by Jens du Plessis

How to make money on the Internet? That is the question!

Everyone using the Internet for business, whether as a home-based online business or as an online base for their normal brick-and-mortar business, are looking for the secret to make money with their web sites.

There are many ways to do this:

- Selling one’s own products online.
- Using the web site to generate business off-line.
- Selling other people products as a retailer.
- Selling information (not spying or treason! LOL).
- Selling membership with benefits.
- Selling wholesale.
- Earning commissions by referring buyers to other web sites (affiliate programme marketing)
to name some.

Affiliate marketing is an ideal, affordable, way to expand your markets. Affiliate marketing can be related to appointing commission-only sales representatives. On the Internet your “employers” or your “representatives” can be based all over the world, depending on how the programmes is set up.

Imagine having over 70,000 representives worldwide selling your products or services, like Corey Rudl has, and they do not cost you money unless they sell!

Imagine not only selling your own products, but also similar products all over the world without having to worry about supplies, deliveries or returns.

There are two sides to affiliate marketing:

As a merchant or advertiser, and
As an affiliate, a reseller, a publisher (a number of different names are used by the various programmes

Whether you are a merchant and have a web site where you are trying to sell your product or service, or whether you have a web site and would like to earn an income by offering other merchants’ products to your visitors, affiliate marketing offers you opportunities to increase your income and profits.

And the two sides of affiliate marketing are not mutually exclusive. You can also be a merchant offering your own products, as well as use affiliate marketing to offer supplementary or complimentary products and services.

As a merchant:

As a merchant offering your own products or services affiliate marketing is an ideal, performance-based, means of expanding your sales force on the Internet.

By offering an affiliate programme you can appoint “salespeople” all over the world to market your products or services from their web sites on a commission-only basis. This means that you only pay for performance.

No worries about:

- employment contacts and practices
- personnel issues
- salaries to non-performers, etc.

Setting up your own affiliate programme can be a bit tricky, especially if you try to set it up yourself. Your need to:

- find affiliates
- sign up the affiliates
- vet the affiliate web sites to see if they comply with your requirements
- provide them with sales material
- track affiliate sales,
- track commissions
- pay out commissions
- motivate and communicate with affiliates

Unless you have the programming and administration capabilities I would suggest that you look at another option - using a third party affiliate programme manager. They take all the “dirty” work off your hands.

Using Third Party affiliate Programme Managers

A number of programme managers offer these services to a greater or lesser extent. One of their greatest advantages is that they have a “ready-made” sales force for you - affiliates sitting and waiting for affiliate programmes they can market.

As an affiliate:

In my ebook “How To Turn Your School Web Site Into A Fundraising Machine” I discuss a number of ways to make money with one’s web site.

Using affiliate marketing programmes, where you generate commissions from sales at other web sites, is one of the cheapest - and often easiest - ways to generate multiple income streams from your web site.

- No products to worry about - there are thousands of programmes available.
- No delivery issues - the product owners do that.
- No customer service responsibilities - the product owners does that.
- No web design - merely links to other web sites.
- No costs - most affiliate programmes are free to join.
- International markets - there are affiliate programmes available all over the world
- Targeted - there programmes for just about every market

Finding affiliate programmes are also easy. While many web sites offer their own affiliate programmes there are a number of affiliate programme managers where you can find hundreds and even thousands of programmes in one one spot.

Affiliate programme managers offer you thousands of opportunities to generate multiple income streams from your web site.

And they are FREE to join as affiliates.

Alternatively, you can look at private affiliate programmes from some of the top Internet marketers or some examples of other products like jewelry, travel, pet products, etc

All you need to do is to search for the programmes that suit your target market.

The right affiliate programmes serve a number of purposes on your web site:

Affiliate programmes offer supplementary or complimentary products to your own products without having to supply it.

If people are going to leave your site, as they must sooner or later, you might as well direct them to web sites where you can earn some money.
Affiliate programmes can increase the content of your web site, thereby attracting more visitors.

While there are many ways to generate an income with one’s web site, and most affiliate programmes require that a sale be made before you can earn any commissions. The more targeted your affiliate programmes to your target market, the better the chances of you making money with them.

One of the simplest ways to earn money with affiliate programmes is by giving away freebies.

About The Author: Jens du Plessis has been doing business on the Internet since 1996. He runs a number of businesses based on affiliate programs. Find out more about affiliate programs at http://www.businesssitesonline.com and sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.webmarketingsa.biz