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Affiliate Websites ~ Just scratchin' the surface

by Jeff Workman

Nearly all major merchants today have websites, and thousands upon thousands of small business also have websites promoting their products. Many businesses today spawned from internet businesses, and millions of people are making 6 figure incomes working from home offices selling their products worldwide over the web.

We all know if you have more exposure, then more than likely you'll have more business, which in turn almost always means more profit. So in comes the affiliate publisher.

The affiliate publisher is a guy like me! I signup for an affiliate account with a merchant that will fit my website, if approved that merchant will supply me with scripts or codes which I in turn place on my website, theses scripts are links to their latest offers, homepages, certain categories or whatever that merchant wants promoted.

Now my job is to get my visitors to click on those links and go to the merchant's website, do some shopping and make a purchase. If that visitor makes a purchase by going through my website to the merchant I get paid! You may ask how does the merchant know to pay me? well its simple, the scripts that the merchant created for me contained a piece of code which translates into my account.

Now I'm sure your next question will be - How much can I make on that purchase along with future purchases?, well each merchant offers set commissions, usually a percentage of the sale, but sometimes they will offer a lead price for that customer. Merchant's also allow customers to return a later date, some allow 30 days for the customer to return and they will be able to track that visitor back to me, but some merchant's only offer 1 day returns, some only allow 4 hours, while others may offer 365 days, so you really need to read their terms prior to signing up.

Payments are normally sent out monthly by the merchant or if you belong to companies like Linkshare or Commission Junction, that company will take care of the payments to you. Something else you need to know is that all merchants have payout thresholds, you may have to accrue $5, $10, $25, $100 or whatever amount before you get paid, so again please pay attention to the TOS.

You can find a niche for something you are interested in and create a site and add affiliates to it like EverythingHousehold.com which is designed to bring Recipes, Helpful Tips and Articles. Or another example is my website that is helpful to webmasters that contains affiliate banners and links - JNKWebDesignz.com. Lastly I created a site ShopJNK.com that I can stockpile all of my affiliates at, basically for the convenience of friends and others that know about my merchants but don't want to go searching my sites to find that specific merchant.

About the Author

Jeff Workman operates numerous affiliate websites. With several years of experimenting and implementing in affiliates, web design, and adsense. Experience includes HTML, PHP, MySql, and Photoshop. His latest website is ShopJNK.com where shoppers through the site receive a rebate for shopping.

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