There are many opportunities to make money working on the Internet. Becoming an affiliate marketer is a great way of having your own online business. Here are ten excellent reasons why you should choose affiliate marketing for your home based business.

1. Be Your Own Boss - What a magical ring that phrase has to it! This is my absolute favourite reason for being an affiliate marketer. Actually, it is my top reason for having any home based business.

2. Low cost set-up - Most affiliate programmes are free to join, so all you need to start your business is an Internet-connected computer and word-processing software. You can work from absolutely anywhere in the world and it makes no difference whether you have a cosy office or work from a corner of your kitchen table.

3. No shipping costs - You don’t need to worry about paying for postage or buying packing stuff such as boxes, wrapping paper, parcel tape, labels and so on. You never have to struggle with carrying heavy packages to the post office. The cost and bother of packing and shipping products to customers belongs to the merchant, not the affiliate.

4. Choice of thousands of products and services - All you have to do is decide what you want to sell (and, of course, what you think people will want to buy), just about everything is available online. With affiliate directories like Clickbank it’s easy to find products to sell.

5. No merchant account or invoicing software required - You can forget the problems associated with invoicing, collecting payments and processing credit cards. The merchant handles all payment processing; as an affiliate, you never have to worry about chargebacks, fraud or losing your merchant account.

6. On sale everywhere - Your sales area has no geographic limits but you don’t have to leave home. You can promote your web site worldwide, every Internet user in the whole world is potentially your customer (and you call this a small business!).

7. High income potential -With your own affiliate business your income level is limited only by your desire and effort - not by corporate salary scale structure or the whim of your boss.

8. No inventory to carry - You can sell any item, large or small without having to worry about storage space. You could sell trucks from a one-bedroom apartment! You don’t have to the worry or expense of insuring stock or having extra security to protect it.

9. Low running costs - Apart from a modest budget for advertising and a small amount to pay for your internet connection, you have nothing much in the way of overheads. You work from home, so the big expense of renting premises is avoided and it is possible to get income tax reductions to cover some things such as part of your electricity and phone bills.

10.Always open for business - As an affiliate, your business keeps running and pulling in profits for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even on Bank Holidays. You are open for business even while you are asleep. You don’t have to worry about business hours or delivery deadlines, all that proceeds on autopilot. You don’t have to worry about scheduling staff holidays: you don’t even need any staff!

This is one of a series of articles published by
the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons) at
http://www.Huntingvenus.com
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Tags: affiliate, affiliate marketing, business, Home, internet, marketing, Opportunity, Work, Work from Homaffiliate, affiliate marketing, business, Home, internet, marketing, Opportunity, Work, Work from Hom

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It wasn’t very long ago when the word “affiliate” left a bad taste in many a mouth. The reason was that the larger percent were Multi-Level-Marketing programs that had products or services of little value, but emphasized the way to the big bucks was in generating a downline. Reaching a large number of people without getting too involved was the pattern. It was referred to as the “some will, some won’t, so what” approach. The gizmo, or product was not the object of your ads or your marketing.

Today, if you are new to the Internet and you want to start an online business but you don’t have a product, a web site, or an idea of how to begin — then listen up because things are not as bad as they used to be when we speak of “affiliates”.

Begin by joining an already established company to start a small but steady income. Since most Affiliate programs are free to join, you need only read their Terms & Conditions (carefully), and agree to them. They will welcome you with open arms, give you a webpage with your own ID on it, and frequently offer you professionally worded ads that you can post, again mostly free.

Without spending a single dime, you are already in business. But let’s put a speed-bump here to caution you in your “selection” of what you choose to attach your name to. You won’t earn trust with a worthless product or a company that ignores customer complaints. So here we go!

Why do they “welcome you with open arms”? Because they too make a profit without spending a dime - you are their profit source, you will advertise their program or their product, and they will pay you in one of several ways for your efforts. Let’s examine these ways:

1. Pay per sale - either a set amount, or a percentage of each sale that you make.

2. Pay per impression - if you have a high-traffic site (in our example, you do not), they will pay you a few cents for every visitor to that site that sees their banner or link.

3. Pay per click - for every visitor that clicks on their banner or link, you are paid a bit higher than the “impression” rate.

4. Pay per lead - this does not pay as much as a “sale”, but by filling out a form, your visitor has given the program owner an email address. This is a valuable “lead”, and they will pay you to gather them.

How much does the company pay their affiliates and is it a flat rate or percentage?

Another useful indicator to your future profits is the importance of “levels” or “tiers” any affiliate program provides. Some are two or three tiers, others may go up to ten. This means that if you refer another affiliate to their program, you will earn a commission on the sales that they make. Two tier is the minimum in order to make “residual income”.

A replicated website, or duplicate website with your Identification on it, is vital. When someone buys the product from this webpage the program owner will know that you made the sale and where to send your money.

Hopefully, your choice of Programs will pay you a commission on all future purchases that your referrals make as well as a portion of their monthly payments that are collected from some sales. State-of-the-Art affiliate programs have well- tracked identifications of their affiliates. After all, you are their bread & butter.

The advantages of beginning with an Affiliate Program to generate your first few dollars online, are many but suffice to say you do not have to buy their product, and you don’t have to ship them to any of your customers. Your full time attention need only directed at getting traffic, traffic, traffic to your replicated website.

Once you have made your selection, market the “product or service” for the purpose of a sale (and thus a commission) but tack on, almost as a PS, that “affiliate positions are lucrative”. If the product or service they buy is praiseworthy, they will join as a free affiliate themselves. Now you have doubled your income with a single ad.

© 2004 Esther Smith

About The Author

Esther Smith is editor of Partners-For-Profit Newsletter and copywriter for The Permanent Venture. Each Issue of PFP addresses an important aspect of your struggles to perfect your Internet business.

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A 5-Star Resource page lists award winning programs and software. There are no flavor-of-the-month selections!

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Tags: affiliate marketing, financial freedom, internet, make money, success, work at home businessaffiliate marketing, financial freedom, internet, make money, success, work at home business

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