Affiliate Marketing - What s True And What s BS

As with many things on the internet affiliate marketing has a lot of stigmas attached to it. There are many individuals out there who make affiliate marketing seem as if it's the next big get rich quick scheme. That you can add code top your website or emails and BAM, make a ton of money. This is not true my friends; so don't buy into the hype. Remember the people hyping such things as the "next big thing" all have their own best interest in mind. They are simply trying to get your money by selling you something.

In all honesty affiliate marketing is a wonderful way to make money, it just doesn't happen overnight. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The premise behind affiliate marketing is simple. Companies pay you a percentage of each sale for referring visitors to their site. In other words if someone click on a link for a widget on your site, the link takes the person to your affiliates site. If they then purchase the widget, you get a percentage of that sale. The percentage varies by company and product, but is normally between 5% and 25%.

Affiliate marketing is truly a wonderful system. You never have to touch a product, and you get paid. You don't have to have a warehouse full of product, you don't have to ship anything, you don't have to complete the transaction, and you collect a piece of that transaction. Now, before dollar signs start ringing in your head, that's just how it works. Getting people to convert, that is buy something, is the work. You don't have to do all of the things mentioned earlier, but you do have to help people make the decision to buy.

Not only do you have to help them make the decision to buy, you have to refer a lot of people to your affiliates site in order to get sales. So affiliate marketing is really about getting traffic to your site first and then referring that traffic to your affiliates site. And my friends, getting traffic to your site is not an easy thing to do. That's where the work comes in. You may not have to stock or ship the product, but you do have to get visitors to visit your website and then visit your affiliates website, which is by no means a quick and easy thing to do.

That, in a nutshell, is what affiliate marketing is and how it works. The premise is wonderfully simple and affiliate marketing is a wonderful way to make money. Just don't think of it as a way that you're going to get rich quickly. As with anything of value on this spinning rock we call earth, making money doesn't happen quickly. You must provide value to your customer, or in this case your visitor in order to make money. And remember, just slapping a flashy banner ad on your website isn't going to amount to anything more than having a flashy banner on you website.

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