For a lot of webmasters affiliate programs are the largest income generated by their website. Advertising revenue isn't always very high as only few webmasters generate thousands of pageviews a day.

Affiliate programs are a wonderful way to earn money as long as you keep some things in mind. Let me tell you the things I have learned the hard way using affiliate programs.

When your site had been designed and you want to start using affiliate programs you probably wondered where to start. Presuming you know the principles of affiliate marketing , you still will be confronted with a lot of questions.

1. Target is the keyword.

A very common remark that I hear from visitors is they don't know which programs they have to put on their site in order to make good revenue.

Know that the choice of your affiliate programs is the most important aspect of your affiliate marketing strategy. I sometimes see sites where the webmasters have put advertisements on their pages that I'm really not interested in. Lately I met a webtools site that promoted Italian clothes. It's useless to put ads on your site that people aren't interested in.

You don't know what their interests are you say ? It's simple !! They visit your site so they are interested in what your site has to offer. Remember this and exploit it ! Add offers to your site that are related to the content of your site. You will get a much better response than with non-targetted ads. continuing the example of the webtools site it would be much better to put an ad for a webhost than the clothing ad. Our site has a search-engine that lists over 1000 merchants. Just insert a key-word and you will find the most relevant merchant programs.

2. Get people to click.

Once you have chosen relevant affiliate programs you need to get as much people as possible to click the ad. It's important that people want to click the ad so don't start using popups or other forced clicks.

There are some tips I can give you to get more click-troughs :

• Notice that text-links have a much higher click-trough ratio than advertising banners. Nowadays most surfers now that you are paid if they click on it and this will prevent them to click it sometimes. Text-links give the impression that these links are good additions to your site and you don't have any profit from it.
  
• Don't be afraid to use more affiliate programs on one page, especially when you use text links. Stuff your page with interesting links and mix it with as much paid links as possible. Remember to put your paid links on top of your page so people will more likely be confronted with them.
  
• Market your affiliate program! Make sure that you convince your visitors that the respective service or shop is really a must for them. Be honest and tell it as if you were talking to a good friend
  
• If the affiliate program that you promote offers the possibilty to insert dynamic content, use that ! Statistics have proven that affiliate programs score much better if you can interact with it on the site you're at.

3. The Don'ts of Affiliate Marketing

Don't forget that you want your site to be reputable. That's why I can strongly advise you not to use following techniques to get more money.

• Don't promote services that you don't want to be assiociated with. Some affiliate programs can be very questionable. Remember that your site will be associated with the links they provide. Make sure you use quality programs. If you are looking for quality merchants you can take a look at our top 10 where we have selected the merchants that are reliable and are good to make you money.
  
• Don't promote offers that are equal to your service or content of your site : Find as many complementary services to your site and add these merchant programs.
  
• Don't ever spam a service. This can give you a lot of legal trouble as you are promoting a third party. Aso you have to recall that your reputation on the internet will be ruined.