Hidden Danger in Affiliate Marketing

by Kathy

Everywhere you look you can read about the joys of affiliate marketing.  An affiliate program allows you to make money on the internet by recommending products and services of reputable businesses.   A great way to get the traffic you need to make money is to launch a blog.

Blogs are an essential marketing tool in your affiliate marketing toolbox.  Affiliate marketing program are definitely a cornerstone of any plan to make money on the internet.

Affiliate marketing has played a big role in my online business.  Over 8 years ago, I signed up for my first affiliate marketing program.  I chose a domain name registration service that I used in my business and one that I recommend to my clients.

At the time, that domain name registration was known as Its Your Domain.  It didn’t take long for me to “graduate” from an affiliate to a reseller.

An affiliate makes a small commission based on the sale.  In this case, at IYD, resellers were able to set prices and set DNS settings by default for domain names registered through the reseller site.

To be honest, when I first signed up as a reseller, I was more interested in the ability to set the DNS than the money.  With the IYD program,  when my clients would register their domain names, I wouldn’t have to worry about securing access to their domain name registration account which was ALWAYS a chore.  They simply registered their domain name and we were off and running.

However, somewhere along the way, the money from the affiliate marketing program started to grow.

Turns out domain name registration is a great affiliate marketing program to get into, especially if you’re a web developer.  Every client registers a domain name and has to renew the domain name annually.  That means it’s an affiliate marketing program with recurring commissions.  No wonder my commission checks continued to grow over the years.  Checks that were originally sent every three months or so (because the minimum payout threshold was $50) started to arrive monthly.  After a few more years, the checks started to not only arrive monthly but also be enough to make a difference in a bottom line.

I have to confess, the domain name affiliate checks make up a large portion of my “passive” online income.

A while back, Tucows purchased IYD.  I worried at the time for fear that Tucows wouldn’t care about me as a reseller.  After all, I was a BIG fish in the IYD pond and Tucows was a much bigger fish.

This month, my worst fears finally became reality.  Tucows has announced their new reseller program.  Gone are the “word wizard” domain name search function that not only my clients but my random site visitors used to find domain names that contained essential keyword combinations.  Gone is the Domain Twist that allowed you to add a geograhic location to a domain name and check availability.  Gone are all the tools that made me so much money over so many years.

Over the past year, I’ve been transitioning from making money by being an affiliate marketing affiliate to making money by offering products for sale via affiliate marketing.  I still think it’s a GREAT way to make money online - and as for my affiliates, I’ll be sure to keep their financial health in mind as I develop my programs - something Tucows has NOT done with their program.

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How to Make Money on the Internet with Affiliate Programs

by Kathy

One great way to make money on the internet is with affiliate programs.  An affiliate program allows you to make money on the internet by recommending products and services of reputable businesses.  In essence, you are paid a COMMISSION for every sale you generate.

There are a lot of gurus who are telling you that it’s easy to make money with blogs.  Blogs are just another tool in your internet marketing toolbox.  They are definitely a great tool if you know the basics of how to make money on the internet.

At this point in the “How to Make Money on the Internet with Affiliate Programs” spiel, you might expect me to tell you how EASY it is to make money on the internet.

Buy my 8 Week Power Blog Launch Program and by the end of the 8th week, you’ll be making tens of thousands of dollars while watching your favorite television shows 8 hours a day.

Sorry.  It doesn’t work that way.  Anyone who tells you it is, doesn’t deserve your trust.

THE NAKED TRUTH: affiliate marketing is NOT as easy as simply inserting a link in a web page and sitting back, waiting for the checks to roll in.

As an affiliate marketing partner, you are signing up to be a SALES PERSON for that company’s products and services.   You are essentially signing up to be a sales person who is paid what is known in the sales trade as “straight commission”.  You sell, you get paid.  You don’t sell, you starve.

It’s that simple.

So when you sign up with an affiliate program, you are signing up to become a commissioned sales person.

Think of the last time you purchased a car.  You probably visited several car dealerships in your search and you probably spoke with several sales people.  Think about the sales people who “turned you off”.  Now, think about the one you used to buy your car.  Chances are, the car sales people who “turned you off” were the ones you didn’t feel like you could “trust”.  If you couldn’t find one you actually trusted, you at least found one who didn’t make your skin crawl.

Trust is a HUGE part of making sales - including affiliate sales.  Don’t believe me?  Naomi Dunford cites trust as the PRIMARY reason she’s made almost $200K this year.  Watch her video at “Why We’re Broke and How To Fix It“.  In the video, she talks about the importance of building trust.  She tells how when she recommends a product to her readers, they can trust her and they buy.

By the way, the only reason I’m recommending you trust Naomi is I’ve been reading her blog for almost a year now.  She’s the real deal.

Blogs are a GREAT way to build trust.   It’s hard to fake who you are over the course of a hundred blog posts.

Over the past year, I’ve been a loyal reader of Court’s Internet Marketing School.  When Court recommended Wordze as a keyword analysis tool he uses, I signed up.    I LOVE it and have been subscribed to it for 6 months now.  When Court announced his new Keyword Project, I was there in an instant!   I even signed up with my MAIN email account for the first course in his series.  THAT IS A LEVEL OF TRUST FEW PEOPLE ACHIEVE WITHOUT A FACE TO FACE MEETING!

Court, Mark and Monika, over the course of hundreds of blog posts - have earned my complete and undying trust.

Trust runs both ways in affiliate marketing.  Your readers need to TRUST you to click on the links and buy the products and services you recommend.  You also need to TRUST the companies for whom you promote their products and services.  (Read Affiliate Commissions - Don’t Get Screwed!“)

By the way, Cath Lawson is another blogger who has made affiliate income from me repeatedly.  I’m a loyal reader of her blog and when she recommends a product - I almost always am sure to check it out AND often her recommendation is the REASON I’ll sign up or buy.

That’s how affiliate marketing works.

Note:  In my recent “How to Make Money Online and It’s Not in the MMO Niche” I write:

In other words, the real way to MMO (make money online) is to take the “simple” route of choosing a tightly targeted niche and then creating a blog with information people want to read.

Remember, I said it was simple, I didn’t say it was EASY!

Affiliate programs can provide a nice stream of income.  If you’ve got a lot of traffic to your site, you can make nice money by talking about products and services you personally recomment.

If you’re looking for affiliate products to promote, start with E-Junkie.  HTML clipboard  Browse the marketplace and find products and services that appeal to you.

Then, check out what the affiliate payout is.  Some products offer a paltry 2% commission.  (The 8 Week Power Blog Launch offers a hefty 50% affiliate commission!)

Finally, the absolute BEST way to promote a product or service is to write a review.  I know, it means actually taking a risk and purchasing the product or service.  TRUST ME - IT’S WORTH IT!

In the case of the 8 Week Power Blog Launch, a blogger purchased the program, read it and loved it.  The blogger then signed up as an affiliate and turned around and sold 10 copies of the program.  The blogger paid $77 for the course - and then made $385.00 ($77 X 50% = $38.50 per sale) with a single blog post.

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