Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing

First things first, let’s dive into that slightly ugly term “affiliate marketing”. It sounds vaguely like a pyramid or Ponzi scheme and often has bad connotations, but it’s a really simple, clean concept.

Let’s say your friend Bill sells widgets online. He asks you to help him out by putting a link to his site WidgetSuperstore on your website or blog. He tells you that for every customer that comes through your link and buys a widget, he’ll pay you 10 bucks.

That’s affiliate marketing in action. You are considered the “affiliate”, since you’re associated with John through your link to his site WidgetSuperstore. The “marketing” part should be obvious, as you’re marketing his site by providing a link to it. So when the first customer who clicks through your link buys a widget, you get paid 10 bucks and reap your first taste of success in the world of “affiliate marketing”.

Strip everything else away and affiliate marketing is pretty simple. Your job is do three primary things:

1) Build websites that attract visitors.

2) Provide links these visitors are inclined to click on.

3) Fimd affiliate programs that monetize those clicked links.

It’s really as simple as that. And as difficult as that, too. But it’s very important to remember that affiliate marketing is far from rocket science. Many people shy away from it or get discouraged as they assume they have to be a programmer or a Web designer, or that they have to hire all of those folks and spend many, many dollars getting started.

The reality is that you can get started today in affiliate marketing, with all the tools you need for success, for the cost of a few Big Macs. If you have an Internet connection, a computer, a brian, and a basic Web hosting account, you’re ready to roll.

As far as content on the site, I decided to simply publish articles as I wrote them, walking you through the process, instead of pre-populating the site with lots of guides and advice. It’s still the same amount of work for me, but this way you get to leap in faster, instead of waiting for me to flesh out the site, and it’s less intimidating as far as getting all the stuff I have stored in my noggin’ out there. If you’re brand new to the site, it’s probably easiest to start from the beginning of the archives and work up to the present. If you’re looking for specific topis, the search box at the top of the screen works pretty well.

I’m also going to use this page as an index for big, meaty posts, so that’s another way to navigate the site.

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