One of the first things a person needs to know about affiliate programs is the difference between them and a pyramid scheme. These two are very familiar, but there is a key difference. The difference is that with an affiliate program there are products or services being sold while in a pyramid scheme no products or services are sold. The reason these two can be confused is that both involve recruiting others in order to earn income. However, with an affiliate program recruiting is only part of the income. Selling products is another way to earn income and recruiting others is not even mandatory to earning money.

The basic idea of an affiliate program is that it starts with a company that is selling something. This company decides to find people who will sell their products or services for them. The company recruits these people, called affiliates, to sell their products and earn a commission for the products they sell. Usually the company will supply the affiliate with a website and all the tools they need to get started. The affiliate's job then becomes advertising their website and selling the products from their website so they earn a commission.

In addition to selling the products or services, an affiliate is encouraged to get others to sign up for the program. When an affiliate gets others to sign up for the program they then earn money on that affiliates sales. When those new affiliates? sign up people, the original affiliate earns money form them too. It keeps going like that so that a person can earn money on people who sign up many levels beneath them. This is the real money making area of an affiliate program, however, the bottom line is that if nobody sells anything then no money is made. A person cannot earn money simply by signing up people if nobody sells anything.

Affiliate programs are popular because they are easy to get into. Most companies have well established programs that make getting started simple. Additionally, the earning potential is quite huge if a person really puts effort in to sales and recruiting new affiliates. With an affiliate program a person is really in control of how much he or she earns. It is a great idea for someone who is interested in a home business without all the start up work.

The keys to being really successful with an affiliate program are to choose the program carefully and then use it wisely. This means choosing to be part of an affiliate program with good products and a good reputation. It also means selling products and recruiting with equal emphasis. Affiliate programs may be the thing you are looking for when it comes to a home business that is going to be inexpensive to start up and has a very good success potential.