There are quite a few affiliate networks online today that allow you to earn commissions from product sales through your website or blog. They act as a middle man between the companies (merchants) that want to advertise their products and website owners such as you who are willing to display their ads.

Merchants will sign-up with one or more affiliate networks and upload heir banners and product details to the affiliate network site. Website and blog owners can then create an advertiser account with the affiliate network, and then add these banners via special tracking url’s to their own site.

If a customer clicks on one of these banners on your site they will be redirected to the merchants site. If the customer then completes a transaction you earn a commission which is paid by the affiliate network.

Some commissions are paid for generating leads, but the majority are paid on sales. Sales commissions can range from 2% to about 10% depending on the merchant and sales volume.

As I said before there re quite a few of these networks trading online, so you should be able to find one with suitable merchants for your sites target market. I personally use 4 affiliate networks that cover a broad range of merchants and are as follows:

Affiliate Window – My Top Choice

This is a UK based affiliate network that has a wide range of merchants on their list covering a wide range of subjects. They are constantly improving their site and selection of promotional tools to help you increase your sales. The staff are friendly and happy to help you out if you have a problem.

WebGains – My Second Choice

Wegains operates in 9 countries including the UK and USA as well as Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Again they have a wide selection of merchants covering a range of subjects. Again the staff are happy to help you if need it.

LinkShare

Linkshare operates in both the UK & USA. Again they are always looking for ways to improve there system with helpful and friendly staff.

TradeDoubler

Tradedoubler is a European company that trades in 7 countries,: UK, Belgium, France,Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain.

Visit Trade Doubler

You may wonder why I use 4 of these affiliate networks and not just one. Well one reason is each one has it’s own toolsets, that can be utilised in different ways and in different areas of your site. Another answer is that you can find more merchants that fit your site. Another is that I use another tool that allows me to build affiliate shops that draws products from merchants across all 4 of the above networks (more on this later).

So if you are looking to generate an extra income stream from your websites you should at least look over the affiliate networks above.

Social networks are a great place to market your products if done correctly, as you can communicate with like-minded individuals all over the world, quickly and easily. The internet allows you to communicate with people the other side of the planet, just as easily as you can the person living next door.

Some of the most popular social networks are MySpace, Facebook and Twitter but there are many more, with new ones appearing all the time. You can find all types of social networks that are geared towards specific interests simply by doing a quick search in your favourite search engine.

You can think of these sites as a form of free bulletin boards available to the world where you can create a business profile aimed at attracting, networking and communicating with prospective customers. Giving you the ability to reach 100s if not thousands of people interested in what you have to say.

The first thing you need to do is set up your profile. Try to make any information you enter here as appropriate to your business as possible, as this is will be the area people will visit to find out more about you, and acts as your billboard.

Your profile should include a photograph of yourself along with your name, general locality and information about yourself and business. As a note of caution however, don’t give to much personal information such as your full name, home address and telephone number. You never know who exactly is viewing your profile, and this information could be used to your detriment, always think safety first.

Now you will want to seek out people who are interested in your market area to befriend. You can find these people by searching for related groups or possibly by using software to seek them out for you. Don’t go overboard and add hundreds of friends at one time, as this may get your account deleted. Most social networks aren’t business sites, so you don’t want to trigger any alarm bells. Try to make things look natural and add new friends on a daily basis.

Once you have managed to build up a a fair sized list of friends, you can begin making posts and joining in any discussions on the subject that you are trying to market. But do not just try to make a sales pitch, that is not what most social networks are about. If you join in and interact on your topic you can then point out the benefits of you product or website in the context of the topic. You may think this doesn’t sound very productive, but when you have a list of 10,000 friends that are interested in what you are selling, it can add up very quickly.

If you participate in groups and discussions with relevant information, and are friendly and curtious to other users you will probably find people will start to add you to their friends list, expanding your potential customer base even further. Remember most people on these networks are there to have fun. We’ll take a closer look at this subject in future posts.