If you take the time to learn the ropes, affiliate marketing is a great way to make extra money –or even some serious money.

Affiliate marketing is now used by some of the largest companies in America including eBay, Amazon, Wal-Mart and many others. If you don’t know what it is or how it works, check out our book, The Official Geezer Guide to Starting an Online Business. Basically it is nothing more than setting up a website or a blog and then placing links to your affiliate advertisers where people can see them and click on them. When someone clicks on an ad and buys something, the advertiser pays you a commission.

The neat thing about affiliate marketing is that you can do it as little or as much as you want. If you are happy earning a few hundred dollars a month you can do that with a few hours a week. If you want to make more –just put in a little more time. Granted, I am very experienced, but I also had to start from scratch.  After my first few months doing affiliate marketing as a sidebar to my regular business I was pretty consistently making around $1000 a month.  After a few years that has gone up and in my best month ever I made over $15,000 –and it is still a part time thing for me.  Lest you think you have to be some sort of web expert or genius, that is not the case. I am actually a very low-tech person with only basic web skill.

Top 5 Tips for Making Money with Affiliate Marketing

1. Buy  your own domain name and hosting.  Free blogs and free websites give you less control, poor search results and lack credibility.
2. Learn everything you can about the product or service you are promoting. Again you want credibility. If you are knowledgeable about what you are promoting then people will believe you.
3. Only recommend products and services related to the content of your website or blog. If you blog about barbecue recipes and have links to credit card offers and travel then your readers will not take you seriously. But if you have links to purchase BBQ grills, smokers and gourmet steaks then they will listen to your recommendations.
4. Learn everything you can. I really like the programs at Affiliate Classroom.  They offer excellent low-cost training and you can try them out for just One Dollar.
5. Track your activity.  Too many people just grab a banner or affiliate link, put it up and forget it.  All affiliate programs offer tracking and statistics.  Check your stats often and replace banners, links and advertisers that are not converting.

Everyone needs a little extra money these days, so why not give affiliate marketing a shot. This is a very low-cost, low-risk online business that anyone with even basic computer and internet skills can do.