There are many who are taking advantage of affiliate programs to increase their sales online. When you sign up for an affiliate program, you are given a link that has your unique identifier. This affiliate link is what you will need to use in your marketing of the affiliate’s product, in order for you to be paid your commission, when a sale occurs. Getting involved with an affiliate program is a great way to generate some addition income and build a long-term income stream.

Step 1 – Do your research. There are plenty of different affiliate programs online and you want to find one that fits with your brand, has a good conversion rate and a decent commission. Experts agree that a five percent conversion rate is reasonable. Translated, this means for every 100 people that your link sends to the merchant’s site, 5 people will buy.

Step 2 – Once you have decided on the affiliate program that is right for you, you need to join the affiliate program. In some cases you will need to wait to be accepted.

Step 3 – Now it is time to begin to promote the affiliate program on your site or blog. Many merchants will have tutorials and plenty of information on how to get the most out of your links.

Step 4 – Make sure that your site’s content is relevant and valuable to your visitors. If you create a sales page that offers nothing more than a promotion for the affiliate product, you will be sadly disappointed.

Step 5 – Drive targeted traffic to your site or blog. If you want to earn commission from your affiliate, you need to drive traffic to your site, and that traffic needs to be targeted. The more traffic that your website gets the greater the likelihood that you are going to generate sales. There are a number of ways that you can target traffic to your site.

Article Marketing: Write an article on a topic that is related to your affiliate product and then include a link to your site in the article’s resource box. Submit the article to credible article directories.

Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising:  PPC advertising programs can generate a lot of traffic. The two most effective and popular  PPC advertising programs are Yahoo Search Marketing and Google Adwords.
Post Messages to a Forum: You can post messages on related community forums and then place a link to your site in the signature line of the message.
Post videos: Create videos that are related to your product. This is the quickest and most effective way to create trust with your visitors. You can then provide a link under the video to the product of your affiliate.