This is the fourth in a series entitled Internet Marketing 101. This series focuses on the basics of Internet Marketing; it will cover the basic pre-requisites to creating an income online and will outline all of the basics steps required to get started. This is a 5 part series and the five parts are: finding your interests, selecting and buying a domain name, selecting and finding a web host, joining affiliate programs, and building your website.

Part 4: Joining Affiliate Programs

Before you can start making any money with your new website, you have to find companies that are willing to pay you for your work.  After all, you are trying to make some money online, right?  In comes the affiliate program.  Affiliate marketing is a very effective means for a company to advertise their products cheaply.  The way it works is something like this:  Company A (CA) signs a contract with Affiliate Program X (APX) where  CA pays APX a certain percentage of each sale that is made through APX’s program.  APX is smart, and they want to make as much money as possible, so they recruit Affiliate Marketers (AM’s) like yourself to promote the products for them.  The AM signs up with APX and APX agrees to pay the AM a certain percentage of each sale that is made through APX’s programs and partners.  APX gets money from CA, and AM gets money from APX.

Got all that?  You, as the affiliate marketer, receive money from each sale you make through an affiliate link.  The more sales you make, the more money you make.  It’s really that simple!   So how do you find affiliate programs and sign up to these affiliate programs so you can start making money?  Here are a few options.  These programs are huge and offer you a wide variety of products to promote.  Chances are that the first two (Commission Junction and Linkshare) will have products from your list for you to promote.

• Linkshare
• Commission Junction
• Moreniche
• JoeBucks
• Rocket Profit

To get started, join one of the above programs and search for companies to promote.  For example, if you want to have a site that talks about soccer, join Commission Junction and search for “soccer”.  You’ll get a list of several advertisers that sell soccer related products like apparel, tickets to events, and more.

Once you join the program, you need to create links.  Again, this is pretty self explanatory.  After you have the links you want to use, simply put them in your website.  When people click on your links and buy a product, you will get a commission from the sale!

It’s that easy to join affiliate programs and to start making money online.  Go join and start promoting!