Methods Affiliates Can Use To Earn Commissions

By: Aaron Ballantyne

If you are starting out in affiliate marketing you have many options as far as marketing methods to use to make commissions. Some work much better than others. Here are some of the most common ways affiliates can make sales.

1. Blogging. This has become very popular in just a few short years. Because of the explosion in the number of blogs and competition most don't get traffic as easily as they once did. There is still plenty of opportunity to market with blogs though especially if you find a good niche.

2. Google adwords. Like blogging it is more difficult now to make money with adwords because of intense competition and quality scoring of sites and ads known widely as the google slap. If you are good at writing ad copy, have high converting pages and can find niche keywords you can still earn a good income from using adwords.

3. SEO. This is a good way to get free traffic and make money. Choosing the right niche is critical. It should be a good keyword or phrase that is searched for often and has little competition so you can get your site ranked easily.

4. Articles. This is one of the best affiliate marketing techniques. By writing articles you establish yourself as an expert in your subject and people reading your articles will be very interested in whatever product you are marketing.

5. Ezine adverting. This is a good way to make commissions. The conversions from advertising in ezines is not nearly as good as having your own list though.

6. Squidoo lenses. These are relatively new but they get a lot of traffic from google. Lenses are also very simple to set up. I am promoting one of my lenses with this article in fact. Lenses can be effectively used to show your expertise on a topic.

7. Online classifieds. You can put classifieds on sites such as usfreeads and craigslist to drive traffic and earn commissions.

8. Text link advertising. You can advertise links to your site on other websites. As long as the traffic comes from websites with a simaler topic as yours the traffic will be targeted and should convert well.

9. Newspaper advertising. Many marketers use this offline method to make some very nice commissions. This probably requires the most experimentation to find the right papers to advertise in and also the most effective ad copy to produce sales.

10. Forum posting. This will bring quality traffic to your affiliate sites through your signature links. It is important to contribute to the forums and not just spam them though.

Those are just a few examples of how you can promote and make sales. With online marketing you are only limited by your imagination though. Keep in mind the most successfull internet marketers find new ways of getting customers with little competition.