How to Learn Affiliate Marketing Online

Learn affiliate marketing to earn money from your website.

Join affiliate programs in order to earn money from your website or blog. Simply place affiliate ads on your website and make money whenever a visitor clicks on an ad and makes a subsequent purchase. While most affiliate marketers only earn a few dollars of supplemental income a month, some serious and experienced marketers earn full-time salaries. Top affiliate marketers claim to earn "six figure" salaries each year. You do not need any formal training in order to start out as an affiliate. Learn everything you need to know to about successful affiliate marketing through the Internet.

Things You'll Need

• Website or blog

Instructions

1. Learn affiliate marketing basics by visiting affiliate marketing websites such as Affiliate Marketing 101, Affiliate Marketing Basics or Affiliate Marketer Guide. These websites will teach you affiliate marketing terminology, types of compensation, affiliate promotion techniques and methods to increase website traffic.

2. Visit affiliate program directories and review sites, such as Click Quick, Affiliate Scout and All Affiliate Programs. Use these sites to learn about different types of affiliate programs, including pay-per-action, pay-per-lead and pay-per-click. Browse through affiliate programs categories that match your website or blog content. Read reviews to learn about which affiliate programs offer the most profit potential.

3. Learn about specific affiliate programs by visiting the merchant's website and clicking on the "Affiliate" link. This will bring you to a web page that explains how the affiliate program works, percentages you will earn, sign-up requirements and ad specifications.

4. Visit websites with content similar to yours to learn where to place affiliate links on your website. Look for affiliate banner ads located on the top, sides or bottom of web pages. Analyze the ad placement in relation to the website content. Find blog posts labeled as "sponsored content" to learn about affiliate text ad placement. Place your mouse over banner ads and view the affiliate program URL in the left-side of the status bar.

5. Learn affiliate marketing through trial-and-error by signing up as an affiliate and placing ads on your site. Track ad click-through rates and affiliate commissions to learn which affiliate marketing techniques work best for your site. Experiment by changing affiliate programs, affiliate ads and ad placement to find out which methods produce the most success.

Tips & Warnings

• While most affiliate programs require visitors to purchase, some affiliate programs pay affiliates for actions other than a purchase, such as for clicking on an ad or filling out a request form.

References

• Affiliate Marketing 101
• Affiliate Marketing Basics
• Affiliate Marketer Guide
• Rutgers University Libraries: Internet Marketing

Resources

• Click Quick
• Affiliate Scout
• All Affiliate Programs
• University of Delaware: Hackers, Hits and Chats: An E-Commerce and Marketing Dictionary of Terms