May 11 2008
Affiliate Marketing offers a wide variety of opportunities to publishers
Affiliate Marketing is the relationship between website owners and merchants whereby the merchant offers the website owner (affiliate) a commission fee structure for linking to his/her merchant site to offer goods or services for sale. Affiliates publish websites so they are also known as Publishers and merchants advertise on affiliate sites, so they are also called Advertisers. ( read the wikipedia defination of affililate marketing ).
Affiliate programs can be used in conjunction with blogs, websites and social media networks. A few years ago there were only a few well known affiliate programs, but very rapidly larger “networks ” emerged which combined merchants and affiliates within one site. For merchants, the networks have provided an affordable solution to having an affiliate program, while affiliates like the convenience of having a large database of merchants to choose from. Networks have been a natural evolution within the industry. Many thousands of networks exist at all levels today, and they are not difficult to find. A few excellent affiliate networks can be found at this link .
In the beginning many new desktop money makers realized the potential to make money from home with this new and exciting industry, and the fact that affiliate programs are completely free to affiliates made it even more inviting (merchants must pay a fee to belong and to have their programs managed). Millions of affiliate produced websites have leaped into the fray and in fact actually compete with major shopping retailer sites on the popular search engines. This process still goes on today, and the competition is stiff to say the least. Since it’s humble beginnings back in the mid 90s, affiliate marketing has grown into a 7 billion dollar industry online (that is a conservative figure).
Affiliates have become more and more technically advanced over the years and so have the networks. The most popular networks offer more tools and ease of use, while some that are not as competitive are still just offering links and banners to affiliates. Needless to say that most affiliates look for the networks that are able to recruit the best merchants as well as to provide the best tools to allow more sales. One of the best in the business today is Shareasale. This network is one of the leaders in innovation and tools for affiliates, as well as being affordable to merchants. They have won quite a number of awards within the industry for excellence in practice. There is more about this at this Squidoo Lens about them.
If you are a blog owner and have some established traffic within the niche market you work in, then there will certainly be a good affiliate program for you. Also, if you have published a website on a specific subject, there will be an affiliate program you can link to contextually that will allow you to monetize your site. What is happening in today’s high tech web 2.0 market is that now just about everyone is able to participate in revenue sharing of one form or another, and all of this has evolved from the original model of affiliate marketing. It has taken on a life of it’s own on the internet.
With the proliferation of more and more websites, blogs and social communities with affiliate applications, there has emerged necessary controls within the industry to prevent spam. If fact, today the biggest player Google makes it clear that if you are an affiliate publisher, your sites must have unique value and high quality presentation or they may not be included within their index. This was not the case in the early years, but certainly is true today.
The industry is like any other. There are good guys and bad guys, referred to in the business as White Hat and Black Hat. Some standards have emerged and the industry even has it’s own twice yearly seminars called Affiliate Summits. These are always sold out and are very popular events. Read more about the summits at the Affiliate Summit website.
Affiliate marketing is a wonderful opportunity for people from all walks of life, and in this blog I intend to explore the many facets of the entire business. Affiliate include IT professionals, real estate agents, coin collectors, web designers, gardeners, mechanics, writers, journalists, laborers and everyone in between. The business allows ordinary and extraordinary people from every part of society to have the vehicle to earn revenue from their unique content and experience. In the business we call it “publishing your passion”, and just about everyone has a passion.
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