I’ll bet you have probably read a lot of headlines that sound similar to this one above, or make promises like this one seems to. You have probably even read some of those articles all the way to the end, even clicked on some of the links in the article and read all the information on those links. When you were done reading, you might have thought “There’s 15 minutes I’ll never get back”… that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard… or whatever that! IT WILL RUIN MY IMAGE!

Well it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m going to give you some tips that will give you an opportunity to monetize your website or blog, while preserving your brand. One of the best and easiest ways to monetize your online properties is to join some affiliate programs and advertise them on your site.

Affiliate programs are the answer

Why affiliate programs? Simple. When you promote affiliate websites, you get instant access to products and services that are well supported by professional marketing materials without and up-front development costs. All the work of writing an eBook, or recording an audio track, or programming a software product is taken care of by someone else. But that isn’t the end of the benefits. You don’t have to create any marketing materials – those are all created for you by the person who builds the product and is running the affiliate program.

Another big benefit is that you really don’t have to manually keep track of ROI or conversion rates. Most good affiliate programs will provide the members with a login to a sophisticated affiliate management program that is based on one of the leading affiliate software programs. Software management of affiliate program means that you won’t have to ride herd on the affiliate program owner.

Five tips for choosing affiliate offers to promote

1. Look good earnings potential – You want to make sure that if one of the people you refer to an affiliate offer buys, that you will make some decent money. Some people think affiliate programs offering high percentage payouts are best. My preference is for affiliate programs that offer high ticket items and pay large commissions. This affiliate program for promoting 30/60/90 day sales plan templates gives you the opportunity to earn almost $50 per sale.
2. Choose programs your readers will like – It is critical that you choose affiliate programs and offers that your audience will appreciate and be interested in. It wouldn’t be too smart to choose to promote affiliate programs and products for chocolate desserts on a site that is dedicated to losing weight. However, if you have a website that helps people find careers is sales, it would be great to promote something like How to Get Into Medical Sales.

3. Look for affiliate programs powered by software – When you sign up for an affiliate program it will quickly become obvious if the owner of the program is serious about helping affiliate members be successful. If you are redirected to a page powered by a top-tier affiliate marketing software program, they are probably serious about their affiliate program. If you get an email message that says ‘here is you affiliate link’ you should think carefully about investing any time. Their are several top name brands like iDev Affiliate, LinkShare, and JROX JAM. My favorite is JROX JAM, which you can get for free here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/recommends/free-affiliate-management-software.htm

4. Make sure the website is NOT anonymous – What I mean is, make sure that there are real people standing behind the website, people with good reputations, who take customer service seriously. People who let you know who give you contact information with phone numbers are more likely to treat you well. They aren’t likely to try to ‘run and hide’ from you if there is a dispute. If you find a bio, picture, and phone number of the website owner, chances are they will behave legitimately. You will also be able to search the Internet to find any negative information about their program. Peggy McKee, the Medical Sales Recruiter, is one of the country’s leading sales recruiters – she proudly announces her site ownership on the about pages like this one: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/about/

5. Choose affiliate programs that have support programs – If you are choosing a piece of software to buy, you probably wouldn’t purchase it if there was not support mechanism in place. You should use the same criteria when evaluating affiliate programs. Affiliate website program owners that don’t put support systems in place – things like a ticket system or help desk software – probably won’t care about any their products or customers, nor will they care about supporting your marketing efforts. If they do, then you can be rest assured that they are trying to delight their customers. If they AREN’T trying to keep customers happy, their poor service will reflect poorly on you, and tarnish your reputation.

There are a couple of affiliate programs that meet the important criteria, that I recommend if your site’s visitors would be interested in these subjects. One is an affiliate program for a sales interview tool that targets sales professionals – you can check it out here: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/affiliate-program-details/. The other is a program that has a broader appeal – it targets people who own businesses that either have no web presence or under performing websites; you can get all the information for it here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/blog/home/affiliate-program/