Boost Your Web Site's Revenue with Affiliate Programs

So you've built a Web site, or are going to, and you want to use advertising as a source of revenue. But advertising programs such as Google Ads or other similar type ventures don't really work for Web sites that aren't bringing in thousands of page hits per week (thousands per day, usually).

The key to using advertising successfully is to give your viewers a product that they need. Unless you get the right ads on page, you won't do that, and even if you get the right ads you have to hope it's something your viewers want to click on.

An effective fix to the problem is using an affiliate program such as Amazon.com.

Amazon.com beats Barnes & Noble hands down when it comes to inexpensive books, and on top of that, Amazon sells everything you can think of. They are also one of the leading online stores, meaning most people who come to your website have bought something from Amazon.com at one time or another and many of these people are repeat customers coming back to Amazon whenever they need something new.

This gives you MEGA advantages over other advertising programs.

When you use Google Ads, according to their guidelines, you are committing fraud when you tell people to click the ads. This can really hamstring your efforts to make a profit. With Amazon.com-and other affiliate programs-you can and should tell people about your affiliation, how it works, and that people should use your site to buy. Amazon.com wants you to tell others and wants them to purchase items. That's why Amazon.com and others use affiliate programs. They use you to make them money, giving you a percentage of that money as a reward. This means you can advertise your advertising which you can't do through most other ad programs. You will make more money just by telling others about your affiliation.

Amazon.com works the best with websites built around topics such as writing, reading, books, literature, the arts...but also websites for clothing, jewelry, and electronics because Amazon.com sells all of these things. If you have built a Harry Potter fan site, put an Amazon.com ad up and tell people this is where they can get the best Potter merchandise-you can boost your revenues. The same goes for your hobby crafts site, your baseball site, or your financial site.

Amazon.com has high name recognition. People who see an Amazon.com ad are more likely to trust that ad. The same can't be said about companies with low name recognition. By placing Amazon ads in locations where they won't take away from your site, but are still visible, you can help boost your own quality and the trust people place in you.

But be careful, if you put an ad in a cheesy location, no matter who the ad is from you won't be better off for it being there.

Amazon.com is easy to use. It's as easy to set up an affiliation as it is to purchase one of their books. Once you have an affiliation set up, you can choose one of their many ad designs. Find an ad that is most appropriate for you and place it in a visible location, not where it interferes with your site.

The lowest profit you can make is 4% of the cost of items purchased. If someone clicks on your Amazon.com ad and buys a hundred dollars worth of items, you will get $4. This percentage moves up the more people shop. It can get as high as 6% and even 8-10% for some items. And it's not out of the realm of reasonability to make a lot of money each month. People often go to Amazon.com and buy one thousand dollar computers and five hundred dollar cameras. If they do it through your site, that's money you didn't have to work for.

And the benefits are infinite. The more traffic your site gets...the more people shop using your ads...the more money earn. Just make sure whatever affiliate program you choose-there are hundreds to pick from-that you choose one that fits your site, that your viewers will be interested in, and that you advertise your advertising when you get the chance. Amazon.com is only one example of many good affiliates out there, so get going and make some money.