Everyone who’s had a job knows how important it is to find the perfect one. The more we like our work, the better we’ll do at it and the happier we’ll be with life in general.

The only problem with this premise is that some jobs, such as affiliate marketing , can make you rich…

Affiliate marketing has been around for over 100 years and has produced successful entrepreneurs such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com or Tim Ferriss of Four Hour Work Week fame (among many others). But what exactly is affiliate marketing?

If you’ve ever bought anything on eBay (or any online store), you’ve already seen an example of affiliate marketing . It basically means shopping through an ad banner found on another site. If you buy something through that banner, the owner of the ad receives a small commission for sending the customer their way.

This is an example of affiliate marketing because it’s not Amazon itself selling directly to you, but rather someone who posted an advertisement on their website. That’s why it’s called affiliate marketing . The individual or company who helped make your purchase is known as an “affiliate.”

It doesn’t matter if you were referred by Google , eBay or some random blog; as long as they made a sale and received a commission, everybody wins: You got what you wanted and the advertiser (the affiliate) gets paid.

There are now hundreds of thousands of online marketers participating in this form of advertising; a recent study even found that more than a third of all Americans have participated in affiliate marketing at one point in their lives.

Affiliate programs can be used to promote both online and offline products or services, but they work particularly well for promoting digital products such as eBooks , software , music downloads, etc. because it’s easy to track if someone bought something from an affiliate link.

For this reason, affiliate marketing works best when the product sold is relatively inexpensive (or free). You don’t make much money on a sale of a $100 widget by someone you referred unless there’s a lot of volume since your commission will only be a few bucks. However, if you’re selling inexpensive items through hundreds of different affiliates, then your profits can really add up.

Just like in a brick and mortar store, online shoppers will only buy from you if they trust your site and see that it’s reputable . You can increase their confidence by having a good looking website with high quality content and professional looking ads with accurate, informative descriptions. If possible, provide some free samples for people to download so there’s no risk involved in giving your offer a try.

Affiliate marketing is probably one of the easiest ways to get started making money on line with little or no cost involved. Most affiliate programs don’t require you to invest anything but your time; which makes this business idea especially attractive to beginners who want to start working from home .

Article:

Nowadays we’ve moved beyond merely placing ads on other people’s websites to now being asked to blog , tweet, post videos and more.

The only problem with this amazing marketing strategy is that it can be very time-consuming. You have to constantly create fresh content for your site, social media pages and anywhere else you’re promoting your affiliate links.

As an affiliate marketer you are not provided with a customer list nor do you have any control over the shopping experience once someone lands on your sponsor’s site. So if someone ends up buying something from another country or ends up leaving an eCommerce store during checkout because of high shipping costs or long delivery times, you’ll never know about it unless they tell you directly…

And there are always unscrupulous affiliates out there who aren’t transparent about their affiliate links, so you could be promoting a product for someone else and not even know it!

Plus , if the company goes belly up or decides to stop promoting your featured products halfway through your contract, there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re basically stuck with something that isn’t selling like it used to and now you have to figure out what to do next…

And keep in mind that this is completely legal – as long as you disclose all affiliate relationships; which means addressing any potential conflict of interest between publisher and advertiser and disclosing any financial benefits (including advertising fees) that may influence editorial content. So don’t try anything funny because that will put you at risk of losing your commission as well as your credibility.

We have to understand that affiliate marketing is essentially a form of performance-based marketing . As long as you are driving traffic to your sponsor’s website, they will pay you commissions on sales generated from your actions. This means that affiliates who create content for their own blogs , social media profiles and elsewhere online should use keywords in their posts that will help them rank higher in Google, Yahoo or Bing search results pages…

And speaking of the search engines, the same techniques apply when doing SEM (Search Engine Marketing) for affiliate products too. For example, if someone is searching for information on say, “affordable ways to lose weight” then you want to have a page that comes up high in the search results with your affiliate link.

This is why it’s so important to know how SEO works . Fortunately there are many free courses online that will teach you everything you need to know about working smarter , not harder with keywords and more.

So once someone finds your blog or social media profile or wherever else you’re active, they’ll be able to see all of your posts featuring affiliate links which should make them trust your site more since it has great content. Plus, if they click on an ad on your site and buy something from the advertiser, that’s instant money in your pocket!…

Here searching for organic dog treats , it would make sense to promote an affiliate product relating to natural pet foods instead of something else. And don’t forget about other popular websites