It's pretty amazing how much money a person can make via the internet while sitting at home in their pyjamas. One of the best ways to get money online is with affiliate programs, when you sign up to an affiliate program you are given a link; the link leads people to purchase a plethora of items from another website.
When the person is directed to the website, anything they buy is accredited to the affiliate whose link was used to guide the customer there. The affiliate is rewarded with a percentage of whatever the shopper buys at the main website.
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What is an Affiliate Link?
An affiliate link is just like any other URL on the web except only one individual will be credited every time that particular link is used. Each link is typically associated with a bank or PayPal account and anytime someone is directed to a shopping site via the affiliate link, the person who owns that link can get paid for that visit if the visitor makes a purchase.
The amounts that affiliates make from the websites they assist can vary greatly which is why anyone interested in becoming an affiliate should thoroughly research how much money can potentially be made from an affiliate program. Getting affiliate links is relatively easy and some sites give them to affiliates free of charge.
Recommended: Affiliate Marketing Best TipsThe difficult part to making money from an affiliate link is just getting people to click on them. This is why many people have devised a number of interesting ways to maximize the earning potential of their particular affiliate link.
Learning how to Hyperlink
Hyperlinking is a process by which the URL of the affiliate link is disguised as plain text or even a photograph. You may read a web page that simply has the words "click here" underlined and when you left click while the cursor is on those words, the browser will take you to a completely different web page.
Learning how to hyperlink is a great asset to an affiliate and it can be done quite easily by using Microsoft Word. Simply copy and paste the URL of the affiliate link into the body of an article and press space. Word will automatically make the letters appear in blue and underline them.
This is a hyperlink but it still doesn't have what it needs to make someone want to click on it. Right now, it just looks like a long, boring URL. This is when the affiliate can right click on the URL and a new window will open. The affiliate then scrolls down to 'Edit Hyperlink' and right clicks.
Recommended: Affiliate Marketing in DepthYet another window will open. At the top of the new window, there is an entry field labeled 'Text to Display' In this field something appealing like, "discount Xbox games" can be written in.
The affiliate then clicks on OK and his new affiliate link has been hyper linked to read 'Discount Xbox Games'. Someone looking for Xbox games would simply have to click on the words and they'd be taken to the home site where the games are being sold. Using this tactic is one of the easiest, most effective ways an affiliate can get people to use his or her particular link. Just having the hyperlink isn't enough though, it has to be utilized properly.
One of the mediums that allows the hyperlink to be shared is email. This is why the affiliate's website should have a blog section which requires people to submit an email address in order to join the conversation. Once the email address is obtained, short emails with valuable information containing the hyperlink can be sent out.
Blog Sites: An Affiliates Best Friend
One of the best ways to get people to follow an affiliate link is by posting it to as many blog sites as possible that pertain to the product or products being sold on the home site. If the affiliate link leads people to buy steak knives, it would be wise for the affiliate to go on cooking sites and write blogs about these wonderful knives that he bought from a terrific site.
Recommended: Best Affiliate programMany people who read the post will choose to ignore it, but someone on the market for new knives might decide to follow the link. The blog message could say "amazing steak knives 20% off at this site". Anyone looking for steak knives would probably be very inclined to follow the link and learn more. The morality of copying affiliate links to other people's websites has been called into question but there's nothing illegal or amoral about it.
It's just a good marketing strategy which is what affiliates are paid to do. The affiliate still helps the blog site by contributing quality content about the subject at hand. Pretending to be someone who is excited about the money they saved isn't wrong unless the affiliate doesn't believe in the product being marketed.
Check out: RankCracker Software to Spy on CompetitorLots of Clicks, no Conversions
Unfortunately, this is a serious issue for many affiliates when they first begin. They have the clicks leading people to the home site but no one buys when they get there. This is because the affiliate link is being marketed to the wrong people or the marketing on the homepage is week.
It's best to search for particular niches when seeking for blog sites to utilize. An affiliate must also make sure the particular blog site gets a lot of hits daily and a lot of people post different comments. Another way to encourage people to spend their hard earned money is to offer affiliate discounts like the shopper will save 5% by using the link.
Recommended: Zac Johnson: Affiliate Marketing Secrets in InterviewWhen blogging on someone else's site, an affiliate would be wise to compare his or her product to similar products available on the market and give reasons why the affiliate product is superior.
For the truly bold, this step can even be used on the Amazon 'leave a review' section. An affiliate selling jumper cables may want to go to a rival company's product and leave a review saying, "Acme Jumper Cables work a little better than these and they were 15% less at this site".
When using this tactic, smart affiliates remember not to be too tough on the competition. A review saying both products were great but one was a little better and a little less expensive typically garners the best results.
If the jumper cables really are 15% less, people will be more inclined to buy them. These are some of the more innovative ways to get people to not only click on the affiliate link but also buy the product when they arrive.
Author Bio: Ricky Dawn believes the internet is the future and content is king; he also thinks spammers should be banned from the internet - he runs his own SEO and web development blog thiswebguy.com, with his latest guide being How to rank a video on YouTube.
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