Affiliate as a term or word means partner, associate, to join,
or to connect. In Internet lingo to become an online affiliate
means to join a company as part of their sales force. You sell
their products for a commission; in order to promote your
success, the company will give you all the possible support that
you might need. This includes a free website, tools for
designing your website, marketing tools, and often even free
advertising space. This translates into an opportunity to earn
money with an online business where you have not invested one
dime.
How does this work?
In simple terms when you become an online affiliate, you
actually take up the job to sell the product or products of that
company. However, the virtual world is quite different from the
real world and selling products via the Internet is not the same
as selling products door to door. Selling through the Internet
involves having some sort of magnetism that pulls people with
affinity for the product to visit the company's website. A
certain percentage of these people who visit the website end up
making a purchase and with every completed sale you earn a
commission.
Therefore, in order to earn a decent income, you as an online
affiliate need to work hard to channel targeted traffic to the
company's website (the website that they hosted for you free of
cost). The task of routing people who are interested in the
product to the website in the hope that they buy the product is
what online affiliate is all about. This routing is done with
the help of banners, buttons, hyperlinks, advertisements, etc.
As a beginner in the world of affiliate marketing you could
make a decent income by using sale letters and newsletters.
However, if you want a serious income which would encourage you
quit your 9 to 5 job, you would need a website; a well-designed,
user friendly website. Though most large affiliate programs
would offer you a free website complete with customizable
templates and all, you would still need to have some basic idea
about it before taking the plunge. As an online affiliate you
might not be required to invest a penny, but you would need to
put in a lot of effort. What you gain in finances, you need to
compensate with the effort that is needed to be invested in the
venture.
As an online affiliate your main role would be to get people
who are interested in what your company is selling to the
website. It is important that you are able to filter only those
people who show interest in the product and not everybody who is
on the Net. This is achieved with the help of advertisements,
banners and buttons on websites where content pertaining to your
products is displayed.
For example, if you are on a website that describes cats,
placing an ad regarding cat food (your product for the sake of
this example) is a good idea because those people who love their
cats would be interested to see what you have to offer as cat
food for their pets. As people buy the product you advertised
for, the company sends you a check with your commission. In
order to optimize your earning as an online affiliate, you need
to constantly upgrade and promote your (free) website so it
would attract targeted traffic.
