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Skinny Shoestring eBooks are written for people who want to build a business, but who have limited resources. Practical strategies that really work. No shady marketing tactics, no hype, just helpful information and straight instructions to get you started right. Business startup, many ways of making money online, marketing, building a website, writing for the web, and more.
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Rating:
Level of Review:
Tried in several ways. Some success.
Overview:
You place links to other businesses on your
website. Those businesses pay you for business that
your website generates for them.
Product: The
end product is the product of the sponsoring
business. What you are really getting paid for, is
advertising.
Costs:
Usually nothing to get started. May be some costs
for setting up or maintaining your website, for web
space, etc. Never pay to join an affiliate program,
or for listings of them, this is freely available
info.
Compensation:
Compensation is paid usually on a percentage of
actual purchases made by customers who enter the
merchant site from your website links. Occasionally
one will pay per click, but it is rare. Commissions
are generally very low, often less than 1%.
Sometimes commissions are paid for repeat purchases
by the same buyer, but often are only for initial
purchase. Even if they do track multiple purchases,
that information may be lost if the tracking file
on the user's computer (the cookie) is lost through
damage, upgrade, or software reinstall. It works,
it is just not perfect.
Conclusion:
Affiliate links CAN generate some income, but are
usually NOT a good source of a primary income. When
they do work, they do so over the long term, and
are not a quick answer to making money. You will
notice, we do have a few affiliate links on this
website. They are not a major source of income - of
course, we did not set out for them to be either.
The ones that work, do so because we use them in
context, and because we are providing useful
information, of which they are part.
So many people
pepper their website with links, then cannot
understand why no one ever clicks through on them,
much less buys! It is an issue of trust, and
interest.
An ad that looks
like an ad gets far less attention than a link that
looks like it was meant to be helpful. If you
provide a website with genuinely interesting
content, and the links seem to be secondary, you
get much higher results than if the links appear to
be the reason for the site. Ever click into one of
those sites that is just a long string of banner
ads? First thing you do is click the back
button!
If you want to use
Affiliate links as a prime source of income, get
some education about how to do so effectively. Try
this page: http://www.skinnyshoestring.com/sohotools/affiliatelink.htm.
And know ahead of time that the rule still
applies...the Links need to be the secondary aspect
of the site - and for heaven's sake, don't build a
website with the title "Making Money From Affiliate
Links.", or "Work From Home" which you are just
going to load with links! You need a topic and
sound information to justify the existence of the
site - pick something you know about and want to
share with people aside from making money. You can
try the Affiliate Masters Course, which is a free
downloadable eBook. It is freely littered with ads,
but does have some useful info in it on how to
build an affiliate income from a topic oriented
website. Be careful of copyright laws and don't
steal anyone else's content.
And don't expect to
make your fortune while you sleep! Even if you do
it right, it takes a lot of time, and a lot of work
(ongoing to keep your content fresh and get
visitors to come back) to keep the income trickling
in. If you want this to be a full time income, it
will have to be a full time job.
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