Affiliate marketing presents a good opportunity for people to earn money without having to spend a lot. However there will be a time investment required so do not expect to make money without doing any work as you will need to apply a consistent effort in order to succeed long term. The first step is to find good affiliate products to promote, it is important to be very picky about the kinds of products you want to promote. Make sure that the company is reputable and has a good track record of paying out affiliates fairly and on time.

Take advantage of affiliate networks:

Affiliate networks can be a great place to find products to promote. Clickbank is one of the best digital affiliate networks online and they focus on selling products like ebooks and software programs. Certain niches work a lot better than others so be sure to promote products from different niches and focus on those that are doing well. You need to be selective about which Clickbank products you want to sell as not all are profitable. The first thing to look at is the gravity of the product as this will tell you how many affiliates are selling the product right now. You want to promote products that have a gravity of at least 10 or more.

The next thing to look at is the sales page. Does it look convincing and professional and likely to covert at a high rate. The ideal is to buy the product yourself to determine how good it really is before you spend time and money promoting it. Once you have selected a few products then you will need to create a landing page for each one to send traffic to. If you already have a site that gets lots of traffic then all you need to do is add links strategically and banners in the right places to send traffic to the affiliate pages. If you do not have your own site then consider registering a domain and creating review style pages or just creating a general content site with ads in the sides and such.

Consider CPA networks:

CPA networks can be very good since they allow you to make money without having to sell anything. However you will need to make sure that you create good sites otherwise you might get rejected from the programs. There are many CPA networks out there like Commission Junction where you can find good programs to participate in. If you do not have a site then you need to probably learn how to create at least one. You have many options and more than likely you will need to learn a little programming and scripting to get started. Be creative and come up with original ideas for your site that make it stand out from the rest. Create sites that people will want to bookmark and return to frequently.

Also learn search engine optimization as it can be useful to help get that initial traffic to your websites. You can create a forum based site, there are many useful forum applications that you can install for free or for a reasonable charge. If you are an expert at a certain topic then you can create tutorial or informational sites on those topics, focus on quality content and keep the site up to date. Affiliate marketing can be a great opportunity to help you make above average income working from the comfort of your own home.