Affiliate Schemes   As we have seen, affiliate schemes are when you sign up to market someone else's product and take a percentage when a sale is made through you.  The products can be of any type:  physical items, services, downloads, anything.    The advantage for the beginner is that the whole process is automated.  When someone clicks through from your site your job is done.  The receiving site handles the sales and despatch of the goods.  Your percentage is added to your account, and you are paid through a banking service that you set up.   There are two basic ways of becoming an affiliate: join an affiliate 'broker' site that has many products on its books for you to choose from; or look for sites that sell products that suit your niche and that run affiliate schemes.  I suggest you start with a 'broker'.  The two best known are Commission Juction and Clickbank.  Commission Junction (also known just as CJ) offer all kinds of products, whilst Clickbank specialise in download products.  Both give full instructions on how to join and use their sites.   One advantage of going through a 'broker' is that you can quickly compare products that may suit you.  As well as suitbility for your niche you should consider how much you may earn.  More expensive items will obviously give you a bigger payout, if the percentage is the same, but you have to consider that probably fewer people will buy these. So, as well as selling price and percentage paid to you, also look at any data that is given about the success of the product.    In particular, look at the conversion rate.  This is the percentage of people you refer to them that the sellers manage to convert into sales.  Look at the sales page - would you be persuaded and buy the product?  Some sites offer previews do they convince you that it's worth the asking price?  What sales material do the sellers offer for you to put on your site, etc?  Do these fit with your image? (You don't have to use them of course).  Compare all these factors and choose carefully.   Once you've chosen, it's then just a case of copy/pasting the html code to wherever you want it.  Don't know about html?  Don't worry - the basics are easy, and that's all you need.  Click here.   Once you're comfortable with using affiliates from 'brokers', you can look for others.  Get in the habit of surfing for products (it's part of knowing your market) and when you find suitable ones, lookto see if they have an affiliate program.  You'll usually find a link to their affiliate pages in the navigation bar across the top of  the page or in the small hyperlinks at the very bottom.   Linking to sellers Your task is to produce a 'qualified lead' for the sales page.  A lead is someone you refer to a seller.  'Qualified' leads are much better.  They are people who have already displayed an interest in the product, for example, by finding and reading an interesting article on the subject.  Who is more likely to buy a calendar with beautiful pictures of Malteese dogs, an enthusiast or someone who stumbles across a page full of calendars?   So the first step is pretty obvious: place your link in or near relevent information.  Second step is to think how to present your link.  If you believe people come ready to buy, an advert in a prominent position (one that comes with your affiliate package perhaps) is right.  Get your visitors to the sales page as soon as possible and let it do the job of pursuading them.    If visitors come looking for information, then a more gradual approach works better.  For example, an advert for pet insurance could be placed after an appropriate paragraph in an article on the high costs of vetinary fees.  Instead of an advert, you can use an in-text link.  They are the ones that look like, " .... Commission Junction call their affiliates 'publishers'; you can learn more and join here."  You earn your percentage no matter how you link, so long as the link includes your affiliate URL.   I recommend you are always honest with text links.  Don't pretend that the link will take a visitor to just more information if they are going to land on a sales page.  How you mix and match adverts and text links is up to you and the style of your page.  Always include more than one link to a selling page.  Try different combinations, monitor the results. Stick with success and discard loosers.

Affiliate Resources Clickbank Specialise in a wide range of digital affilaite products. Join here. Commission Junction Offer a wide range of affiliate products of all types.  Join up here.