Free Training – Work From Home
  • Start a Website Free
    • Free Training
      • Wealthy Affiliate
      • WordPress Tutorials
    • Find a Niche
    • Build A Website
  • Increase Traffic
    • Make Money Online
  • Reviews
    • Good
    • Bad
  • About
  • Contact

What is Affiliate Marketing? – Programs You Can Join for Free

by Heather April 9, 2018 10 Comments
Please consider sharing...
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on Google+
Google+
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin

baby boyBefore we tackle what Affiliate Marketing is – let's look at the word “affiliate” – which goes back to Middle French affilier – “to bring into close connection” the origin is from medieval Latin affīliāre, “to adopt as a son”

As an affiliate, you get commissions for any sales you send a company.  Sometimes it's one time sales, sometimes it is a membership and therefore you build residual income.

Does a company adopt us?

In a way, yes.  But don't think for a minute you are not replaceable.

I have seen affiliate companies and affiliate networks kick an affiliate to the side quickly if they think they are violating agreements, rules, ethics or the law. As long as you are an honest person – being taught the right way to market on the Internet, you should be good.

As a matter of fact, companies and affiliate programs don't have to accept you as an affiliate – it's their company and they can work with – or not work with anyone they want!

never quitIf you get a denial for something you wanted to be an affiliate for, apply to be an affiliate for something else…there are many hundreds of thousands of companies looking for affiliate marketers to sell their product!

  • improve your website
  • add content
  • build up your traffic
  • increase your sales with other affiliates
  • build your email list
  • …re-apply for that one affiliate program that denied you before!

Companies all have different requirements and acceptance rates.

Is Affiliate Marketing Ethical?

If something helps you, you would recommend it to other people whether you make a commission or not, wouldn't you?

You are doing people a service by recommending something that works!

And that is why you deserve to get paid.  For service. service

Help and you will be helped.

What do you  know about that can help other people?

Give that away and you will be rewarded.

If there was a way you could get a commission when you recommend the things you use anyway – would you want to take advantage of that?

How to Get Paid for Recommending Things

No.  This is not MLM.

I think people were so scarred by AMWAY that they run screaming any time they hear Network Marketing or MLM.

Or worse yet – see those circles and hear “you tell 5 people and they tell 5 people…”

As I said before, this is not MLM – it is Internet marketing – also known as affiliate marketing.

You build a website – and make it an authority in your niche.  And you write for keywords that people are searching for.  How do you know what people are searching for?  You use free keyword search tools.

As an “affiliate” we choose to recommend a product and we get paid if someone buys because of our recommendation.

Nobody tells me what products to represent.  I run my own business and I stand behind every product I represent as being the best I know of at the time of my recommending that product.  If it wasn't the best product I knew of, I would not be using it and I would darn sure not be recommending it.  PERIOD. I would never recommend something to make any amount of money.

I believe in Karma and the Golden Rule – so I'm pretty careful I am not compromising who I am or what I believe in to make a sale and I would hope everyone else is like that too.

There have been a few times I was recommending something I believed in and that company took a turn for the worse and I moved on. Those companies did fine without me.  And I am better off without them.

We live, we learn and when we know better we do better.

Affiliate marketers work for ourselves.  We are not an employee of any company.

The companies are lucky to have affiliate marketers.  It saves them a big advertising budget when someone recommends their product for free.  They just pay a portion of a sale they would not have had without the recommendation.  Everybody is happy.

We can stop representing a company if they do something we feel is unethical and they can stop letting us be an affiliate for them if they think we did something unethical.

That's okay to decide to stop doing business with a company when you have multiple streams of income.  You don't worry about one check not coming when there are other payments, other websites, and other advertising plans you can ramp up to make up the difference.

How Affiliate Marketers Get Paid

IMO – legit affiliate programs pay real money – not in credits, points or crypto-currency.

heather 82 percentI have to pay my bills in dollars as I am sure you do too.

Most common ways I get paid:

  • checks in the mail
  • direct deposit – goes right into the bank
  • PayPal payments – this can be transferred to the bank

Once in a while I have been paid by other sources – once I got a Western Union – that was cool. 🙂  I got an email notice that there was money waiting for me – I went to the nearest Western Union and I picked up cash.

Some affiliate marketers get paid very well, some never get paid.  That's the honest truth.

It's not because affiliate marketing is a scam and it doesn't work – it's because most people don't work and that's not the fault of any company, training program or any Internet marketing tool.

When someone makes a decision to make their online business work and use affiliate marketing to monetize their business – and they learn the skills necessary to be successful online – and they decide they won't quit until they are successful – that's when you will see them succeed.

in or outSome people just stick their big toe in.

They never make a commitment to making their business work – no matter what happens.  If you bought a million dollar franchise, you'd put some work into it until it showed a profit, wouldn't you?

Just because you have a very low investment to get started in Affiliate Marketing doesn't mean you should make light of the opportunity.

I know people in this business who make insane amounts of money.

I do alright myself – but I am not in “guru” category.  I am a regular gal – who wants to help other regular people to pay their bills without having to work for someone else.

I've been doing affiliate marketing for a lot of years.

goalI see so many people struggling to pay bills, hating their job and living to pay bills and die.

Not only that, but there are so many people who are sick from whatever – and they can't work a regular job.

So many people need to learn affiliate marketing – I was so glad I found a program that was free to try and fairly inexpensive to join for a year.

Let's say you make a commitment – you are going to give Internet marketing one year.  That's it.

Even if you said – “If it doesn't “work” in one year, you are going to quit.”

