I'd say most of us share the dream of being able to stay at home and have “The Good Life“. No having to get up and travel to work, no listening to a boss all day, no having to abide by company rules whether you agree with them or not and living with the risk that your job could be there one day and gone the next.



So has the thought of running your own business ever crossed your mind? The thought of doing what you want, when you want and not having to listen to anyone else but yourself. Even better if you could run it from home and not have to travel every day. Then reality hits, running your own business is not as easy as it sounds. All of the costs involved in setting it up, buying products, insurance, hoping that what you've outlaid you'll get back, hoping that your products sell well and the list goes on.

Believe it or not there is a far easier and cheaper way to have your own business with far less hassles. “Affiliate Marketing”. Affiliate marketing is where you advertise someone else's product/s and you get a percentage of the sale price. You can advertise on your own website or just in articles, forums, etc. There are thousands of affiliate programs out there that you can sign up for. So depending on what your business is you can look for affiliate products in your chosen interest.

To give you an example say, like myself, you're a horse lover and have been around horses for a long time. You could have a website dedicated to horses and write or get articles (from article directories) on subjects related to them. You could cover subjects like different breeds, styles of riding, history, tack etc and then have affiliate links to products. If you write an article about dressage you could have a link to a book on dressage, if you write an article on the different types of saddles you could have a link to a an online saddlery store. If your not into writing you could theme your website more around pictures and still use affiliate links.

The ideas behind affiliate marketing are almost limitless. It does pay you to do your home work and research to find out what people are looking for and buying so you can make sure what your advertising is a product in demand. Also you don't have to stick to just one subject, you can write articles, squeeze pages etc on a variety of things if you see that they're selling well.

The beauty of affiliate marketing is that it's free to join affiliate programs (if anyone charges you - run) and so quick to get affiliate links and banners to use. An affiliate link is a url (web address) where you insert your name into it (the affiliate program will show you how -very easy) and display this url. Then when someone clicks on your link the affiliate program recognizes your name and will pay you accordingly if someone purchases the product/s. Banners work the same way but usually use html etc to display a logo/picture etc that you can use (again the affiliate program explains how -very easy). Basically it's just adding your name and copying and pasting text. Most affiliate programs have tracking cookies (memory) that if someone goes back to the affiliate site within so many days (sometimes 30 days, 60, 90 days) you still get the commission for originally sending the customer there.

Affiliate marketing is definitely one of the easiest ways of making money online and has little to no expense except for pay per click advertising if you choose to use it and web hosting if you want a website. Also there are some great guides out there giving you step information on how to affiliate market successfully.

So from paying the odd bill to kissing your boss goodbye, try affiliate marketing,

Thanks,

Elizabeth T