How I Earned $300 in One Week Through Affiliate Programs
October 10, 2008
As you may or may not know, I have another website called Made to Order Bikes (MTOBikes.com) in which myself and others contribute articles about mountain biking for publication on the site. The website is about three months old and receives between 250-500 unique visits daily. The site peaked around 1,000 visits daily during the Olympic Games (Google olympic mountain biking and you’ll see why…#1 out of 1.6 million sites). Recently I have dedicated a lot of time to restructuring the layout of the site in order to create more space for advertisers. I’ve also been doing a lot of research online and networking with experts as to how I can optimize advertising revenue from the site and last week I earned $300 (less two $10 PayPal transaction fees) through an affiliate program by selling two text link ads.
What is an Affiliate Program? It is a means in which companies can advertise on websites other than their own. When a visitor clicks on the affiliates link on your website you get paid a commission for the desired action…that action could be the act of clicking on the ad, a purchase on the affiliate’s site, and so on. There are Affiliate Network sites…which for a lack of a better term, serve as brokers that provide enrollment to multiple affiliate programs providing you the ability to manage your programs from one central account. Essentially, once you are enrolled in an affiliate program you are provided HTML code that can be used to create banner ads (like the two featured in this post) or text link ads, when visitors click and perform the desired action, you get paid…it is that simple!
Below are the three Affiliate Network sites that, if you have a website, I strongly encourage you to enroll and explore ways at which your website can help earn you a passive income.
Once enrolled in these networks begin searching for what companies are offering affiliate programs. Identify and register with companies that are relevant to the content on your website (this will maximize your revenue).
If you have questions, ask them in the comments section below. I will respond promptly. Alternatively, you can contact me direct at 678.231.3615 and I will direct you as to what your next steps should be.