The best way to make money online, when you are starting out, is undoubtedly affiliate marketing. It might not be the quick way to make money online but affiliate marketing, done properly, can provide a sustainable and truly life changing income. So what is affiliate marketing and how can you make it work for you?

Essentially, as an affiliate marketer, you promote the goods and services of others. When you recommend someone to buy a product or subscribe to a service the producer of that product or service provider will pay you a ‘finders fee.’ This is a long standing business model that stems back literally hundreds of years. However, whereas intermediaries in the corporate world are often massive businesses in their own right, the Internet makes it possible for individuals to make money online using a variety of affiliate marketing models and strategies. This isn’t a quick way to make money online, you need to learn a lot, really get to grips with some essential techniques and work hard but it is achievable.

There are three main methods to make money online through affiliate marketing. Pay-per-click means that you can earn some money for sending visitors to a vendors site. Pay-per-lead means that you earn commission if the visitor performs a certain task, such as subscribe to a newsletter or become a member of an online community. Finally pay-per-sale pays you when the customer you have referred purchases the goods or service you are promoting and you make money online as a result. As you can imagine the financial rewards for ‘pay-per-lead’ and ‘pay-per-sale’ are generally greater than for ‘pay-per-click’ though the latter can still provide a good income if you refer enough people. Continue reading »