This article is intended to teach you step by step how to get started and more importantly, make money using affiliate marketing. We will teach you how to start a home based affiliate business.

What is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate Marketing is a popular method of promoting web businesses in which you (the affiliate) are rewarded for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through your efforts, much like the practice of paying finder's-fees for the introduction of new clients to a business. Compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit (Pay per click), registrant (Pay per lead), or a commission for each customer or sale (Pay per Sale), or any combination of the three.

Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to make money online because there is little to no scamming or fraud. In fact, many home based affiliate business owners rely on affiliate marketing for their entire income.

The Concept of Affiliate Marketing:

First, let's take a look at the overall concept of Affiliate Marketing. The process starts when a company has a successful product to offer. The company will build a web site and offer that product to the consumer (or internet user). The next hurdle the company has to overcome is getting web traffic to their site. After all, they can have a kick-butt product but if nobody knows about it, they won't make a dime. This is where you, the affiliate marketer, come into play. As an affiliate you will have or build a web site that generates traffic and then "refer" part of that traffic to a partner company. The program works well for both the company selling the product and the affiliate because both parties make money in the process. Each partner helps the other become more successful. For the purpose of this article and the goal of assisting you to make money with Affiliate Programs, we will only be looking at the Cost per Lead (C.P.L.) commission structure. A C.P.L. program is advantageous because you simply need to convince your traffic to provide their information to your partner company.

Cost Per Lead:

A cost per lead affiliate program will pay for each person or "lead" that is referred to your partner's web site. A Lead is any personal information that a visitor submits to a company for the purpose of allowing the company to solicit their product or services. Here is a rough example: Let's say that a company offering yellow sponges makes an average of $40.00 profit from each sale made on their web site. They know, based off of web site statistics and sales, that one in four customers will buy their product or "convert" as it is commonly referred to. They can then offer an affiliate a certain amount of money (we will use $16.00 for our example) for each person they refer to their web site that completes the lead form. So, if an affiliate gets 100 people each month to click on an ad and fill in their information on the company's web site, they would make $1600.00. The company would have made $4,000 from the referrals and it will have only cost them the $1600.00. Again, both the company and the affiliate succeed in with this method because the company has extra sales it would not have had without the affiliate and the affiliate gets paid for a product they do not manage or own

Affiliate Program:

Before we get started with creating your affiliate web site, lets take a quick look at a live affiliate program. This will help us better understand what the visitors to your site will experience and provide you with a further foundation to build your affiliate business. For our example I have chosen MyDollarShop.com because it is one of the more reliable affiliate programs, the affiliate network I use strongly supports the program and the web site relates to the content of this article, making money with your own home business. The MyDollarShop web site allows members to own their own dollar store online. The company even sends you traffic each month so that you are sure to make some money. When you refer a visitor to MyDollarShop site, they are presented with an introduction sales pitch and a simple form. The form requires the visitor to enter: First Name, Last Name and e-mail address. By keeping the form short, they increase the conversion rate from their referrals. After completing the form, they are presented with a thank you page and sent a follow-up confirmation email. Once the visitor completes the process (often requiring confirmation of the e-mail) your job as an affiliate is done. You will be paid a commission for the visitors actions and do not need to concern yourself the visitor. Now that you understand the process that a visitor will go through when they click on an ad using one of your affiliate programs, you will be able to better design your web site to "pipe" your traffic through the ad. Next you will need to create your web site

Create Your Web Site:

Rather than go into to much detail (as the process can be very involved) we will give you a quick summary and ask that you review other articles when you are done with this article.

Decide what content you want to have in your site and then create the site around that content. Keep in mind that 90% of all Internet users are simply looking for more information about a particular topic or product. For our example with the online dollar store, the visitor that will be drawn to your ad and will most likely complete the lead is a visitor that is interested in: dollar stores, home business, online businesses, making money online etc. Your site should be created to provide free information to people looking to make money online. It needs to provides three of the most critical components to make money with affiliate networking: 1 Free Information 2 Related Resources and Affiliate Programs and 3 a reason or a "pre sell" in your content that will encourage the visitor to complete the lead.

Your web site can be as simple as one page with information about online dollar stores or a complex web site designed to provide as much information about the possible interested of your visitors.

Sign up with an Affiliate Network:

You must have your web site built at this stage as most any affiliate network will reject your application if you do not have a completed web site. When your site is built and you are ready to sign up with an affiliate network, simply search for Affiliate Networks using your favorite search engine. In our online dollar shop example, we signed up through Lead Flash (one of the highest paying networks).

Its a very good idea to sign up with multiple affiliate networks so that you can pick and chose from a wider variety of programs you want to host on your site. One of the biggest misconceptions however, is choosing only affiliate programs that have the highest payout per lead. More often then not, you can earn more money from a lower paying commission structure as long as it has a higher conversion rate. Your affiliate contact will assist you with this once you sign up with the affiliate network.