Let me start off by saying that if you are here because you think you are going to find a way to make hundreds of dollars online by filling out a few 5 minute surveys, that isn't what I am discussing here, and you aren't going to find that no matter how many different things you type in google.

Secondly, let me say that I am tired of most people throwing out the term "pyramid scheme" every time they hear about making money online or making money off people working under you. People who think everything online is a scam or "pyramid scheme" and refuse to hear otherwise are ignorant, and in my opinion stupid.

Well, now that we have that cleared up =)

If you don't know what affiliate marketing is, let me explain it to you as simply as possible. Companies trying to sell their products will hire "affiliates" to sell their products for them. Usually you will be payed a percentage of your total sales for a pay period, you will usually be paid once or twice a month. Most companies have some sort of affiliate program, even the biggest companies that I am sure you have all heard of do, Best Buy, ebay, amazon, etc.. if you just scroll to the bottom of a company website you will likely see a link for affiliate program or webmasters. The amount you get paid by each company is determined by the company and could be 2% or it could be 50%. Many of the larger companies like best buy will have a lower percentage, because they do sell some very expensive products, and quite frankly it probably has a lot to do with the fact that they are such a large company and don't really rely on affiliates.

Now, there are also websites like clickbank, which sell primarily products that can be downloaded after purchase. Humans are very information driven and e-books are extremely popular, they are usually fairly cheap and you get them immediately after buying. It is very common to get 30, 40 or even 50% of each sale you make on e-books because the author relies on affiliates to spread their product around the internet. Clickbank is a place where product owners can sign up and place their products on the site for affiliates to sell for them. So by signing up with clickbank, you will have access to thousands of products to sell. The majority of affiliate programs, like clickbank, are free to sign up for.

How do you make sales in affiliate marketing??? Well when you sign up for an affiliate program you will be given your own affiliate link, when you send visitors through your link a "cookie" is placed in their computer and lets the company know that you sent them. These "cookies" can sometimes last a year, so if someone goes through your link and doesn't buy anything, but then returns to the site through their main page a week or month later, you will still receive credit for whatever they buy. Pretty sweet deal, eh?

How do you get people to click on your link you are probably asking, I don't know anything about computers you may be saying, or I don't have my own website...

Well have no fear, you don't need to know how to make a website, you don't need to be a computer expert and you don't even need your own website at all. There are tons of ways to get traffic through your link. You know those ads you see on the right side of the page when you search for something in google? Those are PPC ads bought by people to get targeted traffic to their site. People bid on keywords, and when someone searches for those keywords in google, their ad will show. Then they pay google everytime someone clicks their ad, it could be 10, 15, 20 cents. Since you are paying for clicks on your site, it is important to send your visitors to a site that converts to sales fairly well. If you are making 20 dollars when someone buys an e-book off you, and you are spending 20 cents a click, that means you need to convert 1 out of every 100 visitors to break even. This is obviously possible to pull off or nobody would be doing affiliate marketing because we'd all be broke. Google isn't the only place to buy ads, yahoo, msn and other search engines also have it.

Now that you know you can buy ads, it is also important to realize you can get a lot of traffic for free. Through forums, blogs, squidoo lenses, or just organic search engine traffic (the sites listed on the left of google). PPC ads are quick and easy to set up but cost some money, these free techniques take a little more work but only cost you your time. For people starting out with very little money, like I did, this is a good place to start. You don't want to start buying ads without knowing what you are doing, its easy to lose money that way.

There are a lot of things to be learned about Google Ads (google adwords), free marketing, keyword research, creating squeeze pages, and I could go on and on. Theres a reason why some people make thousands of dollars a day at this, and why some people struggle, its experience and knowledge. Luckily for you, learning how to become a successful affiliate marketer is very fun, and addicting =) Once you get going with this stuff, you aren't going to want to stop. Seeing sales come in is an incredibly satisfying feeling, seeing all your hard work pay off is amazing.

There is so much to learn, and the best part is, you can do it on your own time. Thats why affiliate marketing is a perfect way for college students to earn money while at school or over the summer if you don't want to get a 9-5 job. Just last year I was a college student myself, I know how busy you can be, and if you are anything like me, how lazy you can be. Thats why working online whenever YOU want, is the best way to go.

Now I need to tell you all this or I wouldn't be being very honest with you...
THIS IS NOT EASY
If it was as easy as buying a few ads or posting in a couple forums, everyone would be rich, if you don't want to put any effort into this and make millions of dollars, this is not for you.

How are you going to learn all this information about affiliate marketing, and start making money on your own? Well instead of wasting months of your time like I did, I am going to show you what I finally found and where I have stayed ever since...

Wealthy Affiliate University - Here you will get all the training and tools to help you become successful. This site is run by two 26 year olds who started off in college just like you, spending just 5 dollars a day on advertising. A couple years later they became internet marketing millionaires and a couple years after that they started Wealthy Affiliate. There are so many members at this site, it is amazing. Everyday there are tons of new posts on the forum, everyone helping each other out. You can get 1 on 1 support with the two experts, Kyle and Carson. This is the first site i've been to where the "experts" actually respond to your forum posts, and private messages. Just for the tools they offer alone, they honestly could charge hundreds of dollars. After reading through everything their site offers I already knew that I wanted to join them, I was prepared to spend a good amount of money. I had been looking for a site to bring all the training and tools together for me for quite a while, so I knew how great this site was going to be. Then I saw the price and I was shocked, it was ONLY 30 dollars a month! Well, needless to say I was very excited and joined. Some of you may be saying, thats a lot of money, well it is really only 1 dollar a day. AND remember what you are signing up for, training on how to become a successful internet marketer, you will be making money because of this site! This isn't some espn insider subscription... I have sold products that bring in 175$ per sale...that 1 sale pays for about 6 months of membership. Many products you will promote will bring in 20, 30, 40+ dollars a sale, so to say that all the training, tools and help from everyone in WA isn't worth 30 dollars is ridiculous. You could even split the membership with your roommate or a friend that is also interested in making some money.

The point I am trying to make is, don't let a small membership fee prevent you from trying something that not only could be very profitable, but is fun.

So if you are interested AT ALL, do yourself a favor and at least check out their site to see everything they offer with the membership. Also they offer a free guide to explain things to you in more detail if you still want more information.

Wealthy Affiliate University

These are my favorite affiliate programs, there are thousands more and you should find one in the niche that you want to explore more, but if you are stuck, check these out.

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