How you make big money as an affiliate

Some affiliates make huge profits - we're talking millions of dollars in a year. It's a fact. People don't know this. Affiliate marketing is a new line of business, and it has great unexploited potential.

"In the poker niche, some poker sites pay you $300 for each player you recruit. Mortgage institutions may pay $75 for every lead, that is, your visitor doesn't even have to take a loan for you to get paid."

Gigantic marketplace at your reach

The internet as a marketplace is huge, and still it lies waiting in your computer. If you can reach just a tiny fraction of the world's web visitors, you may see life-changing money rolling into your affiliate account.

Amazing but true!
No automatic success

Now, don't quit your day job! Not every affiliate business is successful. Making a lot of money is never easy, plenty of hard work is required. Persistency, ambition, maybe a certain talent. Good ideas will help.

But people live from their affiliate businesses, and some affiliates are extremely successful. The people behind this site have been extremely successful. In this article we'll show you how to make your affiliate business boom.
How it works

Starting up an affiliate business is very easy:

* Build a site, if you don't already have one.
* Sign up with a few profitable affiliate programs that are related to your site.
* Link to the affiliate programs from your site using your personal tracking links.
* Generate traffic to your site
* Make your visitors want to buy the products of the affiliate programs.

That's it. If you can do this, your visitors will click on the links and purchase products from the affiliate programs - and the commission goes right into your affiliate account.
How to find the best affiliate programs

Joining affiliate programs is cost-free, and you can use our site to find the programs that are best for your business. We provide you with updated lists of the top affiliate programs in each niche, with their respective advantages.

Categories of affiliate programs are listed in the column to the right. Read our reviews and join the programs that you like. If you already have a site, make sure you choose a niche that fits your site.


Success factors for affiliates

* Find a profitable niche, or
* Find a niche with easy competition
* Find a niche that you like
* Create great content
* Learn more at AffiliateTips.com
* Put in the hours

The most profitable affiliate markets

According to our experience, the biggest paychecks are delivered to affiliates in the following affiliate markets:

* Poker
* Mortgage
* Education

In the poker niche, some poker sites pay you $300 CPA for each player you recruit. Mortgage institutions may pay $75 for every lead, that is, your visitor doesn't even have to take a loan for you to get paid.

Merchants in these areas early realized the gain in paying others to do their marketing. Very high commissions have attracted lots of affiliates, and they have been very successful.

Sounds tempting? Check out our toplists and reviews in the poker, mortgage and education segments!
Tough competition in lucrative niches

If you don't have a site, you need to decide which niche to work in. Choosing a niche involves several questions, such as which niche offers the biggest potential profits and which area you're genuinely interested in.

Some affiliate markets turn over really big money, while others are much smaller. Making big money in a small niche isn't a given, of course. On the other hand, very lucrative niches come with very hard competition.

Finding the most profitable niche might require pretty deep considerations. Some successful affiliates did put huge efforts into this analysis before even starting up (or buying) their site.

Again, if you plan to start up small or if you already have a site, finding good affiliate programs is easy using our toplists and reviews.
What makes you tick?

Don't close your eyes to the importance of personal motivation. When the workload is huge and success comes in very small chunks, working in an area that you care for makes a difference. For most of us, love of money isn't the prime mover.

It's easier to promote things that you like.
Primary success factors - things you must do
Build a good site

Your site is your tool. When a person enters a site, you have only a couple of seconds to catch her. The site must be well organized and have the right look and feel in order to make visitors stay and take action.

Make sure that your site leads the visitors to the Buy button without hassle. Invite them to take action (such as making a purchase), and don't let them off the hook once you have their interest. This is called conversion.

Taking action must be easy!
Create great content

Good looks aren't enough. For your site to generate income, it needs to accomplish two things:

* Attract a lot of visitors (traffic)
* Make visitors purchase (conversion)

This is primarily done by filling your site with really good content and good usability. It should be relevant for the visitors, and it should encourage them to purchase from your merchants (marketing).
Search engine optimization

If you have chosen to attract mainly organic traffic, that is, through the search engines, the content also needs to be search engine optimized (SEO).
Rule the net with good SEO copy

Search engines pay more and more attention to text quality. Relevant and well-written text doesn't only wins your readers' heart, it helps you rank in Google and drives traffic to your site.

Write for your readers - and for Google. It's called SEO copy.
Advertise and build traffic

Another way of attracting traffic is by paid ads and links. The main arena for this is called PPC (pay per click). You place an ad on another site and pays a small amount each time a visitor clicks on your ad.

The biggest PPC market for affiliates today is Google Adwords. You decide how much you're willing to pay for each click and set a cap for your total spending - so there's no risk for cost explosions. Some web hosts give away free Adwords checks when you place your site with them.

Notice that affiliate programs often limit where and how you're allowed to advertise their products - they don't want you to interfere with their own advertising.
Buying a site vs starting from scratch

For private persons and small businesses, the easiest and least expensive way to start a new affiliate business is to set up a new domain and build a site from scratch. It requires time and effort, but your capital investment can be close to zero.

If you have some resources and want things to happen fast, consider buying an existing site. Old sites may have a built-in credential with the search engines (page rank), and they may even have some traffic already. With the right actions, you can get an old site up in speed very fast.
Give luck a chance

So, that's the short version of how to make big money as an affiliate. Successful affiliates can lead very nice lives, with lots of personal freedom and job satisfaction. Anyone with internet access can try their luck as an affiliate, but of course success is never certain.

One thing is certain though: you cannot succeed if you don't try.

Trying is easy, and it costs almost nothing. If you try and fail, what's the worst that can happen? This list shows the consequences of the worst case scenario:

* Nothing happens

As you can see, this is pretty much the same as if you don't try =)
Top five affiliate programs

If you've decided to give it a go, why not check out the top five money-generating affiliate programs all categories? Maybe one of them is the starting point of your new career.

1. Full Tilt Poker - Super-strong brand with really great payouts
2. Poker Stars - Promote the best online poker site
3. Word Tracker - Top keyword software for affiliates
4. Webhosting Buzz - Fast growing business with unbeatable commissions
5. Text Link Ads - Really hot software for anyone with a website