Affiliate Programs

Okay, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Something you probably won’t find anywhere else. None of the “Guru’s” will tell you this. You won’t see it in any magazine. This is a closely guarded secret by the affiliate marketing community.  In fact, I’ll probably be targeted just for telling you this, but your my readers and I have a responsibility to you. Should I suddenly stop posting one day, you can imagine what’s happened to me.

Well, if you didn’t catch it, the previous paragraph had just a wee bit of sarcasm in it.

One question many beginning affiliate marketers want to know is “Which affiliate program is the best“. Well, that question can not be answered because “the best” affiliate marketing program depends on what you’re selling. Not all programs will fit you or your website.

One day last month I was sitting here at my desk looking over several checks from different affiliate programs. It suddenly became apparent why I was actually making money with affiliate marketing, I was diversified!

Once I stopped to think about it, I’ve never had a site monetized with just one program that was also profitable. I know there may be a few webmasters who make a lot of money with just one program…for example Adsense…but I’m willing to be the average Joe Webmaster has several programs going and gets the bulk of their money by several checks a month.

Sure, you here of MFA (made for Adsense) sites making their owners a lot of money. (which is prohibited by Adsense TOS – ummm…making a site just for adsense, not the part about making a lot of money) But I’d also bet you that those sites could make more by integrating another affiliate program or two.

Let’s take one of my favorite sites that is monetized with Adsense. That site would be Ask The Builder.com (no, it’s not MY site but one I visit regularly) This site rakes it in with Adsense, but if you’ll also notice, he has several other affiliate programs plus he sells his own eBooks on that site. This is maximizing his profits! (to the tune of about 500k per year)

You can never guess what surfers to your site will want to click on. I’ve used Crazy Egg’s webiste to track some of my successful web pages and I’m still amazed at what, and where, people will click. Don’t try to out guess the visitors to your website, integrate several affiliate programs to maximize your profits!

It goes without saying, your affiliate programs should be relevant to the content on your site.  Also, don’t fill up every white space with a freakin’ add! On average, I may use 3 or 4 programs per website as long as they are relevant to my content.

If you’re only trying to make it with one affiliate program, try adding a few other programs into the mix, perhaps some CPA ads. I’ll bet you’ll see an increase over running just one program.

Oh, by the way, if you didn’t get it, the secret to making money with affiliate marketing IS diversity IMHO!