If you're one of those people who is either sucked in by the global downturn, or you're tired of your day job, let me suggest a career alternative - Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate Marketing is fast becoming one of the fastest growing careers on the internet. If you're a new comer to the internet, it's a fabulous way of way of making money without producing a product. All you need is a PC and internet connectivity and you're good to go. If you have a laptop, that's even better, you can check on your profits from your home, the beach, anywhere. If you apply yourself you can make thousands, probably millions of dollars as an affiliate. It all depends on you. Some of you're probably wondering" What's Affiliate Marketing all about?

What's Affiliate Marketing all about?

Basically, you sign up with a company  online to promote their products. Once you do that, they then give you the tools to promote their product . You then copy the HTML code on your website and watch the cash roll in. Each time some one clicks on your affiliate link, you get get paid a commission. You could get paid even if the customer fills a form or if the customer downloads a free sample of the product You You can also promote their products on your newsletter, forum. However, if you're promoting the products via website, make sure the products match the subject matter of your website. You don't run a website about Internet Marketing and promote health products on it. You'll definitely lose customers in a hurry if you adapt this strategy.

What to Look For in an affiliate program?

First, make sure the affiliate program is reliable. Check to see whether the company has established a solid presence online and has a trusted affiliate program. If you're an affiliate who wants to be paid on time,this is definitely something you want to consider. Many webmasters have tried affiliate programs that promised so much cash but all they got was lots of tears because the cheques never came as promised.

Next, check the quality of the products that the affiliate product is promoting. The products must definitely be the type that when you see you say to yourself, "yes I definitely like this!" A word of caution though: Don't promote a bad product simply because it pays a high commission. Your image could be scarred for life if you do that and your opinion be comes valueless because readers will not trust anything you say anymore.

The affiliate program must have a solid commission rate for all its products. The question is: what's solid commission rate? well, it depends on who you ask. But the going rate for most solid affiliate programs is 20-25%. some programs also offer as much as 65% commissions, But those are very rare.

Many good programs have what it's called a two tier program. This means that not only will you be earning commissions from promoting the product, you'll also be earning another commission from the sales of affiliates who sign up under you. So that each time an affiliate makes a sale, you'll earn a percentage of his sales. This is cool in that you wont have to lift a finger under this arrangement. 

Any affiliate program worth its salt must have a good tracking system. This monitors the number of visitors to your website. With a tracking system, you get accredited for any sale that takes place at your website. Something you might want to consider while checking out the tracking system is how long the affiliate program tracks visitors. Some companies only do this once meaning that if a visitor to your website returns to buy a product the company does not record it because he did not buy it there and then. Make sure the company's tracking system tracks visitor for 3o days or more. That way you get paid for sales resulting from return visits to your website.

So affiliate marketing is definitely the way to go in these hard times. If you follow these suggestions you'll be a big winner.