What to look out for in affiliate programs.

So, you spent a lot of time creating your site and you have a steady, growing amount of traffic. Which affiliate programs should we send that traffic to?

Obviously you want to look for the ones that pay a high commission rate but also in addition to this you need to be able to get access to the affiliate manager so that you can discuss ways of promoting and integrating products to your site.

Affiliate managers are desperate for people like you. Like I said from the outset only about 2% of affiliates produce any meaningful revenue, the rest are wasting their time.

If you can show that you took the time to build a good content site with lots of useful information and reviews then the affiliate manager will fall over backwards to help you out. The sad fact is that there just aren't that many good affiliates about.

There are several "must haves" that need to be present when I look for an affiliate program to promote:

It must have a commission rate of 40% or better. I don't see the point in sending all of that hard won traffic for a paltry 5%. It just doesn't work. You need big commissions for the big work you put into your site.

It must have lifetime customers. By this I mean that once someone has bought something using your affiliate link then you get a commission on any subsequent purchases that they make. They become your "repeat customer".

Ideally it has a promotional code to be entered for when the supplier takes telephone orders. This promotional code is passed through with your affiliate ID. This is becoming more common and stops leakage of your commission to telephone orders.

Now obviously many of the smaller affiliate programs are not going to have this level of sophistication built in but this is ideally what you are looking for.

The last thing that needs to be present is the ability to create an affiliate downline.

An affiliate downline is the people who purchase the product after cliking your affiliate link (or in some cases just an interested webmaster) and then go on to become affiliates themselves.

By creating a downline you create the ability to be able to generate income without lifting a finger.

However, it's actually best if you do because actively encouraging and helping your downline is one of the best income generators available!

Next let's take a look at building a forum

What to build? - Affiliate Programs