Making Money with Affiliate Programs

If you search on the internet for coupon websites you will find many of them out there. How are they making money? By offering the latest coupons and deals from popular stores such as Walmart, Best Buy, Etoys and many others.

First, if you have not already joined an affiliate network, you should check out popular ones such as CJ, Linkshare, ShareaSale and Google Connectcommerce.com. There are many others and one of my future articles will list the most popular ones and some not so well known. However, these four should give one a good start.

Next, start thinking about your niche. Who are the people that visit your website? Dig into your stats and find what keywords people are finding your site with. Then do some product research and find affiliate programs to join. Many stores let you display particular products.

There are many more keys to success then just these 7, but here are my top ideas:

1.       Display products relevant to your visitors. Be as specific as possible and use more product ads as opposed to general store ads. An ad with a deal for an HP laptop is more likely to get clicks then a general ad for Best Buy for example.

2.       Offer the latest Coupons and Deals. It is important to note that many affiliate programs offer special deals and coupons all the time. Take advantage of

3.       Testing, testing, and testing. If an ad is not getting clicks or conversion, find another. You should always be testing and see what works and what does not.

4.       If you write a blog, try to offer affiliate products specific to your article. I can do well with Amazon on one of my content sites by offering books and products on the specific topic I am writing about.

5.       If you have a particular affiliate product that is doing extremely well, don’t be afraid of calling your affiliate manager, or the affiliate program itself and asking for an increase in your commission.  

6.       Write product reviews and link to the product with your affiliate link.

7.       Create How To articles. These are extremely popular. Many people want to know how to make something themselves.  If you write recipe articles link to a cooking book. Or if you have a craft site and are writing an article on creating Valentine gifts, link to the appropriate product on Oriental Trading with your affiliate link for example. 

Once you get a handle on affiliate program you may want to take things to the next level. What would you do if you could direct a person to a part of your website that lists the latest Coupon and Deals from many of the popular stores on the Internet? What if you could automate this?

I recently found a company, OWS Software, that sells a website script where you can create stores and display your latest deals and coupons. I have been playing around with the software and did not want to talk about it until I was satisfied it works. Here is an example of one such coupon store…..

With this software your readers and visitors are able to find deals and coupons listed by category, and by store. You latest deals are featured on the main page where your coupon store is located. You have a choice of updating this manually or purchasing their service they will update deals on a daily basis from popular affiliate programs on CJ, Linkshare, Shareasale and Googles Connect Commerce.  Even should you buy their datafeed service, you can add your own stores , coupons or deals. OWS Software can be a nice addition to a website. You can find out more about this coupon script here…..

To sum things up, relevance and knowing what your readers are looking for are a key to success. In this economy people are looking for deals, it is important to take advantage of the coupons and deals your affiliates are offering to help entice and help your readers…