Advantages

Affiliate Programs are ideal way to get money quickly and easily online:

You don’t need to launch a new product; You don’t need to handle any products; You don’t need physical inventory; You don’t need a huge investment. You can start with $10 and 2 hours a week; You don’t need a website because you can use Pay per Click ads.

Disadvantages

The very important disadvantage is a low click-through to conversion rate. Only a few percent of your visitors will click on a banner or link; of that percentage, a few percent will actually buy something. It can be disheartening to see that there have been thousands of visits to your site, and only small percent of them have bought something you promote. Recommendation: If you focus on affiliate programs to theme of your site and interests of your audience then better results you will achieve. Also text links, "odd" ads (i.e. advertising that doesn't immediately look like advertising) will generally give rise to much better results than banners or buttons.

You should be reliant on a merchant's ability to sell to visitors products that you're promoting. Of course you can improve chance of a sale by effectively pre-selling product or service, but it's still up to merchant to close a sale. And if they don't sell anything to your visitors, you get nothing. Recommendation: Before promoting any product you should learn it and decide for yourself: “Would I buy it?” If answer is “Yes” that's greate, but if “No” you should look for better productsto promote.

You can find books to read first and AdWords helping tools at http://www.RichTrack.com.

Written by Helen Peshkova, RichTrack.com.

This is a fundamental mistake new affiliates make. They choose a website theme that is much too general. They choose to make a website about computers or credit cards or diets or insurance.

These are all profitable topics of major interest to many people. But topics are too broad and you'll be running yourself ragged trying to be all things to all people.

Solution? Make your website theme as niche as you can - while still being profitable.

For example, instead of a website about computers, why not a site about laptops only? Instead of diets, why not diet patches? Instead of credit cards, why not no-fee credit cards? You get idea.

By doing this you'll be way ahead of most affiliate marketers. You'll also be setting yourself apart from crowd - people will remember your website as a 'specialized' website and you'll be first website they'll visit when they want a laptop, or a diet patch review or a no-fee credit card.

Reason #3 Poor Choice of Affiliate Program

If you're an affiliate who isn't making money you think you should be making - maybe problem isn't anything you've done. The problem could be affiliate program.

Not every affiliate program is created equal and for every 1 that makes you money, there are 10 that won't. It's not your fault, that's just way it works. You've got to test and try different programs to find true winners.

Experience will show you which ones are a good fit for your website and your visitors. Learn from that experience and then spend more time and effort on programs that make you most money.

And don't just go by highest EPC numbers (earnings per one hundred clicks). I know of one affiliate who purposely seeks out low-earning EPC affiliate programs because he says there's little competition for them. He makes a tidy little sum from several of these affiliate programs that other affiliates are ignoring.

Your personal experience is best indicator of what will make you most money. I've tried some affiliate programs that were (apparently) huge earners. They didn't make me a dime. I've tried others that didn't look so hot as far as earnings and they make me $1000+ per month. It really depends on you and your website.

If you're not making money you think you should be making - and you feel you're doing everything else right, it could just be your choice of affiliate program. Try changing affiliate programs and see if that increases your sales.

Those are 3 main reasons why 95% of affiliate websites don't make money they could be making. Steer clear of these pitfalls and you'll be on your way to being in that top 5% of affiliate marketers making big bucks.

K. O'Neill is contributing writer to Web Conversion

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