A classic example of this type of qualification is media coverage. You'll see a huge jump in traffic and your conversion ratio of visitors to customers if you're mentioned in an article that appears in a magazine, newspaper, or online news site with a large audience. Craft a newsworthy press release and distribute it to as many media outlets as you can. Professional distribution services can be expensive, often as high as several hundred dollars, but potential payoff is enormous.

You can also make it easy for potential customers to learn about your products on their own by creating a newsletter with valuable content. The more times a potential customer sees your name, stronger their confidence grows that you're not a fly by night operation that's going to take their money and run. If you consistently put out a readable newsletter, your subscribers will come to view you as a trusted voice in your field.

Articles such as this one are also a good means of establishing you understand your product and needs of your target market. Imagine you're interested in buying a briefcase. You read an article explaining how a briefcase can protect important documents, create a professional image that gives people confidence in you, and turn any table at which you sit into a mobile office. All other things being equal, aren't you more likely to buy a briefcase from link at bottom of that article than link on a page by itself that says "briefcases for sale"?

So before deciding to look for advertising method that will give you biggest head count at lowest cost, consider methods that qualify you as a reliable vendor that helps your customer make informed purchases. It might be best way to keep your customers coming back for more.

4) Managing your affiliate programs can be a hassle if you have to deal with many different companies. Try to sign up with a site that administers many affiliate programs to chose from (one of best out there are Commission Junction [www.cj.com] and Befree.com [www.befree.com]). These sites give you hundreds of affiliate programs to chose from, and act as a one-stop shop where you can sign up with multiple vendors using only one account and receiving one consolidated commission check.

5) Chose affiliate partners that offer long term cookies. A cookie is a mechanism that allows destination site to know when a visitor is referred by your site. A long term cookie (for example, a three months cookie) means that a visitor who follows a link to one of your affiliate partners today but doesn't purchase anything, can come back and purchase at anytime during next three months and you will still be paid a commission. The best programs are those who offer unlimited cookies (although there are not so many of them around). However, a 90-day cookie or more is very good.

6) Link directly to product page and not to main page of destination site. If you link to main page, visitor will have to find its way to product and may not find it, making you lose commissions. By linking directly to product, you will increase prospects of visitor buying product (and of you making a commission). Many destination sites, like Amazon, recognize this fact and offer a higher commission to affiliates that link directly to product pages than to those who only link to main page.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will improve your chances of success with all your affiliate programs.