Basic Affiliate Marketing: How Affiliate Marketing Works?

Well, i agree it can get quite confusing, especially when you read all kind of techhnical terms like: PPC, SEO, ROI, conversion, squeeze page, landing page, tracking cookies and so on. If i would have the slightest interest in affiliate marketing and i would have landed on a page of this kind, i wouldn't be staying more than 2 seconds. Maybe this is why lately i noticed a change in most merchant pages: instead of "affiliate" they wrote "earn money". Sounds more user friendly!

But that smart change is catching the main point of being an affiliate marketer: make money online! It works by a simple principle: you promote somebody else's product online, send visitors to his website and receive a procent of the sales. The more you promote, the more money you can make, and on the internet not even the sky is the limit. No wonder that is such buzz around affiliate marketing. In 2007 for example, the affiliate industry earned $95.5 billion! So we better understand how affiliate marketing works and what it takes to grab a piece of this tasty pie!

Even if it's sound logical, you'd be surprised to know how many marketers starts from the end. They first look for a product, get excited about and then work hard to find a market for it. Is a basic mistake that keep a lot of people from being profitable, in spite of their best efforts.

First, do some research and find out what people like or want. I cannot stress enough how important is this point. In affiliate marketing you don't chase people and force them to buy what you want. You attract them by offering what they need or want to buy! Remember that and you'll be a successfull internet marketer!

It shoudn't be hard to do market research if you have a bit of experience in internet. Google Trends is a good starting point, also Alexa will give an idea of what people are looking for online. The bigger and steadier the market, the better! You business will have a long healthy life!

Let's say that you focus on movies market, wich is, by the way a very profitable and huge market. On Google Search it displays more than 13 million results, way to much for our purpose! People can be looking for just about anything within this topic: DVD movies, download movies, movie player, psp movies , movie releases, movie tickets, action movies, homemade movies and the list is endless. You want to get more specific and to find one category that you can promote. This is called to find a niche. The moment you found it you're ready to make the next step in becoming an affiliate marketer.

Based on researches made about your chosen niche you can start looking for a product. Let's say you go for "PSP movies". There are so many psp movies related websites out there that can't be a problem to choose. When you found that product that seems attractive to you, go to their website's home page and look for the "affiliate" link, or as i said before ''make money" link. It should be somewhere on the upper right corner, or at the very bottom of the page. It would take you to their affiliate page, and this is the time to say : "Welcome to the affiliate marketing world!"

Inside you'll find all the instructions, how to join- is allways free, promoting material, where is most recomended to promote and how, everything you need to know about their product and his advertising.

Another way to find a product is joining an Affiliate Network. These networks are companies that provide services to both sellers and affiliates and have large products directories within every domain. Some of the biggest affiliate networks are Clickbank, LinkShare, PayDotCom where you can find literally thousands of products to promote.

If the word "promoting" scares you, don't worry! There are so many ways to promote on the internet that anyone can do it without much effort. You can start with free advertising, like building a page here on HubPages, or making a blog, promoting in your favorite forums, joining discussion groups, in MySpace and so on. All those are free promoting resources waiting for you to use them in order make money with affiliate marketing.

You can build a website, free or paid, wich is a better alternative since it gives more tools to display your offer. Also classified advertising is a recommended way to promote. One good tip that i can give you is to promote two or three similar or related products in the same time. This way you increase your chances to make a sell, and the customers have a chance to choose from the same place, instead of starting a new research elsewhere.

I made a list of some basic things that you should know before you start your affiliate marketing business:

• you may need a Paypal account in order to receive your payments.
• a broadband connection and a good antivirus are necessary to survive online.
• start with one product at the time, and after gaining experience add more.
• don't be afraid to start even if you have no experience at all in promoting; practice makes better!

• before you post into a forum promoting your product is wiser to make some valuable contribution to the discussion.
• just watch how other people are promoting and don't hesitate to imitate them.
• never copy and paste a promoting page or post; make your posts unique with your own words.

There is an awesome amount of "getting rich quick" offers out there on the internet, but if you've read this far, you already know 90% about the basic affiliate marketing. To build a serious long term online business all that you need is to get those basic principles of how affiliate marketing work in more depth. Then you'll be able to chose your own way to success and to really make money online.

I can recommend you one excellent place to start your journey into affiliate marketing world: the famous Wealthy Affiliate University. I have to admit that i've learned everything i know there, and there isn't any "quick-rich" product that will make you more successful! Even if my learning time is finished long ago, i'm still proud to be a member of this great affiliate marketing community. To find out more about Wealthy Affiliate visit my site here.

You can also visit my other "Basic Affiliate Marketing" lenses, or drop me a line about what else you'll want to know.