promote your links there too.
Post relevant content (with your embedded links) about your affiliate products on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to direct more traffic to your affiliate links.
Post your articles on EzineArticles.
com and post your videos on YouTube.
com.
Because YouTube is a huge search engine that rivals the size of Google (same company lol) in terms of page views...
you absolutely have to have a presence there.
Then once you have done that, you can try Squidoo and HubPages.
If you like classified advertising, you can look at Backpage.
com, Craigslist, and eBay Classifieds.
Remember marketing and selling on the internet is all about creating links and sharing links.