Making money online can be a long and complicated process. It’s one thing to promote your own products, but when you’re just starting out and want to make some money, where do you start? The answer: affiliate programs.
This article focuses on the big picture, the "whys" of affiliate programs. Next article we’ll talk about the "hows" of promote affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs are easy to implement and simple to understand.

• No products necessary
You never have to have your own product to make money with affiliate programs. It’s all about promoting other people’s products. The steps to making money promoting other people’s products can be summarized in simple steps:
1) Choose an affiliate program.
2) Obtain an affiliate link from the program you’re trying to promote.
3) Create a site that has your affiliate link.
4) Prospects who click on your link will be redirected to the website that has the product you’re promoting.
5) If they make a purchase at this site through your affiliate link, you’ll get a commission (the percentage varies according to the program. What’s cool about it is that your prospects do not necessarily have to make a purchase right away for you to make money. Most affiliates (not all affiliate programs are created equal) will have software that "tracks" your prospects so that if they come back, say, three months later, and make a purchase, you’ll still make money.
• No geniuses allowed
You don’t have to be a John Reese (a big time internet marketer) to make big money with affiliate programs. In fact, if you’re a John Reese, you shouldn’t be reading this article! Most affiliate programs are designed with the beginners in mind. In fact, you can promote a product without being an expert on the product. Leave that to the one who owns the product you’re trying to promote. All you have to do is pick a winning affiliate program that has a proven track record. Some affiliate programs will even provide you with prewritten emails, banners, text links and free eBooks that you can brand and promote.

Planting seeds

Think of affiliate programs as the planting seeds. Besides from the fact that you can make some money while promoting affiliate programs, you’re building a list (customer base) that can make you money again and again in the future. What you’re doing is really building relationships with your list. You can do this by sending follow-up emails, newsletters, etc. Once your "seeds" are "planted", you can promote other affiliate products, or even your own to your list! – naturally, the bigger the list, the better. Keep nurturing your list and it’ll pay big dividends for you.

Understand the importance of building a list.

If there’s one thing that you get out of this article, it is this: you must build a list. How can you promote anything if you have a zero customer base?

If you’re going make mistakes, might as well make them here.

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