What is Affiliate Marketing?

I've come to realize that many people that are interested in earning online have no idea what Affiliate Marketing is. I know when I first heard the word I had no clue what it was all about. In fact, I sadly ignored it.

The purpose of this lens is to help familiarize the Affiliate Marketing Newbies with what exactly it is that affiliate marketers do.

So where to start...

The affiliate marketing definition as by Wikipedia is "is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts".

Sounds easy enough? No?

Well, let's put it this way. You know how the wii has been a really hot product? As an affiliate marketer I would want to put a website or blog online that explains something or provides information about a wii. If people visit my site and then visit a site I referred them to and they purchase a wii, I will receive a commission.

If you have ever blogged or built a website of any kind, you are at an advantage. When starting in affiliate marketing, there are some basic skills you must have. If you currently do not possess them, that is perfectly fine. It just means that it will take longer to start making money. But trust me when I say there are many great free resources out there to help you learn how to create sites. Start with something as basic as blogger.com and learn the basics of posting something on the web.

The purpose of this is twofold.

1) You will learn the basic website building skills necessary.
2) You will become more comfortable with posting something online in your own words and from your own thoughts.

Next, you must be willing to read and learn a lot online. You will also be required to do a lot of research.

Also, you will be writing a lot in the beginning. And this is not just any type of writing, you are writing articles that people will read to go to your site, or they will be reading your website. You need to get people to purchase the product after visiting your site... this takes some skill and practice. But, if you can read and write at a grade 6 level, you can do this.

** I will add that if you lack these skills but have money to spend, you can purchase these services from people. I was to cheap and skeptical in the beginning to pay people to do these things for me. But there are people at elance.com or within the Wealthy Affiliate University forum (must be a member) that have great skills just waiting to be used.

This is a very easy question for me to answer. If you already have an idea for the type of product you want to sell (ie: Books, cleaning products, ebooks, hot chocolate, cars... you name it!) then follow the directions below.

Step 1: Load www.Google.com
Step 2: Type into the search bar the product you want to sell (let's pretend it is the book "The Secret") but you must include a plus sign. So it will look like this +"the Secret", you then need to include "affiliate".

The end result will look like this ---> +"the Secret" +"affiliate"

This will load various affiliate programs for that product. Pretty darn easy!!

If you want to see some of the other options that many people use, you will want to look at www.Clickbank.com. This is a great site that is designed for affiliate marketers and many times the ebook author will provide different marketing material to help you sell the product.

I do not want to spend much more time on this lens explaining the ins and outs of clickbank, but feel free to visit my jpetals lens for more helpful information on this topic.

The payment method depends on the affiliate product. Some affiliate programs pay via Paypal, others by direct deposit and some pay via Cheque. All affiliate programs are very upfront with all this information, so review the program that you have your eye on and see what type of payment plan they offer.

1. Pay Per Click
2. Comparison Shopping websites
3. Niche Market Websites
4. Personal websites
5. Email marketing
6. Cost per Action

This may be a little confusing at this point, but I like to have it a reference for the number of possibilities available to someone who is interested in affiliate marketing.

The purpose of this lens was to help people learn exactly what Affiliate Marketing is. I have a lot more information on my Jpetals lens that will take you even further into this industry and give you a better idea of where to start.