Affiliate Marketing for Dummies--Part 1

OK--so let's get started.

So what IS affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is when you take a service or product found on the internet and promote it to someone else using a special link.

When a visitor reads your website, article, or blog, they click on your special link and are taken to a page on the internet where they can purchase the service or product you recommended.

Now, there are about a GAZILLION products and services to promote on the internet--from cell phones, to handbooks, to ebooks, to web hosting and beyond.

When someone uses your link to purchase a product or service you receive a certain percentage of the sale.

Some people make their entire living off affiliate marketing. Who knew it was possible?

I sure didn't!

Obviously, the higher the cost of the product or service you recommend, the more money you make. In addition, some services like web hosting and membership sites sell monthly products. That means, if someone you recommend signs up for these services, you not only receive a commission on the first month, but EVERY MONTH AFTER THAT.

Let's look at some examples.

The website shown here makes all its money using affiliate marketing. It basically provides a review of all the broadband carriers in the UK.

If someone in the UK is looking to sign up for broadband service they go to this website to read about all the different carriers available and to compare different plans.

Now, after they've made their decision they can just use the links provided to them by the website owner to sign up for the service.

And guess what? The owner of the website gets a percentage of the sale. All because they provided useful content to the reader.

Not bad eh?

Yes, putting together your own website can be time consuming. But it doesn't HAVE to be! (we'll talk more about that later . . .)

Now, if you were the owner of this website you would probably want as many people as possible to know about it. A great way to do this is to write articles about your product or service and submit them to article directories like ezinearticles.com.

At the bottom of each article you write is a bio box that you can use to link to your website.

These article directories are much loved by the search engines so there's a good chance that your articles will appear high in the rankings if you've done a good job writing them (more on that later).

Keep in mind that you don't need your own website to make money in affiliate marketing. You can simply drive traffic to other people's websites if you've signed up to their affiliate program.

Stay tuned for Part 2!