Banking and Finance  » 7 Steps to Make Money Online With Affiliate Programs

7 Steps to Make Money Online With Affiliate Programs

If you have a computer and a brain there is no reason why you

shouldn't be making money online from the comfort of your home!

I've been doing it for over 3 years now and I am still amazed at

how easy it is!

Follow my step by step guide and get in on the action!

Step 1 - Plan of Action

What's your Expertise? You are going to need a website so

choose a subject that you are passionate about. Something that

you know a lot about. We all are experts in our own right. We

all have something that we know that not many other people know

about or something that others want to learn more about. It

could be anything, from cooking to gardening, electronics or

computers. The possibilities are endless. Maybe you are familiar

with repairing things or operating "XYZ widgets". You may even

know which widget is better than other widgets. My point is to

choose a subject that you like and if you are not already an

expert at it, then become one. Research it, visit the library or

other websites and put the information into your own words. It

may sound like a lot of work and it very well may be, however,

it does not have to be too extensive in order to get started.

You bacically need to create a decent website first, you can

always make changes and additions later. Once you have completed

this step, you are on your way and most of the hard work will be

done. Go Here to learn more on turning your knowledge

into revenue.

If you are not good at writing there are plenty of authors that

make a living writing articles and will provide you with free

content to post on your website. Just do a search for "free

website content". You can actually build a website and most of

your content can be articles written by other people.There are

also companies that will write customized articles for you for a

fee.

This is very IMPORTANT! There is a certain process to

building a website that will attract visitors and make money.

Which are your two main objectives. In short it's done through

creating content, attracting targeted traffic, pre-selling to

your targeted visitors and then monetizing. If you want to

become successful in affiliate marketing, learn this formula and

master it. It is the KEY to making money online. If you

feel you are ready to learn what it takes to make money online

Click here for a detailed analysis of this

valuable formula.

Step 2 - Choose Your Domain Name

Once you have figured out your websites content, you need to

choose a domain name accordingly. You should choose a domain

name that is directly related to the content of your site. If at

all possible your domain name should be your website name and

the name that you use to market your product (your brand name).

You should avoid long names if at all possible. The shorter the

name the better in my opinon. Potential customers will remember

a shorter domain name faster than a longer one and will be able

to type it into their browser more readily because they will

have it memorized. Which means more traffic for your website and

in most cases, more traffic means more business for you.

Avoid hyphenated DN's if you can, however if a particular name

that you want has been taken and you can get the same

name(words) in a hyphenated version, I would suggest getting the

hyphenated DN. Especially if there are key words in the name

that would be helpful in the search engines.

Domain name extentions - You should choose a .com above all

others if available and .net if the .com is not available. I say

this only because these two are more popular and most surfers

will indentify with them. There are many new domain name

extentions to choose from these days (.biz, .com, .net, .org,

.cc, .info, .tv, .ws, and as far as your websites search engine

rankings are concerned, the DN ext. will have no bearing it. Go

here for more info on choosing your domain

name.

Step 3 - Get Reliable Web Hosting

Choosing a host is an important decision. You will hopefully

your affiliate programs. Continue to tweak your site until you...

have a long relationship with whatever host you choose. To make

this decision you need to first decide what it is you need then

visit the sites of several hosting providers and evaluate what

they have to offer in the light of your requirements. If you

choose wisely you should get good value for your money,

reliability, and prompt knowledgeable support.

Your web hosting company is your sites link to the outside

world, one glitch on their end and your site is out of

commission with nothing you can do as your visitors head to a

competitors website never to return. Get referrals before

signing with anyone, talk to people you trust. A bad hosting

experience is one you'll never forget and can be a very

expensive mistake. Make a decision on what features you will

need then compare the quality, affordability. Before you make a

purchase be sure you are getting all the features you need to

market your site an affordable package, and a company that has a

track record of good tech support. These are exactly what any

business needs to get started online. That's why I highly

recommend Yahoo Business Hosting. It's a name you know and a

name you can trust. Yahoo has 3 business hosting plans

available, starting at $8.96 per month.

There are literally thousands of hosting companies. Finding a

good hosting company can be a difficult and confusing task. If

you don't want to go with my recommendation above you can also

go here for a detailed comparison of some of

the popular web hosting providers.

Once you have secured your web hosting the next thing that you

have to do is point your domain name server (DNS) to your web

space (hosting server address) . Basically this is simply

connecting you domain name to your webspace. The company that

you bought your domain from will help you wth this. Just contact

their tech support and give them the address that was provided

to you by your hosting service and they will tell you exactly

what you need to do. Some domain registrars will even do it for

you.

