Avoiding affiliate scams

Walking that tightrope between spending money and making money on your affiliate website can be tough. Paying to advertise your affiliate website is a great idea, but only if you’re making more money then you’re spending, and that isn’t always as easy said then done. How can you make sure that you won’t end up in the red? Here are a few helpful tips.

• Have realistic expectations. While it is possible to earn a boatload of money by setting up affiliate marketing websites, don’t expect to be bringing in $10,000 a month right off the bat. Every product sells in a different way, and finding that perfect niche takes time. Also, experience is very important in the world of affiliate marketing and the more you have, the better you’ll do. Be patient, stick with it and you’ll see your profits rise with your experience level.

• Know how to advertise. Google has an affordable and easy way to advertise through their Adwords program. You’ve seen these ads on Google, they are usually at the very top and on the right hand side of every single search that is done. Google performs hundreds of thousands of web searches every second, so the chances of a search that would trigger your set of key words is pretty high. Just remember that for each time your ad appears, Google will charge you a fee. Make sure you’re getting the most value out of each sale because, otherwise, Google is making money off you instead of you making money off of your customers.

• Make sure your affiliate partner is trustworthy. If you’re just starting out in the world of affiliate marketing, it might be a good idea to stick with the big boys like Amazon or Citibank until you learn the ropes. There are less trustworthy sites out there that are looking to have affiliate marketing done that might not deal with you in a completely honest manor. Until you learn the ropes of affiliate marketing, it might be wise to go with a major corporation that you know will pay out and treat you with respect. You don’t want your first marketing effort to be a bad one.

Unfortunately, since affiliate marketing has become so profitable in recent years, there are companies out there that will try to scam you. If you’re an experienced affiliate marketer, you know most of the tricks of the trade, but if you are new to the game, stick with familiar companies until you figure out the best advertising cost/revenue balance.

Affiliate marketing with NO money

Maybe the single greatest part about affiliate marketing is the incredibly low initial investment you need to start earning money for yourself. All you really need is a website. That’s it. There are so many FREE programs out there that will walk you though basic web design, even if you know nothing about it, you can be up and running in the span on a day. All that’s left at this point is finding an affiliate marketing program to subscribe to.

Here are a few tips about starting up your affiliate marketing campaign today!


• There are tens of thousands of affiliate marketing programs you can subscribe to. The list is essentially limitless. An important piece of advice, though, is that if an affiliate marketing program wants you to pay money to sign up, you might want to think twice. Unless the initial investment is very small, there are many other choices that you could make. You see, almost all affiliate marketing programs are FREE! That’s right, you read that right. FREE! And not only that, but some of the big time programs will even train you and give you tips on the right keywords to put on your webpage so random web surfers will find you, click on your link, buy a product and earn you money! Unless you really want to be part of an affiliate marketing program that charges money, don’t do it. There are thousands that are free.


• Don’t use a low-quality internet provider. This can be a tough choice for those looking at keeping their costs at zero or as close to zero as possible. But your local full Internet Service Provider is going to do a better job of hosting your new money making website then some free site that crashes all the time. Your new web site is a money-making machine for you, don’t trust it to a company that isn’t going to do everything they can to make sure it’s up and running 24/7. You probably pay for an internet connection in your home already, and with your basic Internet account, you get web space. Use it and rest easy knowing that your website is in good hands.

As you can see, there are a few ins and outs to affiliate marketing that everyone needs to know. But the key here is the fact that you can earn money with almost no work involved. Just make a website, write some snappy content and set up your links and then sit back, relax and count your money.

Affiliate marketing, a business with no hassle

For many people, the lure of working from home is too strong to resists. Being able to set up your own hours, your own schedule and your own your speed is an extremely attractive way of living to most people.

But the thought of setting up your own web-based business can be a huge hassle. You have to have a web design, a product and then you have to sell it, ship it and handle customers. A much easier way to work from home and run a web-based business is called affiliate marketing.

Setting up a site that works as an affiliate marketing site isn’t really that hard. There are many different web-page building programs out there that walk you through every step of the process. Once you have a functional web site, you need to come up with a list of companies that will pay you to link to them. Many major websites like Amazon have an affiliate program that you can join and then get paid for simply linking to their website.

But if you really want to cash in, you don’t want a webpage with just a list of links on it. This may earn you a buck or two, but when most web surfers stumble upon these kinds of pages after a Google search, they tend to get frustrated and leave. The best route for you to go is to provide interesting web content that relates to the company you’re linking to.

If you can’t write interesting web content yourself, there are many companies that will do it for you for a very reasonable price. Once you’ve got your content, you can weave your links throughout it. People will find your web page on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com and when they see the well-written content, they will hang around and read what’s on your site. They will, in most cases, click on the links provided and you’ll be counting the cash in no time flat.

While there is no guarantee that affiliate marketing will turn into a cash cow, with enough hard work, the odds are in your favor. When you combine a cool site design with quality content and a good mix of interesting links, you are bound to get a good number of hits that will quickly translate into dollars for you. Give it a try, you might be surprised at how well it works!