One of the easiest ways to bring in additional money is through affiliate marketing income. Essentially, you can add links from your site to others and when one of your visitors clicks on the link and makes a purchase, you get credit for the sale and receive a commission on the amount. How much commission is agreed upon by you and the store ahead of time. There are different types of affiliate pay scales, including pay per click, pay per lead and pay per sale but the bottom line is that your visitors have to click through your website in order for the commission structure to kick in.

Generally, pay per click is a set amount for every time one of your visitors clicks through to another site and has a sustained visit. Many require a minimum number of seconds on the page to qualify. While pay per impression counts the number of times a stores link is displayed and pays a few cents per thousand. The generally accepted and preferred method of payment is through pay per sale or registration. When one of your visitors signs up for service or makes a purchase you receive a percentage of the amount spent.

If the offering is just for registering, then a set amount per sign up is paid to you. Many times there is a minimum amount that is due before payment is made, which can vary from $10 to $50. When a person becomes an affiliate for another website, they are assigned a tracking number that is used in every link from their site to their affiliate. When a person clicks on that link, a cookie is dropped on the visitors computer to track their future visits.

Each time that visitor visits the online store, the cookie lets the company know to give you credit for any activity, regardless of whether the visitor arrives through your site on a direct location. However, if the person frequently deletes cookies from their computer and accesses the website directly, then you will not receive credit for the sale. If you have an active website that receives a lot of traffic, you can add to your income by adding affiliates to your site.

It is recommended that you offer sites that are related to your site, as visitors to you will be more likely to look at other sites the links are recommending, if they are related to the subject focused on by your site. They already have an interest in what you are offering and the links are simply expanding on that interest. On most business related sites, it is advised to steer away from gambling or adult oriented sites that may be considered inappropriate by many other businesses. Although these sites usually generate a higher commission level, if your visitors are offended by this type of site, they may stop visiting your site all together.