What Makes a Good Affiliate?

Affiliate marketing can be an interesting and satisfying way to make money, but it’s also hard work.  Many of the best paying advertising niches are very competitive.  If you’re considering becoming an affiliate there are a number of things to take into account.

The Basics
If you do not already have a website you are going to need one.  Whether you buy an existing site from somebody or whether you create one from scratch is going to be your choice.  Both options require an initial outlay of money and/or time. If you have got web development skills, it will be significantly easier to create your own site, but otherwise you would need to hire somebody.

Subject Matter
The whole point of affiliate marketing is that you are going to be (or already are) publishing content that draws people to your site at which point you can convince them to take an action with a merchant.  That means you are going to need real content for your site.  You should balance the amount of money to be made in a certain subject area with how much you are really interested in it.  If you are truly interested in a topic, such as digital cameras, you are going to be more likely to regularly put up compelling content to drive traffic to your site.

Know Your Audience
The audience for a site on photography is very different than the audience for a site about weight loss.  Do some serious research into your area of interest before you begin your site.  You need the right information but also the right tone. The key is to create content on a regular basis that people who might be interested in your subject matter are going to want to read.

Find the Right Affiliate Network and Merchants
Once you have a site, you have an idea of what sort of content you’re going to generate for it on a regular basis, you can start doing your research to find the merchants with the appropriate offers for your site.  To make things easier you probably want to research affiliate networks, which will aggregate many different merchants for you.  Different networks have different focuses for their merchants.  It is usually free to sign up, so sign up for as many as you want and take a look at their merchants to see if they are right for you.

Of course there is much more to learn, but this is a glimpse into the basics of being a successful affiliate.