Blog Reseller

Have you ever thought about joining one or two affiliate programs but aren’t sure whether they’d be right for you? If you own a blog or website you could potentially earn money and enhance the image of your site by becoming an affiliate. It’s relatively simple to get started and, as an affiliate, there is no up front cost to you.

As an affiliate, you sign up with merchant that offers to pay you when you display the merchant’s advertising and promote the merchant’s products on your blog. As an affiliate, you’ll receive cut/paste HTML code to display textual or display advertising encouraging your blog’s visitors to ‘click-through’ from your site to the merchant’s website.

The merchant’s HTML code defines the advertising copy and the appropriate link to the merchant’s website. It also contains an affiliate account number to identify your blog as the source of a ‘click-through’ to the merchant’s site. Each time your blog sends a lead to the merchant’s site your affiliate code is activated and signals the exact location of where the ‘clicked-through’ lead came from. You get paid when a person visiting your blog clicks on a merchant’s ad and subsequently purchases a product or service from a merchant to whom you’re an affiliate.

You have the potential to receive a percentage of the total transaction. Percentages can range as high as 30% or more! Some merchants typically run incentive programs for their affiliates who participate in ad campaigns targeting promotional products for a specified period of time.

Merchants are becoming more selective of whom they will approve as an affiliate. As more and more sites and blogs pop up around the web, merchants will approve only those sites that attract certain levels of traffic minimums. Merchants are also very selective about the content that their affiliates host and an increasing number of merchants are targeting specific niches that fit the demographics of the customers they tend to attract and sell to more often.

As an affiliate, your site becomes an extension of the merchant’s advertising strategy. As an affiliate, the merchant truly wishes that your site becomes a top-ranking producer. Everyone in the game wants you to succeed and succeed big! The more people visiting your site the greater the chances are that they will ‘click-through’ to the merchant’s site. The more times your site’s pages are viewed with the merchant’s advertising, higher numbers of ‘impressions’ are cast in front of a pre-qualified audience.

A merchant’s affiliate program will track the number of impressions coming from your site and generate click-through ratios in addition to calculating and tracking sales that have earned commissions for you. Your site’s metrics will be reviewed periodically to see if having you as an affiliate is worthwhile. Most merchant affiliate programs will provide basic parameters that must be met prior to being approved. Even after approval, an affiliate’s status may be revoked by the merchant or the merchant’s agent, at any time and for almost any reason.

It may not sound fair at first, but if you place yourself if the shoes of the merchant, you’d realize that the merchant is taking a huge risk. They are lending “you” the use of their prized brand and their good name. Merchant’s who allow you to display their ads on your site are trusting you to do so in a sophisticated and appropriate manner. After all the merchant’s advertising on your site can add a great deal of credibility to your website or blog. Even if you don’t make a million dollars in commissioned sales, you are gaining invaluable support from the merchant just by being one of their trusted affiliates.

You may learn more about becoming an affiliate by reviewing some of the larger and more trusted sources for bringing merchants and affiliates together. The two best known brokerage houses are Commission Junction and Linkshare. If you decide to take part in one of the many affiliate programs available, please take great care to understand and adhere to the Terms and Conditions of the affiliate agreements and remember to always cast your merchant in a positive manner. Becoming an affiliate doesn’t cost you a dime and with a little ingenuity and dedication you have an opportunity to make serious money from home.