Step 4 - Build Your Web Pages

Once you have completed steps 1 thru 3 you are now ready to

build your web pages.

You don't have to be an expert to build a website, you only need

to learn some simple basic html code, and get yourself a good

HTML editor. Go

here to download this free html editor. This is the

editor I used when I started and I didn't know a thing about

building a website. It's very easy to use. If you are not

familiar with html, don't worry because this editor has a help

file to explain all the basics of html and building a website.

I have several websites and I built them all by myself from

scratch. If I can do it, so can you! Just practice and

experiment using the html editor until you become familiar with

it. You'll be making web pages in no time, but you must practice

until you learn it. It's really quite easy to do.

After you have your content pages completed, simply upload them

to your website.In order to make this an easy task you should

use a file transfer application. I use WS_FTP, it makes things

very simple and easy to do once you get the hang of it. You can

download the free version here.

Step 5 - Join Affiliate Programs

There are literally thousands of affiliate programs for you to

join. A good place to start is LinkShare Corporation. This is a

network of internet affiliate programs and you will find a wide

selection of affiliate programs to join. You must have a website

to join and there is an approval process. Click here to become a

LinkShare Affiliate!

Another affiliate programs network is Clickbank. Clickbank will provide you with

thousands of products to promote. At Clickbank affiliates earn

anywhere from 1% to 75% of generated sales. Clickbank only deals

with digital products that can be delivered (downloaded)

instantly after purchase . These are just 2 popular affiliate

program networks. There are thousands of other companies online

that have individual affiliate programs. Simple search for

relevant products and join the affiliate programs of your

choice, from the companies website. Usually there's an

"Affiliate Program" or "Webmaster" link either at the very top

or bottom of the websites home page.

You'll have to decide which affiliate program and product(s)

you want to promote. Simply use the promotional material that is

provided to you. There are many types of promo to use to get

your prospect to the venders website (pop-up consoles, email

advertising, banners and text links etc.) I have found that text

links work best for me. Banners are not as effective as they

once were so I recommend using more text links than banners.

Text links are even more effective when incorporated directly

into a paragraph of your existing content.

Step 6 - Get Some Traffic To Your Site

Now that you have your content pages and your affiliate links in

place you need to get targeted visitors to your site to click on

them. The best and most effective way to do this is search

engines. Another good source of traffic is link exchanges. So

find some websites that are similar to yours and exchange links

with them. This will increase your link popularity and hopefully

give you a better ranking with the search engines. It can take

search engines weeks and even sometimes months to index your

website, so in the mean time you should exchange links with as

many websites as possible. So go and submit your site to all the

major search engines and website directories and start trading

links with other (relevant) websites. Go here for more ways to

get website

traffic and a huge list of major search engines and

website directories.

Remember, this is simply a basic guide, you will have to do some

experimentation with different ways to promote and advertise

your affiliate programs. Continue to tweak your site until you

get the look and feel that you want. Keep in mind that the

majority of your time should be utilized trying to get more

traffic to your site. The more link exchanges you have, the more

traffic you will receive. Which in turn will increase your link

popularity with the search engines. A good place to start your

link campaign is here: The Best Free Link Exchange

Directory On The Web - Link Market It's easy to use

and free.It will save you hours of work.

Step 7 - Become a Top Earning Affiliate

Would you like to know all the secrets to becoming a high

earning affiliate champion?

Most affiliates have no idea what it takes to make a living

online. Are you running in circles trying to figure out which

programs to join or how to collect a paycheck from the programs

that you are promoting?

If this sounds familiar I highly recommend that you take our

free affiliate

program email course. The Affiliate Masters Course by

Ken Envoy... is an intensive 5-day e-mail course on becoming a

high-earning affiliate champion. How? By building income through

content.

Ken Envoy is the founder of SiteSell Inc. and the creator of the

revolutionary Web site-building system, Site Build It! Dr. Evoy

is also the author of a series of widely-acclaimed "best on the

Net" e-commerce books and courses, which have empowered

hundreds-of-thousands of people and small businesses around the

world to succeed on the Web. Due to Dr. Evoy's efforts, the

SiteSell brand is highly-respected by top influential Internet

business personalities around the world.

This 5 day free course is by far the best free info I have ever

read. It has helped me a whole lot and I highly recommend it. Table of

Contents.

About the author:

Preston Williams is the owner of http://www.getnpaid.com

He offers many articles, resources, and ideas on how to make

money online. He has been making money online for over 3 years.

Please visit his website if you are interested in finding new

opportunities for making money online. More

details on how to work from home.