How To Make Money on the Internet - Part 3: Affiliates

In previous posts I have covered various money making sites and opportunities for example Part 1: eBay and Part 2: Google Adsense.
However, for many people, it has been the use of affiliate links on websites which have provided the largest percentage of all website revenue. So I'll try and explain the major points surrounding such a vast topic.

What is an affiliate scheme?
You have a website and want to make money, so you enroll yourself in an affiliate or associate scheme. Let's take Amazon.com for example. In return for signing up, Amazon asks you to place a piece of html on your site, which enables their ads to be seen on your site. Then every time one of your visitors click on the Amazon link, and buy a product from Amazon, you get commission from that sale. These percentages range from 5% to 7.5% of the product price. Amazon then sends you a cheque or money can be sent by Direct Debit (why can't Adsense have this?!).

The amount of money you can make through Affiliates like this are endless, and all of the thousands of schemes out there offer you different commission fees, so shop around for the best payers.

Affiliate Optimization Tips...
Although I do not use any affiliate schemes on my Blogger site (as it does not allow me to do so), I have read articles from other bloggers on how to benefit the most from placing associate ads on your site:

1) Place affiliate ads that are relevant to your website genre/content: If like me, you are running a Business and Entrepreneurial site, with loads of information about how to make money, you don't want ads around your pages showing products for Table Tennis or Horseriding. Target your audience. Put yourself in their position. What would I buy if I was an entrepreneur? Maybe a book or guide showing how you can use Adsense to its full potential. Amazon has loads of books like this on their site, so place ads that show hese books, and you are likely to see more sales.

2) Blend the ads in with your site: Many people still seem to insist that you should make your ads stand out from the general theme of your site. However, I find that whenever I stumble upon a site using an affiliate, I am put off by contrasting colours. Try to use the same colours for your ads as your site, as this will make the products look more personal and professional.

I have only touched on a few points here, but please get in touch if you feel I have left something big out of my list. To finish, I'll give you the top Affiliate Schemes which have had the most success with other bloggers and entrepreneurs:

Amazon
Clickbank
Commission Junction
SixApart (creators of TypePad)