This is important…..YOU NEED YOUR OWN DOMAIN AND HOSTING! (sorry for shouting!)

This is what will separate you from other “tyre kicker” affiliates, there is so much more you can do with your own domain and hosting than trying to do it the FREE way, but just because you’re paying for it doesn’t mean it’s going to cost you a fortune, heay, I’m the king of cheap! I’m tighter than a ducks arse! LOL Cut costs, maximize profits, it’s not rocket science.

Don’t worry if you don’t know a thing about building websites, or HTML etc, it doesn’t matter, I will go over that in another post, I will show you how to do it for FREE and without any HTML knowledge.

I will post about hosting tomorrow, but for now get on over to namecheap.com to register your domain, BUT before you spend a dime, go to dncoupons.com and select namecheap from the drop down menu to get your domain name discount coupon code, OK, at the time of writing this it’s only about $0.90 but that brings the cost of your domain name down to around $8. DO NOT buy hosting from these guy’s, apparently it’s awful…be warned!

If this is your first time at affiliate marketing I would recommend you buy a domain that is keyword targeted, so if your chosen affiliate program is selling dog training, try get a domain name containing the words “dog training”. If you want your domain to sell several unrelated products, think of a business name you would want to go by, or even one in your own name. 

There’s the obvious stuff to look for like, how much commission do affiliates receive, how often and how are you going to be paid.

But you need to make sure there aren’t any leaks in the sites you are promoting, by leaks, I mean anything that would result in loss of sales or commissions for the traffic you send them.

Are there any ads promoting other companies? Can people only order online or is there a number they can ring? Is there a link clearly visible telling people can earn money by becoming an affiliate? These are all leaks that you need to watch for, if you’re promoting a site you’ve got to make sure you receive all the commission you deserve.

Is the product you’re promoting of top quality? Is the company reliable? Check up on them on google.com to make sure everything is ok with the company and its products.

So what is affiliate marketing?

The definition of affiliate marketing:-
It’s the sharing of revenue between merchants and salespeople, where an agreed commission is paid for a sale of a product or service or even just a lead.

Let’s say you are interested in golf, and decide you want to sell golf clubs online, you find a website that not only sells golf clubs (obviously) but also has an affiliate program, you just give them a few details, who to write cheques to etc, and that’s it, you are given a special link to promote that tracks your customers and gives you the credit for each sale, easy huh?

You are paid for performance, if you don’t sell anything you don’t get paid, it’s entirely upto you how (within reason, no spamming for instance!), when, and how often, don’t worry they won’t be ringing you aking why you haven’t sold anything, you aren’t contracted to them. 

Some companies have their own inhouse programs, others do it through a third party of which the most popular ones are:-

cj.com From physical products to pay per lead (You will find your golf club merchants here)
clickbank.com Digital products only (This is where you buy all those crappy ebooks  )
paydot.com Physical and digital Products