Affiliate programs are a great way to make a residual income. They allow you to take part in an established system that has already been tested and built up. All that is left to do is take control and build a down line. Combine an affiliate program with sound marketing equals a great way to make residual income.

Affiliate programs are often misunderstood. Originally the idea of building a down line and making a residual income off recruiting people was called a pyramid scheme. These pyramid schemes didn't work because they relied solely on recruiting and not at all on selling. The basic idea behind them, though, was which resulted in the birth of the affiliate program. An affiliate program is more than building a down line of people. It includes selling real and useful products. Affiliate programs work because a person not only earns money through their down line but also through product sales.

These programs are also very easy to get started in and most are completely free with no costs to get started. Most programs offer a website and plenty of help and advice on how to get the business going. A person gets help from the people in their up line, too. The biggest challenge, though, is marketing. No matter how much help a person gets, they still have to learn the art of marketing on their own. Nobody can really teach someone how to be a successful marketer; they just have to learn it on their own.

Marketing involves learning how to use the tools provided by the program to get customers and sign others up for the opportunity. The affiliate program

will provide a person with written ads and a personal website. The website is the central hub of all the marketing efforts. The main goal should be to get people to visit the website. Once there they will be able to buy products and sign up to be an affiliate. The hard part is not getting people to buy or sign up, but to get them to the website in the first place.

A person has to take the ads and other marketing tools and place them where people will see them. One of the biggest marketing platforms is search engines. Most affiliate websites are quite, but with a little work a person can optimize it to make it rank high on the search engines. A good way to get started is to add a blog to the website and write entries everyday. These entries should be keyword rich and informative. Search engines like articles or blog entries and will assign the site a higher ranking if they have them. Another way to go is to place links and ads on other websites. A person should choose websites that compliment the affiliate program, but that are not in competition with their program. By using these marketing methods a person should be able to get a good start in marketing.

Affiliate programs and good marketing efforts can really help to get a good start in residual income. Building this type of program will take some time, but it is well worth it for the residual income that can be produced.