Many debates go on about the best affiliate marketing programs and no real winners are found so perhaps it is just best to stick with regular websites.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to sell other peoples products etc., while earning a commission. Of course the simplest way is often the best especially for beginners and a single page website can achieve the same results as a multi page site. This is possibly the best way to make money online and the easiest.

So far so good but what about the product(s) you intend to sell? Although it may sound like a chore, failing to read and understand a companies affiliate terms and conditions could cost you a great deal of money. If you want to be paid for generating sales you will do this after all it will be your business. Some programs restrict where they the countries to which payments are made so if you are not on their approved list, you will not get paid.

While some affiliate programs seem to be over generous with their payment structure (70 percent or more) those with less than a fifty percent payout should be avoided unless turnover is high.

The most common place to find information on affiliate marketing and products to sell is Clickbank.com Almost all reputable affiliate programs will allow you to join them at no charge (not even an admin fee) so be very careful handing over money to any company that says you need to pay them a single registration fee. Many programs these days will use Paypal or Clickbank; they are easy to use, have good reputations and do not charge to join and you can expect a high level of service from both. In the early days it is better you do not experiment with other payment gateways until you have gained some experience in affiliate marketing techniques.

When you are new at marketing affiliate products there is a great deal to learn, but take heart as there are a huge number of free resources, ebooks and websites, to help just don’t try to take in too much at once. Many of the free ebooks contain web links to buy products that the author receives an affiliate commission on but you do not have to click on these and it doesn’t mean the information isn’t of any worth. Many resources exist to help people earn an income online, some free and some paid but at the start it is advisable to use those without cost until you have actually earned something. This can benefit you because if the free programs etc. work for you, you are more likely to buy from the supplier at a later date.

For the best exposure of your affiliate marketing campaign, use alternative sources of advertising, do not restrict your efforts to purely online methods.

This type of marketing is about directing traffic to your affiliate website. Just about every affiliate marketer needs to know what advertising methods driving traffic to their site is working so they use tracking techniques and then drop the methods that are not working. There is a huge amount of freedom associated with affiliate marketing and the potential earnings are massive, but this can take many years to build up. Do not spend too much time learning about this because some people become permanent learners, never actually doing anything to ear money.