Commonly known as Affiliate Marketing, the business of selling other people's products is rapidly becoming more and more popular among individuals who seek to operate their own business without the accompanying hassles of inventory management, shipping and collections. All they have to do is introduce the product and generate product sales and someone else will handle all incoming orders, shipping and customer service.

Online this can be done very easily. All that is required of you is to set up a website recommending the product and directing your visitors to the product website. If your referral purchases the product, you receive a commission. Many affiliate programs store cookies (information on your referral's computer) up to a certain number of days which means that even if your referral does not make a purchase immediately, you will still be credited with the sale of the product if they do return to the website at a later date to make a purchase. This also means that if your referral goes back to the website to buy another product from the merchant, you will also be credited with the sale of the second product.

If you already have a website that receives a fair amount of traffic, affiliate marketing could be a business opportunity that you can capitalise on to make some extra cash off your website. A majority of internet businesses either sponsor their own affiliate marketing program or use a separate company to host their affiliate program for them. You, as a website owner, can register to become an affiliate. Although some companies will want to take a look at your site before approving your participation, others will automatically accept you as an affiliate partner.

Once approved, you can begin to promote their products. You will receive a code that identifies your website and tracks any visitors from your site that goes to the merchant's site and places an order. In return for advertising the company's product on your site, you receive a commission on any sales generated from your site. Typically, the ads you place on your website are available as plaint text ads or graphics and are generated by the company or their affiliate marketing hosting service. These text-links and banners contain the tracking code that identifies the customer as having come from your website. So long as the code is identified as yours, the company will know who to credit for the sale.

You can sign up with companies that compliment the topic of your webpage as well as any other topic you might choose. If you sell products or services on your site, it is not advisable to host affiliate ads for companies in which you are competing against. It is also recommended that you change the ads frequently as many companies offer different products or services during different times of the year or for holidays. By keeping your advertisements fresh and in season, you have a better chance of making additional sales for the company and earning more money.

A couple of points to take note of when marketing other people products on your website:

1. Most affiliate links that you receive are written and coded to take your visitor straight from your website to the merchant's website - directing the visitor away from your website. That means if they close the merchant's webpage, they will go back to their default home page. If you modify the code slightly to give the instruction to open the merchant's webpage in a new window, your visitor can return to your website when they are done with the merchant's website. This gives you another opportunity to direct your visitor to another one of your affiliates.

2. Choose your affiliates carefully. If you have family-oriented website, you will want to make sure that none of the ads you place on your site will direct your visitors to sites designed for mature audiences only. Additionally, you should frequently verify that the links you have on your website actually go to the merchant site with which you are affiliated. Company names online can be sold and links altered. You may find your links no longer valid or that your links now point to merchandise that may not meet your family-only criteria.