Introduction

The affiliate program is a great way to get extra traffic to your web site, and gain search engine rankings.

Background

According to Wikipedia:

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Affiliate Marketing is a popular method of promoting web businesses in which an affiliate is rewarded for every customer provided through his efforts. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying finder's-fees for the introduction of new clients to a business. Compensation is based on a commission for each sale (Pay per Sale).

The most attractive aspect of affiliate marketing, from the merchant's viewpoint, is that with this pay for performance model, no payment is due to an affiliate until results are realized.

The affiliate program is a function of your web site which allows you to accept customer referrals from other web sites.  In return, you pay a commission to the referring web site whenever you make a sale through one of their links.

How It Works

The manager of another web site signs up through your affiliate link, which is a separate account from their shopper or sub-wholesaler account.

The link to sign up for, or log in to, an affiliate account on your web site.

The link to sign up for, or sign in to, a shopper or sub-wholesaler account on your web site.

You can change the names of these links, or hide them, by using the Navigation Bar tool in your site manager.

Once your potential affiliate has signed up through your affiliate program, your web site will notify you through an e-mail that someone has signed up.  Before you approve this person as an affiliate, you should evaluate them and decide whether or not you would like to do business with them.

There are several factors to consider, including:

·         Do they submit to search engines?  The higher the rank of a web site that points links to your web site, the more that helps your own search engine rankings.

·         Is their product a direct competition for yours?  They may expect you to point an affiliate link back to them (which can help their search engine rankings in return).

·         Does their product line complement yours?  Search engines like to see web sites of corresponding content pointing to each other.

Is the person or company easy to communicate with?  You need to come to clear understandings before making an agreement.

At first, you must pursue affiliates.  They probably will not come to you.  There are several types of companies to consider approaching.

·         Local businesses.  When you can meet someone face-to-face, you can make a much bigger impression, and gain several other business opportunities.

·         Companies you find through search engines.  The higher ranked your affiliates are, the more that helps your search engine ranking.  Look for web sites that already have affiliates, and who’s products are complementary to yours.

·         Customers.  Offer them their affiliate commission as credit against future purchases rather than as cash.  Even if their web sites do not sell products, their hobby web sites can be a great place for an affiliate link.

Sub wholesalers.  These people are already looking to earn commission through you.  If they have a web site, blog, or any web presence, encourage them to create an affiliate account and link to you.

Decide on how much commission you want to pay your affiliates.  Some of them will have expectations, and you will need to decide if they are reasonable.

·         Affiliates should earn less percentage per sale than sub wholesalers.  Sub wholesalers work much harder for each sale.  You want to encourage your sub wholesaler to earn both sales commission and affiliate commission.

·         Have a scheduled sliding scale of commission so that your affiliate earns more after they reach certain milestones.  e.g., another 1% each at $500, at $1,000, and at $5,000.

·         Compare the commission amount with how much you can afford to pay.  Remember, you wouldn’t be paying this commission unless you were earning money in the first place, so you aren’t hurting yourself by giving a decent commission, but run a few sample sales and calculate how much profit you make before you agree on a commission amount.