An Introduction To Affiliate Marketing, The Thinking Person's Business

Affiliate marketing and internet marketing are terms that the majority of people who use the internet with any regularity come across from time to time.nAnd for the majority, the term affiliate marketing conjures up images of pyramid schemes and spam email. This article aims to give you an honest introduction to the home based online business of affiliate marketingnnWhat is affiliate marketing? nAffiliate marketing is simply the process of earning a commission by making referals to a merchants website. Now the visitors you refer must complete a desired action eg buy a product or complete a form for you to earn your commission. Simply put, you act as a middleman for a product. Why consider affiliate marketing as a business?nThere are several reasons to consider affiliate marketing 1.No inventory: you do not have to store any products in your garage, backyard or under the bed. You are not reselling products as an affiliate marketer, you are simply promoting other peoples productsnn2.No customer service, unless you really want to: As an affiliate marketer, the after sales customer service is handled entirely by the merchant. You do not have any responsibility to the customers apart from ensuring that your review of the product is factual. 3.Little start up cost: Most affiliate marketers promote other people's products via a well written website or through emails. A lot of people stumble to a stop when they find that they need a website to build this business. It is quite easy to put together a professional looking webpage these days. Go to How to build a website to learn more. How does affiliate marketing work? First you identify the product you want to promote. http://www.clickbank.com has a wide range of digital products. Also http://www.cj.com has one of the largest inventories for affiliate products in virtually any category online. Next you apply to the merchant for your own unique affiliate link to their websitennHaving obtained your affiliate link, you put it on a webpage you have built specifically to promote the product. A product review usually works wellnnYou then upload your website to the internet and drive traffic to itnnA visitor comes to your webpage, reads the review, is impressed by what they have read and clicks the link [your affiliate link] to the merchants website. If they buy the product within a certain period of time usually 30 days for most products, you get your commission. Downside of affiliate marketing. Unfortunately every good idea has a negativenn1. Competition:You will find that, because affiliate marketing is so full of potential, there are already a lot of affiliate marketers out there for most products. You need to have a unique selling point to make a visitor buy through your link.n2.Internet visibility. There are millions of websites on the internet. Getting your website visibility to obtain the significant amount of traffic you require can be challenging but is achievablennI hope this little introduction to affiliate marketing has helped clear some of the myths surrounding this business. For more information on affiliate marketing just click on Affiliate Marketing Guide For Newbies. It's free to viewn