
What Can You Promote?
There are literally tens of thousands of things that you can promote as an affiliate. Anything from books and movies, to common household items right through to heavy machinery and other highly specialized products.One of the most popular affiliate programs is Amazon.com, where you can earn a commission on virtually everything they sell. Whether you're recommending a book that you read or anything else in their massive product catalog, you can get paid for referring sales to them. Of course, there are many other alternatives to Amazon as well. Some of these other programs, such as eBay, offer a wide range of products to promote while others are focused on specific products or services, such as website hosting.you can check outIf you already have a website, chances are you can find affiliate offers that will appeal to your audience. And if you don't already have a website and are looking for ideas for niches that you can work in, you can choose from hundreds of options.How Much Can You Earn?
This is a question that can't be answered easily. Some products will pay just a few cents on each sale, requiring a lot of referrals to reach the $500 per month mark. Other offers might earn you that $500 with a single sale.Rather than asking how much you can make, the better way to look at it is what you need to do to earn $500 per month.The best way to determine this is to calculate how many of something you would need to "sell" each month in order to generate that $500. If the product you're recommending pays you a $50 commission, you would need to refer 10 sales to earn $500. If it pays 50 cents per sale, you would need to refer 1,000 sales.Once you have some idea of how many sales you need to make every month, you can start to design a plan for reaching that goal.Let's look at a simple example…Let's say you have a blog where you write about woodworking. There are lots of different things you could promote that would appeal to readers in this market:* Project plans* Tools* Books* Instructional DVDs* Specialty wood suppliers Project plans and books would typically pay out up to about $1 per sale based on the relatively low prices. Tools, on the other hand, could pay out much more. If you referred a sale for a $1,000 tool, you might earn $75 to $100 in affiliate commission.Let's say you choose to promote tools, because of the higher payout. If you earn an average of $75 per sale, you need 7 sales to reach (and slightly surpass) your goal.That doesn't sound like many sales, but something to keep in mind is that higher priced products don't sell as easily since there is a higher investment required on the part of the buyer. Even though you don't earn as much per sale, you might earn more by promoting a lower cost product.We're going to look at some strategies for determining what the most profitable option isshortly.Keep in mind that this is just one example. You can find offers related to virtually any topic - we've included a list of places to look for these offers at the end of this section.How to Promote Affiliate Offers
There are various ways to promote affiliate offers:* Via your website* Through social media like Facebook and Twitter* Classified ads (both online and in print)* Purpose-built websitesIf you already have a website, you can promote affiliate offers through the site itself, through your email newsletter if you have one, via your Facebook Page and so on. In this case, you would want to go looking for affiliate offers that would appeal to your audience.Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can be used in conjunction with a website or they can be used completely on their own. If you have a reasonable following on either or both of them, and you've built good relationships with your followers, you can post short promotions along with your affiliate link and generate referrals from there.In both of these cases, one of the most effective ways to promote these offers is to review products or services that would be of interest to your audience.Ideallythese would be things that you've bought and used yourself so you can talk about them with some authority.ArrowNumber two, you can link to a page on your own website where you offer the visitor a review, more information about the product or something else that adds value above and beyond the product page itself. You would then link to the product's page from within the content on your own website.Both these methods will work, but you'll often find that sending the visitor to your own website and giving them more information about the product will be more effective. If they know what they're looking for, it's quite likely they would simply go directly to the product's website in the first place. But if you offer something else of value, they will often visit your site first to see what you have to say.Purpose-built websites aren't that different from promoting through your own existing website. You will still offer similar things - reviews, tips & tricks for using the products, etc. - but you do so on a website that you build specifically for this purpose.The website will contain information that is specifically about the product(s) that you're promoting, and it will be built in such a way that everything pointsyourvisitors towards your ultimate goal - getting them to purchase the product(s) you're promoting. We're going to look at this particular strategy in detail in the step-by-step action plan at the end of this section.Multiplying Your Results
If you want to earn $500 per month as an affiliate, there are some "shortcuts" that will help you reach that goal faster.High-Paying vs Low-Paying OffersOne of the choices you have that can have a significant effect on your income is whether to promote high-paying or low-paying products.That doesn't mean choosing between two suppliers for the same thing, one paying more than the other. It means a higher-cost, higher-paying item versus a lower-cost, lower-paying item.If you can earn $100 per referral it's going to take a lot less of them to reach your $500 goal than if you're only earning $1.But the purchase cost is also going to be significantly higher, which meanslesspeople will buy it on your referral. Which way to go comes down to testing and tracking.Testing & Tracking
This sounds like a complicated process but it's really not. What you want to do is test different promotions and track how well each of them does to find the one that is more profitable for you. You might just find that the lower paying alternative actually earns you more money in the long run.For example, let's say you test two promotions - one that sells for $100 and pays you $10 in commission and one that sells for $10 and pays you $1. You recommend the $100 product for one month and refer 20 sales, which generates $200 in commissions.Then you recommend the $10 product for one month and refer 250 sales, generating $250 in commissions.In this hypothetical case, the $10 product would be more profitable for you even though it pays less per sale.Focusing on higher-paying offers can be a good way to earn more, but it's not always a given that you'll earn more this way. Always test different offers to see what works the best.Two-Tier Promotions
Another way you can earn more income from affiliate commissions without having to do any more work is to promote "two-tier" offers.Two-tier means that you get paid a commissiononany referrals you make, but you also get paid a smaller percentage of any referrals made by the people you refer.For example, if you refer Sam to a product and he buysit,and then likes it enough to become an affiliate himself, you would earn a smaller percentage of any sales he refersina two-tier program.These programs are not as common, and you won't find them in every market, but it's worth looking to see if you can find one in yours. If you happen to refer someone who becomes a successful affiliate, that second tier ofcommissioncan add up quite nicely - and you won't have to spend one minute more to get it.Market Research
There are literally tens of thousands of markets that you can choose from when deciding on a topic for your website and product(s) to promote. For your first project, it's often best to stick with a topic that you have an interest in yourself.You're going to be creating content for your own website, posting in forums and doing other things that will be centered on the topic. If you pick something purely because you think it can make money, and don't have any interest in it yourself, it can become a grind to have to deal with it. Better to choose something that you enjoy, at least for the first project or two, so you can have some fun while getting experience.It's even better to pick a topic that you know something about so you'll be able to write about it, but if it's something you're interested in learning more about that's okay too.If you're having trouble coming up with ideas for a market, try one of these ideas:1. Go to your local newsstand or bookstore and browse through the magazine section. Look for topics that would be interesting for you to create a website around. If there is a magazine in the market, chances are there are plenty of people interested in it. Magazines aren't cheap to publish, so they're a good indicator of market potential.2.Browse through the various departments onAmazon.comand look for ideas there. You can use theAmazon Top Sellers pageto find their best sellers in various departments, as well as several other lists - top rated, most wished for, hot new releases, etc.



Setting Up Your Website
Once you've picked your market and found a few products that you can promote, it's time to set up your website. There are several steps involved in this process, the first of which is to register your domain name - the address for your website.Domain Name
For these purpose-built websites, the best option for a domain name is what's known as an "exact match domain" - a domain that is the same as one of the keywords for your market.For this step, you're going to need to go back to the Google Keyword Tool and make a list of potential domain names. We want to find keywords that aren't too competitive but are still relevant to the topic and types of products you're going to promote.The keyword tool lets you narrow down your search by filtering the results.First, click on Keyword Filters on the left-hand side.

