Posted by Wendy on March 13, 19100 at 18:49:30:
In Reply to: seeking advice on affiliate programs posted by Lina on March 13, 19100 at 08:29:14:
To become an affiliate, all you have to do is sign up. Check out amazon.com. They pay a percentage of every item that is sold to customers who followed a link from your site to theirs.
Just about every big company has an affiliate program these days. When you visit their sites, typically, you can find the affiliate links at the bottom of the home page somewhere.
And it's easy to become an affiliate. Just sign up. It doesn't cost you a dime.
If you're interested in a variety of retailers, check out LinkShare and clicktrade. Both are programs that are designed to help companies and people interested in becoming an affiliate meet.
However, the best way to make money on the internet, is to offer a useful product or service. If the only thing your site offers is a bunch of links to other sites for the purpose of buying stuff, you won't get very many repeat visitors, and the only way to make money is by getting people to come to your site, come back to your site, and recommend your site to all of their friends.
Also, remember that it takes a lot of time and patience - unless of course you have a lot of money to invest in advertising.
My advice to you is to come up with an e-zine concept of some sort, create a web site that promotes that idea, and then look for affiliate programs for merchandise that your visitors would want or need. For example, I have a poetry web site. I sell poetry books, as an Amazon.com affiliate. My site is geared toward student poets, and so I also have links to CDNow, a web site that sells CDs.
Finally, look for web sites that are similar to your site and trade links. I'm linked to a bunch of different poetry sites.
Be prepared to do A LOT of work, however. And be prepared to wait a very long time before you see any real profits.
There's no such thing as quick and easy money. But it is possible to make a nice living, if you have patience, perserverance, and stamina.
Best of luck to you!