You have might have read a lot of headlines that sound similar to this one above, or make promises like this one seems to. You probably have spent quite a bit of time reading blog posts with title like this one. After reading the article, you might have thought is was bunk… no way can I make money doing that; that won’t work, do that, write about that, endorse that… or whatever that! IT WILL DESTROY MY IMAGE!

Done well, it can enhance your brand. I’m going to give you some tips that will give you an opportunity to monetize your website or blog, while preserving your brand. One of the best and easiest ways to monetize your online properties is to join some affiliate programs and advertise them on your site.

Affiliate programs are the answer

Why affiliate programs? Simple. When you are an affiliate of a affiliate marketing program, you can start selling products without having to. All the work of writing an eBook, or recording an audio track, or programming a software product is taken care of by someone else. But that’s not all the advantages. You don’t have to create any marketing materials - those are all created for you by the person who builds the product and is running the affiliate program.

Another big advantage is that you really don’t have to manually keep track of ROI or conversion rates. Most outstanding affiliate programs will provide the members with a login to a sophisticated affiliate management tool that is based on one of the leading affiliate software programs. Software programs like these will enable you to check how your ads are doing and what your commissions are.

Five tips for choosing affiliate offers to promote

1. Look good earnings potential - You want to make sure that if one of the people you refer to an affiliate offer buys, that you will make some decent money. Some gurus recommend that you look for high percentage payouts. My preference is to look for affiliate program where you make a large commission from a referral. This affiliate program for promoting SEO services gives you the opportunity to earn monthly recurring income up to $350.
2. Choose programs your readers will like - It is critical that you choose affiliate programs and offers that your audience will appreciate and be interested in. It wouldn’t be too bright to choose to promote affiliate programs and products for adult content movies on a site that is dedicated to toys for toddlers. However, if you have a website that helps people find careers is sales, it would be great to promote something like How to Get Into Medical Sales.

3. Look for affiliate programs powered by software - When you sign up for an affiliate program it will quickly become obvious if the owner of the program is serious about helping affiliate members be successful. If you are automatically redirected to a page powered by a fully-featured affiliate marketing software program, you can infer that this is a serious affiliate program. If you get an email message that says ‘here is you affiliate link’ and ‘we’ll let you know if you earn anything’ you should think carefully about investing any time. Their are several top name brands like iDev Affiliate, LinkShare, and JROX JAM. My favorite is JROX JAM, which you can get for free here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/recommends/free-affiliate-management-software.htm

4. Make sure the website is NOT anonymous - What I mean is, make sure that there are real people standing behind the website, people with good reputations, who take customer service seriously. People who let you know who give you contact information with phone numbers are more likely to treat you well. They are more likely to support you and deal with you fairly. If you can find a picture, bio, and phone number of the affiliate site owner, chances are they are trustworthy. You will also be able to search the Internet to find any negative information about their program. Peggy McKee, the Medical Sales Recruiter, is one of the country’s leading sales recruiters - she proudly announces her site ownership on the about pages like this one: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/about/

5. Choose affiliate programs that have support programs - If you are choosing a piece of software to buy, you probably wouldn’t purchase it if there was not support mechanism in place. It would be wise to use similar criteria when evaluating affiliate offerings. Affiliate website program owners that don’t put support systems in place - something like a ticket system or help desk software - probably won’t care about any their products or customers, and eventually they won’t are about you. When they do, you can be fairly confident that they are trying to delight their customers. If they AREN’T working to keep customers happy, their poor service will reflect poorly on you, and tarnish your brand.

There are a couple of affiliate programs that meet all these criteria, that I recommend if your site’s visitors would be interested in these subjects. One is an affiliate program for a sales interview tool that targets sales professionals - you can check it out here: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/affiliate-program-details/. The other is a program that has a broader appeal - it targets people who own businesses that either have no web presence or under performing websites; you can get all the information for it here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/blog/home/affiliate-program/