Getting started with Affiliate marketing

Posted by Felix Okoli on Tuesday October 1, 2013 at 16:4:41:

Affiliate marketing is for sure one of the coolest ways to make money online and that's why it's probably going to continue remaining an attractive niche to people for the long term.

Affiliate marketing may not be limited to the internet but since the internet is an important part of today's business, more and more afiliates are going online.

What is affiliate marketing really about? Well, it is about making money for sales you've referred to a merchant after having entered into an agreement with the merchant as an affiliate.

What you will need to do:
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- Set up a content website and fill it with articles for a particular niche e.g web hosting, finance, shopping, gaming etc. It may even be a third party website that allows you to add your own external links
- Look for a merchant that offers an affiliate program related to your niche
- Ensure that you agree with the terms and conditions and their payment mode is ok to you and that they have a transparent cookie tracking system.
- Sign up an get approved as an affiliate
- Create and copy your affiliate links and codes
- Place the codes in your site
- Drive traffic to the affiliate landing page and earn a commission based on sales.

It is that easy.

Things you have to consider before joining an affiliate program
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- Affiliate niche you want to get involved in
- How to drive traffic to your affiliate page
- How you want to get paid

Think of a situation whereby you want to make money from referring buyers to a seller who is into selling Nokia Lumia phones. If your affiliate commission is 10% and each phone costs at least $200, you stand to make at least $20 for every phone that gets sold through your referral.

Some Affiliate niches
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There are lots of niches you can choose from when thinking of an affiliate or referral program to join. The good thing is that joining is basically free as there are no fees involved. Here are some niches I've identified.

- Online shopping - Amazon associates
- Online advertising - Clicksor or Bidvertiser
- Web hosting and Domains: Godaddy, Netfirms, Bluehost and even Fatcow.
- Forex trading:
- Content writing: Hubpages, Squidoo

You can make money as an affiliate by referring the sale of anything actually and it is not just limited to internet programs. As long as you have an agreement with a merchant, you can earn money for sales you help the merchant to make.