Affiliate marketing is why I started in business online a few years ago. It was about 2007 or 2008 when I knew it existed.
Affiliate marketing means you can promote other people’s products and get paid a commission for doing so, sometimes up to 50% but normally around 30%.
It’s great because you earn margin on the product, yet you don’t need to fulfil the order, do any of the customer service and you still get paid. You just need to tell people about the product and hopefully they’ll then go on to buy. 
The way it works is that links are tracked using ‘affiliate tracking’. So, if a user clicks a link which has affiliate tracking and that user goes on to buy the product – you’ll get a commission.
You need decent traffic to earn good money which is all dependent on your content marketing (you need decent traffic to earn ANY money) on the Internet, so keep working at this – constantly!
There are a whole host of places you can find affiliate products:
Clickbank.com – You can sell e-books and other e-products via clickbank. They are very big in the USA if you are aiming for that market but there are a lot of products that are applicable to the UK market.
Paydot.com – Mainly American based.
CJ.com – An affiliate network with American products and UK products.
Amazon associates – Promote Amazon products, get paid!
AffiliateWindow – Anything from holidays to DVDs.
AffiliateFuture – Earn money online by selling free stuff and other stuff too!
Tradedoubler – Huge variety of mainstream products to promote.
There are companies that have individual affiliate programs (to save themselves the money of signing up with an affiliate network). The best way to do this is to search companies who have websites in your niche. Then see if they have an ‘Affiliates’ link – you’ll usually find it at the bottom of the home page. If it’s not there then you can always contact them directly to see if there is anything they can do.
The best way to make money online through affiliate marketing is…review the product.
You need an honest review of the product, it needs to be fully rounded – you need to have actually bought the product yourself!
People often search for reviews on Google and they may well find yours and if they click through and buy the product through your affiliate link then you will earn the commission.
Talk about how you used the product, talk about why you used (or use the product) and don’t be overly positive. Have balance! As human beings we don’t automatically believe someone just because they are overly positive about something, in fact, we probably question them even more – it’s in our nature! Trust is a major point in affiliate marketing. Do you seem real? Do you have balance in your reviews? Have you actually used the product or read the ebook?
If there are competing products in the same niche as the product you are reviewing, then mention them too – tell your readers what they are like and give them a comparison. It gives you more balance.
{AF template=round_quotes} You do want to have a call to action in your reviews, so use a ‘Click here to buy’ or ‘Click here to get more information’ gives them a compelling reason to go and visit the site rather than just reading your article and shutting their web browser down. {/AF}
Should you mention the price of the product in the review? You can, if you want to. Play with it, split test it – see what gets more click-throughs – I’ll leave that decision up to you.
The most important part of affiliate marketing is…trust. You need to be open and honest with your audience and show you are a real human being and not a robot trying to cash in. You deserve respect, you give compassion and you share you passion for your subject niche like nobody else in that niche – this is what makes you stand out in your field.
Be the best you can be, do the best you can do, take as much action as possible and you’ll find yourself standing head and shoulders above everyone else.