The One Best Way to Make Money With Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are the number one most popular way to market
on the Internet. There are thousands of affiliate and reseller
programs covering everything from books to baseball bats.

I make a better bat, you put my banner on your site, and if
someone buys a bat after coming through your link, I pay you 25
percent of the selling price. Killer idea, right?

That one sale won't be enough money to pay the mortgage or even
enough to take your kid to the movies. And to make matters
worse, how many of your site's visitors are going to buy my bat?

Once you get past the first blush of affiliate programs, the
sparkle starts to fade. You quickly see if you make any money at
all, it's going to be mere pocket change.

This is one of the reasons affiliate programs have started
getting a bad name. Small site owners feel they can't make
serious money with them and affiliate program owners can't get
members motivated to push the program.

STOP FOOLING AROUND.

I don't mean to insult anyone. But let me force you and myself
to face a cold fact. Putting an affiliate banner at the bottom
of your web page--crammed in there with four or five other
affiliate banners--isn't going to sell anything.

Lots of sites approach the affiliate problem by making themselves
a one-stop-shop for loads of links to other sites. This doesn't
work very well either. People come to the Web to find sites that
SPECIALIZE in something particular. They rarely buy from a site
trying to be a jack of all trades.

THE SOLUTION.

Get yourself a web site that specializes in one particular
subject. The narrower the better. If I'm hunting all over the
Net for a site that tells me how to get heavy metal distortion
from my little guitar amp, I jump for joy when I find your site
telling me how to do it.

You could have a photo of you holding your Eric Claption guitart
and leaning against your amp. You could have articles by you and
other experts that tell step-by-step how to get the same sonic
crunch all my favorite bands use.

And incidentally, you could feature the related products sold by
GuitarCity (affiliate program) and more in-depth personal lessons
from LearnGuitar (affiliate program).

What did you just do here? Realizing you don't have a weird
uncle living in the basement who invents the hot new product
everyone wants, and knowing you don't currently provide a service
lots of businesses need, you built a fine site around one or two
products someone else makes.

GET YOUR IN-DEPTH, SPECIALIZED, VISITOR-EXCITING SITE.

1. Start by thinking about what REALLY punches your buttons.
You can't build an in-depth site unless you LOVE the subject
you're focusing on. Don't think about this for months, days, or
even for a couple of hours. Whatever hits you dead on as you
read this is probably the one thing you can make fly.

2. Search for an affiliate program or two that sells a core
product or service related to your interest. Most of the time
you can simply use search engines to find sites that also focus
on your topic. Nine times out of ten several of them will offer
affiliate programs.

3. Get your own domain name. Have your main topic as part of
the name. I love to go to BitShack.com at this stage. You get a
domain and hosting for a year for about $50. You may be able to
find somebody else who does it cheaper.

4. A site that looks like your very first won't cut it. You
need to have the appearance of an old hand. Do this by getting a
professionally designed logo. If you have a sharp looking logo
at the top of the page, the rest of it can be plain text.

I found the guys at GotLogos.com via an affiliate link. They
designed a half dozen logos for us, all for just $25 each. You
can't get the "pro" look any cheaper.

5. Get a professional writer to create the first 300 words of
your web site. Start at InternetWriters.com where they'll craft
text that gets your visitors' juices flowing. They write cheap.
Once people get excited on your first 300 words, it isn't' hard
to keep them on your site until they have read everything else
you have to offer.

6. Promote, promote, promote. Put your good advice (which you
can borrow from books at the library--it's called research) on
discussion forums. Place ads in email newsletters. Send your
own press release to the media every month. Call your local talk
radio station and see if they have 5 minutes to speak with you
on-air. Provide advice their listeners can use.

Finally, I want you to chuckle, sneer, and laugh assuredly when
the media starts up about how the Internet is having a hard time.
Good! That's great news for you. With so many big corporate
sites running out of money and so many little sites getting
spooked out of existence, there has never been a better time for
YOU to make YOUR mark online.

About the Author

Keegan Michaels knows affiliate programs. He knows what to look
for and what pitfalls to avoid. Let him show you the roadmap to
affiliate profits. Contact him today at
mailto:keegan@affiliateteacher.com or 801-328-9006. Get his Extra
Money Newsletter FREE at http://www.AffiliateTeacher.com

Written by: Keegan Michaels