What is an affilate Program?

seranade · Enthusiast Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 10

Vishal, I saw your advice to Big Bucks about doing a informative site on Deer. This made me think I have owned horses for over 30 years and broke a horse. Maybe I could do an informative site on horses. What is a affliate program?

Vishal P. Rao · Forum Admin Joined: 02 May 2004 Posts: 112

Hi Seranade,

Used in a broad sense, an affiliate program is any type of revenue sharing program where an affiliate web site receives a portion of income for delivering sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant web site.

Once you join these affiliate program, you'll be provide a unique link/banner which you paste on your site. When someone clicks on this link and makes a sale on your merchant's site, you get a portion of the sale. How much you get depends on the merchant.

To start with, here are two popular websites for finding affiliate programs related to your niche:

http://www.linkshare.com/
http://www.cj.com/

Best wishes,

Vishal

u6crash · Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2004 5:38 am Post subject:

So the suggestion is to write up an informative site, which people will go to when looking for information. And when they find your site (with good information on it) they click on your affiliate links? I have affiliate links on my site, but not any information per se; just a personal/business site. By having the good information, it helps people using search engines find your site?

Vishal P. Rao · Forum Admin Joined: 02 May 2004 Posts: 112

u6crash · Posted: Sun Jun 27, 2004 5:53 am Post subject:

Thanks a lot. Now I've just got to think what information I want to talk about. I suppose I could go on and on about a few different things.

My current affiliates are an art supply store, an art/frame store, a music instrument store, and my web host. As far as how search engines work, does it help if the info page is an "index.html" in it's own directory, or will search engines catalog just as well no matter where its location?

Vishal P. Rao · Forum Admin Joined: 02 May 2004 Posts: 112

Hi John,

Your site home page has to be index.html or index.shtml....

Regards,

Vishal

seranade · Enthusiast Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 10

Thanks Vishal

seranade · Enthusiast Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 10

Are there any affliate programs that are free but do not require to give them your social security number. I have heard that giving your social security number out can get you into real trouble.

seranade

Jason Gazaway · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:55 am Post subject:

Seranade,

Think of it this way..

They need your social security for tax issues.. This way they can record it with the IRS Smile

Both companies Vishal listed are VERY legit and sell miilions annually.. They are highly trusted by big name corporations, and smaller companies as well.. I too have sold things throough both actually, and didn't think twice about it..

Now I WOULD be a little cautious about giving my SSN out to just a regular affiliate program for ONE particualr product where the product owner himself has access to this..

Hope this helps Smile

Warmest Regards,
Jason Gazaway

u6crash · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:52 am Post subject:

Thanks again for all the help. I've set up an informational site about buying electric guitars. Hopefully it all goes well. I've run by info by a guitar forum I frequent, and the feedback has been pretty good. I plan to update it as much as possible while staying on top of my other projects.

Anyone that wants to see it can go to: http://www.threechordme.com/writing/electric_guitar/

seranade · Enthusiast Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 10

Thanks Jason

Seranade

chrisv

I KNOW THIS SOUNDS DUMB, BUT I'M PRETTY NEW AT THIS. HOW DO I GET MY OWN FREE WEBSITE, SO I CAN GET AFFILIATES ON IT. WHAT ARE THE BEST AFFILIATES, AND HOW DO THEY PAY ME....???

Vishal P. Rao · Forum Admin Joined: 02 May 2004 Posts: 112

Hello chrisv,

You can get a free website from services like http://geocities.yahoo.com/. Depending on the content of your website you then find merchants who offer affiliate programs. For example, if your website is about dogs, you sign up with cj.com or linkshare.com and find merchants who sell dog related products.

Once you signup with them, you place appropriate codes (which will be provided to you), on your website. When someone clicks on your affiliate links, and make a purchase on your merchant's website, you get a portion of the sale.

Hope this helps.

Vishal P. Rao