• Section: Money Guide - Category: Home Business
• Written by gurpreet singh

It seems as though you can't visit a web site now without being asked to join
their affiliate program - they're everywhere! Affiliate programs are
attractive, as they offer a means of earning money from product sales without
having to actually take orders, ship merchandise, deal with customers, stock
inventory or take a financial risk. Post a banner to your web site and you're
in business. Affiliate programs do offer a means to make additional income
from your site, however, there are a few points to consider.

A Good Fit:

Before you run out and join a bunch of affiliate programs, take a moment to
think about your current web site visitors. What types of products and
information would they be most interested in? For example, if you have a web
site that deals with pets, joining an affiliate program that sells pet
supplies might be a good fit. This would be something your average visitor
would hav

e an interest in. Joining a program that sells books on How To Kill
Your Neighbor's Pesky Pet, may not be such a good fit. That's a bit of an
exaggeration, but I think you get my point. If your affiliate program doesn't
appeal to your site's visitors, you will not have much success.

More Isn't Always Better:

If joining one affiliate program is a good deal, then why not join 500
programs? Don't stop there, why not post as many different affiliate banners
as will fit onto each web page? If this sounds like a good philosophy, think
again! Posting too many banners and text links on your pages will not only
look sloppy and slow down the time it takes to load your pages, but will
confuse your visitors, resulting in less click through traffic, rather than
more. (Click through traffic - People that actually click on your affiliate
banners and/or text links.) It's best to focus on just a couple affiliate
programs. And make sure to keep your pages simple, easy to read, and
aesthetically pleasing.

Increasing Your Click Through Traffic:

As I said before, your web pages should be simple. Too many banners,
especially those that change rapidly or flash, can be very distracting and
annoying to your visitors. Also, don't rely just on banners to generate click
through traffic for your affiliate program. Adding text links in addition to
banners will greatly increase your click through percentages. Banner ads are
becoming so common that many people don't give them a second look. By adding
simple text links on your web pages which explain a little more about your
affiliate program's product(s) you can capture the attention of your visitors
and increase your click through traffic. Also, the placement of these banners
and text links is important too. Putting these at the bottom of your pages
will not result in as many hits as you would have if they were displayed in a
more prominent place on your page.

Ask Questions Before You Join:

Doing a little research before you join an affiliate program will pay big
dividends later. Find out the answers to these questions before making a
commitment to join any program:

* Does it cost anything to join? Most affiliate programs offered today are
absolutely free to join.

* When do they issue commission checks? All programs are different. Some
issue once a month, some issue every quarter, etc. Also, many programs set a
minimum earned commission amount which an affiliate must meet or exceed prior
to a check being issued.

* What is the hit per sale ratio? (The average number of hits to a banner or
text link it takes to generate a sale - based on all affiliate statistics.)
This is extremely important, as this number will tell you how much traffic
you must generate before you can expect to earn a commission from a sale.

* How are referrals from an affiliate's site tracked, and for how long do
they remain in the system? You need to be confident in the program's ability
to track those people your refer from your site. This is the only way you'll
get credit for a sale. Additionally, how long those people stay in the system
is also i

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