Make Money as an Affiliate

Becoming an affiliate is one of the best ways to make money on the internet. The best part about it is that you don't have to carry and sell any products, or handle any customer service, or even have your own website sometimes. You make money as an affiliate by recommending products sold on other websites. Everytime someone makes a purchase, you get paid a commission.

Before getting started, allow me to recommend two experts in affiliate marketing. Check out Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook and Anik Singal's Affiliate Classroom for the best information you can find about how to really make a living as an affiliate.

Top Affiliate Sites
Listed below are the best affiliate programs that I've found on the internet. I think you'll have the best opportunity to earn a lot of money with these sites.

1. The Internet Marketing Center
The Internet Marketing Center is the best place to go to get information on starting your online business. Thay have many products with some excellent commission rates for you to recommend to anyone who wants to really make money from home. And they have a two-tier system, which means you'll not only get credit for the sales you recommend, but you'll also get credit for any sales referred by anyone who signs up to their affiliate program under you. And they sell the best internet marketing products in the world, so you know you're recommending quality to your customers.

2. SiteSell
SiteSell does it better than almost anyone. Their Five Pillar Program offers a 2-tier commission program for five different product, They pay between 15% and 30% commissions on the first tier and up to 20% on the second tier, depending on how well your sub-affiliates do. SiteSell's lifetime commissions are for active salespeople only. As long as you continue to generating new sales, you will continue to receive lifetime commissions from them. It's worth noting that they are one of the best web hosts on the internet, so you can be confident recommending their service to anyone.

3. Clickbank
ClickBank is great for anyone who wants to recommend virtual products, meaning anything that can be downloaded or transfered electronically like an e-book, software or a monthly subscription site. ClickBank has a large selection of products for you to recommend. It's a great place to start. But they only work with virtual, downloadable products. If you want to recommend physical items, then check out Commission Junction below.

4. Commission Junction
Commission Junction is similar to ClickBank in that they have a lot of different products from a lot of different vendors for you to recommend, but in this case they don't have to be downloadable items. You will see that many of the biggest names on the internet use them, like Yahoo! and eBay. They have a great system with a lot of quality products to recommend.

5. HyperTracker
HyperTracker is a sophisticated ad tracking management system that can help you analyze your various ads and marketing strategies and figure out the best ways for you to maximize your profits. They offer a two-tier program that pays a 30% commission and a 10% sub-affiliate commission. They offer a free trial of their program for their customers, which is a great way for you to get people interested. Then once they switch to a paid membership, you get your recurring commissions for as long as they remain a member. Their affiliate program is run by a company called Implix, and they have a few quality product that you can recommend with confidence.

Note #1: There are many other websites that have affiliate programs running. Most of them are for that website's personal affiliate program, and doesn't include products from other websites. Before you join one, I recommend reading this free report from the Internet Marketing Center about what to look for in any affiliate program.

Note #2: A lot of people are making money online these days by promoting products using Google's pay-per-click program, known as Adwords. There are a lot of ways to do this right, and there are a lot of ways to do this wrong. And doing it wrong will cost you a lot of money in pay-per-click advertising. If you're interested in investigating this further, I recommend clicking here to see the best ways to use Adwords to make money.