How to Make Money Online - a Guide for Beginners Part 2 - Affiliate Schemes

n the last part I covered how to generate income through writing blogs and creating your own website. In this article I will be discussing affiliate marketing and how this can be used to make money online.

Affiliate Marketing is when you promote other people's products (or services) for a percentage of the sale. As an affiliate marketer, you usually do not require any special training and best of all do not need start up capital.

A great advantage of affiliate marketing is that you do not have to be concerned with developing products and creating ideas, which allows you to concentrate on marketing the product/service.
The aim of affiliate marketing is to drive traffic i.e people surfing the web to the product owner's (affiliate) product page, allowing them to convert the prospective client into a buyer. The more targeted your traffic is to the affiliate site, the higher your conversion rate and the more commission you receive. Incidentally conversion rate is simply the number of people who purchase a product divided by the number who click through to the affiliate product page.

There are multiple things you can promote as an affiliate. For example you can go to sites like ClickBank or PayDotCom and create an account to promote an endless supply of information products.
The biggest paychecks are delivered to affiliates in the following affiliate markets:
· Poker
· Mortgage
· Education

In the poker niche for example some poker sites pay you $300 for each player you recruit.
 
Five vital steps to get targeted traffic to your affiliate sites include:

1. Search engine optimisation
This may probably be one of the most important methods of getting quality traffic. It is the most popular way to drive free and targeted traffic to websites. In order to get a good ranking in search engines, it is very important to build quality back links. The choice of keywords is also essential. The site will be easily found once it gets to the top of the search engine results.

2. Link exchange
You can contact webmasters of other websites and propose a link exchange.

3. Article marketing
Writing article is an excellent way of driving traffic. Providing a good content ensures that you attract visitors. Out of interest, the readers will be inclined to visit your site when they read your articles.

 4. List building
List building is another way to drive more traffic. In fact, the subscription list is also a very good tool to pre-sell the affiliate products. It is one of the most valuable assets of an affiliate marketer.

5. Know your market
This is the most important area you need to learn in order to drive targeted traffic. The traffic will just be wasted if it is not targeted. As a result, you need to understand your market. You have to create your website so that it is related to your market and this will be the best way to attract customers.

In the next part of the series I will be discussing in more detail ways to generate and direct traffic, which is critical for making money online.

James Curtis BSc writes on ways to make money online and covers essential areas for increasing online income also advises on the current scams to avoid.
You can learn more by visiting my blog:

How to make money online
http://howtomakemoneyonline-jcurtis80.blogspot.com/

online money making scams
http://onlinemoneymakingscams-jcurtis80.blogspot.com/