I built this website in one week.  And today it is one month old. (the website you are on now!)

Imagine where FreeTrainingWorkFromHome.com will be in one year?


Ways to find Affiliate Programs

You Can Join For Free:

  • affiliate networksaffiliate link on the company/product website (usually at the bottom)
  • Search engine with “company/product name” and the word affiliate – try searching with and without quotes, different search engines may have different results.
  • Affiliate networks

If someone is asking you to pay to promote their company or product, don't.  It's a scam.

You should not have to pay a monthly fee to sell something. There are plenty of legitimate companies out there who are eager to have you become an affiliate for them and they pay you!

How to Build Your Affiliate Marketing Business

I have built dozens, maybe even hundreds of websites over the years.

Some winners, some losers. All of them taught me a lesson.
And I am still learning.

I have a handful of sites that are still working for me while I work on this site.  That's the beauty of building a website – if you build it with a solid foundation – it will continue to work for you – and if you do it right – you will continue to get paid.

A long time ago, I started thinking of my business like a plate juggler.

I get a website going – and then I can move on to another one – but I might need to come back to the first website and spin it.  I'll be teaching lots of things to keep your plates spinning.

For now, lets just get one “plate” going.

If you have never built a website before but you have always dreamed of having a business – why not start for free today and see if it's for you?

 

About Heather

I love to hike, golf, hang with friends, make new friends, travel, write and help people become successful with Internet marketing and affiliate marketing they can do from home or anywhere.

View all posts by Heather | Website

Related posts:

Work From Home Business Ideas - Follow Your Bliss
Do Vision Boards Work?
Work from Home Jobs for Disabled Individuals
Please consider sharing...
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on Google+
Google+
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin

affiliate marketing

  • Previous Is Anybody Really Making Money from a Website?7 years ago
  • Next Top 10 Affiliate Programs for Affiliate Marketers7 years ago

10 Replys to “What is Affiliate Marketing? – Programs You Can Join for Free”

  1. Michael says:
    April 9, 2018 at 6:16 pm

    Great article about affiliate marketing.

    I agree that it is a very ethical way to make money online, and instead of having to juggle multiple sites to become successful — you essentially create a 6 figure business with 1 site.

    Do you find amazon do one of the best places to start off an affiliate marketer?

    Reply
    1. Heather says:
      April 9, 2018 at 6:21 pm

      Amazon is definitely an easy place to start making links – but slow to start making money because the percentages they pay are all lower than 10% – some as low as 1-2% – so unless your traffic is really high and the people visiting your site are big Amazon purchasers… I would add something else in right away that makes a little more money.

      Reply
  2. Ashley says:
    April 10, 2018 at 12:36 pm

    I’m a huge fan of finding other ways to make an income other than partaking in the rat race. This information was extremely informative, affiliate marketing can seem intimidating if you don’t know what you are doing. The fact that you’re more than willing to help gives people like myself more confidence when it comes to joining these type of online programs. Thank you for the info.

    Reply
    1. Heather says:
      April 10, 2018 at 4:01 pm

      Thanks – Ashley! If you ever need anything, let me know!

      Reply
  3. Arun Sabharwal says:
    April 10, 2018 at 1:09 pm

    Hi
    Thanks for sharing information on Affiliate marketing and ways to avoid scams. There are lots of ethical affiliates network like Amazon, Clickbank or wealthy affiliate. But again the internet is full if Scam. yes, I agree with you any affiliate program asking for money is a scam. People fail to acknowledge the red flag. instead of paying they ask for money to promote their products.

    Reply
    1. Heather says:
      April 10, 2018 at 4:04 pm

      Thank goodness there are ethical affiliates! Wishing you success in your marketing!

      Reply
  4. Rania Masaeed says:
    April 10, 2018 at 1:29 pm

    Hello Heather,
    Thanks a lot for this great article. I really learned many tips despite I’ve already built many websites. I believe as you that the best place to start a business and build a website is wealthy affiliate.
    Wishing you all the best!
    Rania

    Reply
    1. Heather says:
      April 10, 2018 at 4:06 pm

      That’s awesome that you have built many websites AND that you STILL got some benefit out of this post! Thanks!

      Reply
  5. Jack Mcelherron says:
    May 17, 2018 at 4:39 am

    Very good article and enjoyable to read, definitely some great points in there about affiliate marketing and I would love to see more.

    Reply
    1. Heather says:
      May 17, 2018 at 9:11 am

      Awesome! I am glad you enjoyed it! I will definitely be posting more! 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search FreeTrainingWorkFromHome.com

Do What You Love

heather plude Schedule a planning call

If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time. Let's talk and see if we can work together toward your success. If you want to work from home and follow your dreams... we need to talk!

I'm looking forward to meeting you.

Free Training – Work From Home

  • How to Find Expired Domains May 17, 2018
  • SEO Tools Backlink Checkers – Month 2 Traffic & Ranking Check May 17, 2018
  • GDPR Summary – Do you Have Customers or Contacts in the UK? May 15, 2018
  • How do you change http to https in Google Analytics May 14, 2018
  • Work from Home Jobs for Disabled Individuals May 11, 2018

Get Started For Free! So Easy – A Child Could Do It!

a child can do it


Legal Stuff

  • Privacy Policy
  • Affiliate Disclosure
key to unlock your potential

__________________________________________
Web Development Blog Directory
Marketing / SEO
Free Training Work From Home  - Blog Directory OnToplist.com

heather plude

Connect With Heather

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Follow This Blog
  • Email
Copyright ©2018 Free Training Work From Home
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Follow This Blog
  • Email