Website Building 101: Affiliate Advertising

Over the years I have used affiliate advertising I have learnt that some will just never earn money for me. They might work very well for other sites but, for some reason, they don't do well for mine. But the reverse is also true. I can run an affiliate ad on one of my sites and it earns money for me with exquisite regularity while somebody else never earns a penny from it. The phrase 'horses for courses' springs to mind. Sometimes there doesn't seem any reason why an ad doesn't work for me. The subject of the site is spot on for the product being advertised, it's in a good position, high up on the page, sometimes it's a text link in an article but still people don't click on it or, if they do, they don't buy. When this happens, I cut my losses, take off the ad and put something more profitable there.

This means that it is hard to recommend specific affiliates because every webmaster has to experiment and find those that are the best fit for their sites. There are, however, some that work for most sites and you can see those below with some information about them.

Google Adsense

The most profitable affiliate advertising for most sites is Google Adsense. You must have a site up and running before applying for this program but once you are accepted, you can display Adsense on all sites that you run. You don't need to apply for each site individually. The beauty of Adsense is that it's a 'pay per click' scheme. Everytime somebody clicks on one of the ads, you make some money ranging from a few cents to a few dollars depending how much the advertiser pays for the search keywords that have brought their specific ad up on your site. Even sites getting 2000 page views a day can expect to earn £200 or more each month. Not enough to retire on, but still enough to go shopping.

One very important point: never, ever click on your own Google Adsense. The folks at Google are vigiliant and many webmasters have had their membership of the program terminated because Google believes there have been fraudulent clicks on the ads. When that happens, the webmaster loses any accumulated earnings. You should also never encourage friends and family to click on Google Adsense on your sites because they watch for patterns of clicks.

Amazon
Until Google Adsense came along, Amazon.com was probably the most popular affiliate with webmasters and with good reason. They offer a wide range of goods now: books, DVDs, videos, electronics, home and garden products, etc. This allows you to choose products that directly relate to your site. Obviously, if you have a site on gardening, you pick books on the subject. You can also choose advertisements from their large range of gardening products. You will find which type of ad works best on your site. In my experience, using the 'Product Links' works best for my sites. This allows you to search for products by a keyword or phrase and then you choose the one you want from a list. Take a look at the books ads in the left hand column of the page which are examples this type of ad. There are also 'Recommended Products'. Again you use a keyword or phrase and you choose the size of the ad which displays a list of products. Amazon also has search boxes, text links and generic company ads. Text links can be very useful. You can use them on relevant words in articles on your page.

Don't confine your affiliate advertising to just Amazon.com unless yours is a subject only likely to be of interest to Americans. People in the rest of the world spend money online and there is no reason why they shouldn't use your affiliate ads to do so. Amazon now has companies in many other countries - go to any of the Amazon sites for a list. Unfortunately, you have to join them all separately and they all pay separately so you have to earn the minimum amount for payment with each one before you get a cheque or direct bank payment.

Allposters
Another popular affiliate type is posters. Many of these pay 20% commission or more so they are profitable if you can sell them on your site. Don't automatically discount posters as not being suitable for your topic. The best companies have a huge selection of posters covering an enormous range of subjects and they usually have a good search facility to find what you want. There is an added benefit because they can provide relevant illustrations for articles AND a monetising opportunity at the same time. I regularly receive some income from Allposters.com even though I don't sell a huge number. With Allposters.com when your site visitors click on your links and buy something, you earn 25%-30% of the sale

Advertising Companies
Google Adsense, Amazon and Allposters deal directly with affiliates and, because most people with well-established websites can earn enough from them to get regular payments, this works well. Some companies, though, do not deal directly affiliates but use a third party company as intermediary. Example of these are Commission Junction and Linkshare.

The advantage of these intermediaries for webmasters is that you can find a large number and variety of advertisers on a single site. Commission Junction has the added advantage that they combine all commission earned from all the advertisers so making it more likely that payment will be made. In contrast, Linkshare doesn't pay affiliates but leaves it to the individual companies to do so. As, usually, Linkshare advertisers implement a minimum payment policy, if a webmaster has several small payments spread over a number of companies, it can take an awful long time before the minimum is reached for each individual one. Of course, if you have a site called Widgets for Everybody and sell Teach Yourself Widgets from a Linkshare company, you might quickly reach the minimum and so would encounter no problems. Click here to become a LinkShare Affiliate!

There are thousands of affiliate advertising programs. Some are not worth joining and some will be hugely profitable. The majority of good affiliate companies will fall somewhere in the middle. Use the search engines to find affiliates relevant to the topic of your website, if they don't work, try them in different positions and on different pages. If they still don't earn you any money, ditch them. Why should you help them with name recognition advertising for nothing? Find out what works on your site. Remember, nobody said earning money from your site would be quick or easy. If you are serious about getting an income from it, spend as much time on your affiliate advertising as you do on the content of the page.

You're ready to go out on the web and find your high paying affiliates and good luck.