What to look for when choosing Affiliates
By: Jonathan Kraft | Posted: 09th February 2005
So you've decided you want to become an Internet Marketer, huh?
Will you sell someone else's products or sell your own?
If you choose to sell someone else's products, how will you know
what to look for? After all, this is a new venture for you.
Or maybe it's not. Maybe you have been trying out some affiliate
programs which have not brought you any money, or, worse, have
not paid you for the affiliate traffic you have sent them.
If you are the new person, or the person who is floundering in
Internet Marketing, this article will offer you some simple tips
for choosing an affiliate program.
This article doesn't cover getting traffic to your site, which
is another huge piece of the puzzle, and will be covered in a
later article, but let's just start with choosing affiliate
programs.
#1. You should find affiliate programs that:
a) are relatively easy to set up (code is either created for you
or easy to create)
b) will pay you well. This depends on your definition of what
being paid well means, but generally, for most beginners, and
some novices, if you can see yourself being able to make more
than $250/month, the program is at least worth looking at
c) give you products which people actually use. There are lots
of products in the market which will sell, but do you really
want to be selling pet rocks? If you do, please don't take
offense. Most legitimate affiliate advice sites won't feature
affiliate programs that are exclusively selling something like
8-Track players and tapes. While there are probably collectors
out there who would love an 8-track player and cassettes, the
fact is that the market is done with 8-tracks. The point is,
there should be a genuine need for, or interest in, what you are
selling/reselling.
So you find a program which meets the above criteria. Now what?
Do a Google search on the company. Find out what people are
saying about them. You may have to dig a bit, but the combined
experience of the professionals (and not-so-professionals) who
develop and contribute to the Internet on a regular basis is,
collectively, the best source of advice you will find on making
money, or affiliate programs, anywhere.
If you want advice on some great affiliate programs, you can
visit sites which have already reviewed the information about
companies and present it to you in a straightforward way. If you
are ready to find some great affiliate programs, then you will
be able to find categories of affiliate programs on these sites,
which will generally represent the type of products you would
like to sell.
Search engines love content, and so do your site visitors.
Content is one of the most important aspects of getting people
to your web site, and helping them to see the value in what
you're selling. You should strive to choose programs with
products which are related to your web site.
In other words, if you have a site which features information
about the Toyota Camry, you're going to be pretty hard pressed
to be able to get your page content matched up so that you could
sell, say... baby rattles.
Find affiliate programs which relate to what you already do, and
then promote those products.
Finally, see if you can find someone to actually talk to (ok,
email would be okay) who has received regular checks or payments
from marketing products. We think that this is, perhaps, the
most important part of any affiliate program, because the main
reason you promote their products is to receive a check for your
efforts.
So there you have it, some simple tips for choosing great
affiliate programs! Hope this helps you to reach your income
goals, and also helps you to develop a long-term plan for on and
off-line financial and personal success.
About the Author
About the author: Jonathan Kraft has been an online marketer for many years. He is a massage therapist, web designer, legal services broker, has been a high school teacher, and is an all around nice guy. He works with a team of people on
www.affiliateadvice.us, where you can check out some great affiliate programs that meet all the above criteria.
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Tags: google, traffic, internet marketer, money, google search, internet marketing, novices, affiliate programs, affiliate program, piece of the puzzle, genuine need, comb, cassettes