One of the Internet business you can do and have distinctive advantages is the affiliate program, if you do this correctly, you can make incredible money with this online business. You do not need to have a product to start your own business on the internet, you will only be required to bring visitors to the website affiliates, their purchase and you can get money.

Mostly, the website you are promoting does all the leg work for you. They will handle all the customer support, payment processing, product delivery, and refunds. All that you have to do is direct people to their website, by providing a link to them on yours. Once a customer clicks your link, AND makes a purchase, you get a certain percentage of that sale. That's it. You just wait for your money to come in. And if you are wanting to make money online, using affiliate programs is just one of the many ways that you can do just that.


You don't have to develop or carry the product. You don't really even have to know that much about the product, because the customer will be going to another website where all the pertinent information is already given.

Any good affiliate program will provide all of the materials you need to promote them. Usually this includes emails, banners, text links, and free ebooks that you can use on your website. The super good programs will even offer you training, to learn the techniques for promoting their website.

When you join an affiliate program, you just worry about getting traffic to your site, and then getting them to click on your affiliates' links. Hopefully, a sale will be generated, and you will be making money.

The down-side of promoting affiliate programs, is that you are competing with other people to get sales. Also, some affiliate sites may not be honest, and may not pay you, keeping the money that you have generated for them. The best way to protect yourself would be to go online, and see if you can find any complaints about the affiliate program.

When you first start your online business, the first and most obvious question you will ask yourself is…what am I going to sell? Points to consider when deciding the answer to that question are:

· Is it light and easy to ship?
· Is it a digital good that is downloaded (e-book or software)?
· Is it perishable or fragile?
· Does it have to be seen and held (designer fabrics, perhaps)
· Is there enough demand to make your venture profitable?
· Does it have little competition from large online companies (niche products)?


The last two characteristics are the ones that can be hard to pin down. Here is a generally accepted method of arriving at an idea of how heavy the demand and competition is for a product.

If you have a special interest in some products that meet the above criteria, great, but don't limit your investigation just to items you like. You are looking for a niche product with relatively good demand (enough to make it profitable), but without heavy competition.

One way to see what the demand is for products you are interested in is to look at search engines to see how frequently people search for the product you are considering.

The result of all this research should be that one or more products will fit into a niche market - products with some demand, and relatively little supply. For the best results, focus on one niche product category, and offer a wide selection. That way, you can become the best online source for that particular category. For example, instead of offering general craft supplies, offer the widest possible selection of needlepoint kits. This strategy will also allow you to rank higher in search engines because you can optimize your pages for fewer, more specific, keywords.

Affiliate marketing is indeed a good way to make extra money, or a lot of money if you are proficient at it. If you are just starting out, you may not think there is any potential. Those that have a lot of experience however, have thousands of customers and clients. Once an affiliate marketer has been in the business long enough, it’s not surprising to see him or her with 10 – 20,000 customers.

Almost all successful affiliate marketers have used an autoresponder at some point in time. An autoresponder can make business a lot easier, and enable you to contact all of your customers or potential customers with the click of a button. You don’t spend hours or days sending out emails or answering questions anymore – autoresponders take care of all that and a lot more.


Anytime you have a new product, all you have to do is write a review about it, add it to the broadcast page of your autoresponder, make a few adjustments, personalize it for your customers, then send it off to everyone on your customer list with the click of a button. If you have a follow up autoresponder, it will keep your message going.

Keep in mind that it will take you a long time to build a large customer base. Using an autoresponder can speed up the process, help you save time, and help you manage your list. Once you get your first customer, you can rest assured that a lot more will follow. As we all know, a lot of customers in your customer list will lead to a lot of money with affiliate marketing. If you don’t have any customers – you simply can’t make any money.

All across the Internet, there are many companies and businesses that offer affiliate marketing programs. All you have to do is contact the company and find out information about their program, then get started selling their products. You can make a commission with each sale, using your autoresponder to do over 50% of the work. Making money doesn’t get any easier than affiliate marketing and autoresponders.

If you already have a website and companies that you are an affiliate with, you should start building your customer opt in list as soon as possible. Once you have some customers in your list, you should drop them an email or a message every week or so. You can send them information, tips, or just a general newsletter. If you take the time to send them messages – you’ll keep a good relationship with them and they will keep coming back.