Affiliate programs are programs where the merchants are willing to share the profit of each sale which the affiliate refers to them. The merchants will supply you with the ads or links with your unique ID in it, which you can then place on your blog or website to help you to make money.

There are basically three types of affiliate programs which you can join and they are:

Pay Per Click: You get paid every time someone clicks on one of the ads or links on your site, even though they don’t buy anything. (There are not too many of these around because people were abusing them.)

Pay Per Lead: You get paid every time someone clicks on one of your ads or links, and signs up for something at the merchant’s website. Usually the individual enters their email address, so the merchant can market to them directly.

Pay Per Sale: You get paid every time someone clicks on one of your ads or links and buys something from the merchant’s website.

There are many affiliate programs which you can join to monetize your blog or website. They are free to join and it only takes a few minutes to fill out the form. Some companies will accept you right away, while others may manually approve your application, and this could take a few days.

Companies will ask for information on your website such as the URL, a brief description of the content. They also will require you to fill out your name, and address. A lot of affiliate programs will also ask for the name of your company. Most of these are optional and you can leave them blank, but in some cases they are mandatory for you to fill out. If you come across this, and you don’t have a company, just put in your full name. Usually they accept this.

Affiliate Programs

Amazon is a great affiliate program to join. They make it very easy for you to add their affiliate banners, links or product descriptions.

If you are using Blogger as your blogging platform, then you should definitely sign up with Amazon, because Blogger gives you direct access to Amazon products for you to list in your blog post. All you have to do is add the Amazon Product Finder widget and you are all set to go.

Amazon also has partnered up with other websites like Squidoo and Hubpages to conveniently link to their products from those sites.

With Amazon you can also create up to 100 A-Stores where you can select products from Amazon and display them in your store. You can have your store hosted on your own domain, and hosting, or you just simply link to it from your blog.

The key is to only have a few choice products within each store.

Commission Junction is an affiliate network which helps to easily connect you to many different affiliate programs. It does not matter what market or niche you are in, Commission Junction is sure to have an affiliate program to help you succeed.

The great thing about an affiliate network like this is that you can sign up with as many different programs as you like, but you only get paid by Commission Junction. So instead of receiving 50 small checks, you would only receive 1 big check.

LinkShare and ShareASale are another couple of excellent affiliate networks.

eBay Partner Network is also a great affiliate program to sign up with. They pay you directly with paypal, and their payout is only $25.00 which makes it great for the new affiliate.

And then there’s ClickBank. This is the largest online digital store. They have a huge selection of e-books and the payout it extremely high. Once the e-book or software is created, there are never any more charges for the owner of the product, so they are able to share most of their profits with their affiliates. There are products where the affiliates can earn up to 75% of the profit.

However with ClickBank, you have to watch what you promote. I have purchased a few products from them which just were not what they said they were. A good thing to do is before you give a review of the product; make a purchase to see what it is really about. I highly believe in being able to do your own research online, but in this area, I don’t recommend that you take anyone else’s word for it.

There are many other affiliate programs which you can join. In order to find them, simply do a Google search and you will come across more than you can handle. Another thing which you can do is when you come to a website that you like; look for a link or button that says “Affiliates”. This is where you can sign up for their affiliate program, and start promoting their products.

The most important thing to remember when you sign up with these programs or networks, that you read their terms of services before agreeing to them. Each company or network has its own set of rules which you need to abide by. If you don’t you will be suspended from their program and that is the last thing you want.

So go ahead and sign up with as many programs that you like, see which ones work and which ones don’t work and build relationships with those who you do like.