Reasons to become an Affiliate Marketer: There is no product to produce. No e-commerce system to set up and pay for. No customer support to worry about. You do not even need to have a website. Some vendors pay as much as 75%.

Choosing a program: Choose your program wisely, dont just go for the highest paying product. Check out if the sales page does a good job of selling the product. Does it track correctly and pay on time? Make sure your chances of getting paid as an affiliate are not reduced by the following points:

Does the company have a for life customer policy. This can mean that someone else who sold a product to that person previously will get the affiliate revenue even though you did the marketing etc.

Are there lots of external links on the sales page to lead the customer away from the order page? If there is a sales capture page on entry to claim free report etc this could mean that the vendor may follow up later and make the sale and you wont receive commission.

Overt links to an affiliate sign up page could mean your customer could become an affiliate and purchase through their own link.

Look out for multiple payment options so that if youre affiliated through Clickbank and the customer clicks on the Paypal button you wont get paid.

Finding content for your site: If you dont want to write it yourself then go to groups.yahoo.com/group/free-reprint- articles/ or to one of the many popular sites with free to print content in your chosen category. Always remember to include the authors details in the article.

Marketing: Create a plan of action and stay focused on it. Find a product that has plenty of resources to help with your marketing efforts. Buy the product and read it or use it thoroughly, you can not promote it successfully if you dont know it well.

You can get up and running as an affiliate without a website you can post in forums or write an article and submit to the many ezine sites, just type your query into Google or Yahoo for either. Always remember to include your hoplink in your signature box or resource box. Always cloak the link to stop it being diverted to another id. There are several free link cloakers available, Tiny URL is one or AddMe is another.

If using a website to promote the product try and create your own ads as this will make you stand out from the crowd. Try to become a master of one particular advertising method i.e. article writing, forum posts, or PPC.

Mistakes people make: Not evolving, you must keep up with new trends and techniques in marketing or you will be left behind. By joining an affiliate program that has constantly updated resources this should help tremendously.

If you are promoting through your website do not neglect to study your statistics to find out where you visitors are coming from and if they are converting so that you can refocus your efforts should they not be working.

Dont have a web page with lots of products. Keep your page focused on one product, too many different products can be confusing and people will just leave. Try to capture email with an opt in box or page so that you can market to these customers in the future.

Your first website will probably take quite a bit of time to build if you are new to this but afterwards you can start to replicate the processes you have used and build more sites quickly for other niche products. Dont try to promote too many at once though, make a thorough and concerted effort with each one.

Copyright 2006 Janet Dunmore