A Good Fit:

Before you run out and join a bunch of affiliate programs, take a moment to think about your current web site visitors. What types of products and information would they be most interested in? For example, if you have a web site that deals with pets, joining an affiliate program that sells pet supplies might be a good fit. This would be something your average visitor would have an interest in. Joining a program that sells books on How To Kill Your Neighbor's Pesky Pet, may not be such a good fit. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think you get my point. If your affiliate program doesn't appeal to your site's visitors, you will not have much success.

More Isn't Always Better:

If joining one affiliate program is a good deal, then why not join 500 programs? Don't stop there, why not post as many different affiliate banners as will fit onto each web page? If this sounds like a good philosophy, think again! Posting too many banners and text links on your pages will not only look sloppy and slow down time it takes to load your pages, but will confuse your visitors, resulting in less click through traffic, rather than more. (Click through traffic - People that actually click on your affiliate banners and/or text links.) It's best to focus on just a couple affiliate programs. And make sure to keep your pages simple, easy to read, and aesthetically pleasing.

Increasing Your Click Through Traffic:

As I said before, your web pages should be simple. Too many banners, especially those that change rapidly or flash, can be very distracting and annoying to your visitors. Also, don't rely just on banners to generate click through traffic for your affiliate program. Adding text links in addition to banners will greatly increase your click through percentages. Banner ads are becoming so common that many people don't give them a second look. By adding simple text links on your web pages which explain a little more about your affiliate program's product(s) you can capture attention of your visitors and increase your click through traffic. Also, placement of these banners and text links is important too. Putting these at bottom of your pages will not result in as many hits as you would have if they were displayed in a more prominent place on your page.

Ask Questions Before You Join:

Doing a little research before you join an affiliate program will pay big dividends later. Find out answers to these questions before making a commitment to join any program:

* Does it cost anything to join? Most affiliate programs offered today are absolutely free to join.

It should come as no surprise that a large number of online purchases are for computers, printers and accessories. After all, these are things web surfers use every day.

But nearly every day I field questions from friends, family and colleagues who are getting ready to make their first computer purchase so they can get on internet. In many cases, these folks have never even seen web or have spent little time online. This dilemma presents a special challenge and a unique opportunity at same time.

How does affiliate make this offline sale?

The answer to this question is a simple three-step process. First, sign up for one of many computer equipment affiliate programs available on web. I use a Dell computer and heartily recommend them, so I signed up for Dell affiliate program through http://linkshare.com

The next step is to create a sales page that you load to your website. If you don't have a website you can simply sign up for a free site from one of many free providers. A favorite of mine is at http://hypermart.net

This page doesn't need to sell your customer; it simply needs to provide links through which customer will click (many affiliate programs such as Dell contain hidden codes that require your customer to click from a web page.)

For an example of my Dell sales page visit http://smarthomebusiness.com/dell.htm

You'll notice that page isn't a hard sell; it's a simple page with affiliate links to Dell site. When my customer clicks on any of these links I'll be credited with any purchases he makes.