I’ve recently delved into the world of affiliate marketing. I’ve seen the stuff for years, but never really gotten into it. The idea is simple enough, you get paid a “commission” for selling someone else’s “product.” These products can be anything from ring tones to dating sites to tuna fish. The key to all of this is getting traffic to the offer for less of a cost than what you are being paid – easier said than done.

I’ve studied this for some time now, but am far from educated on it. You could say I’m very low on the affiliate-marketing-street-smarts scale. However, here’s a few of my very simple observations on the methods people use to get the traffic and make the moolah.

The Brute Force Method

Send as many people to your landing page as possible (even if it sucks) and a few are bound to complete the offer and earn you some coin. This is by far the easiest method. You don’t have to have a good offer. You don’t have to have a good sales/landing page. You don’t have to have a good domain. You just have to have traffic.

This problem is, how do you get that traffic? One of the primary ways of generating traffic in affiliate marketing is through PPC advertising. Well, if your offer or your landing page stinks, you’re going to be paying out the you-know-what for junk traffic. Operating at a loss isn’t the most profitable position is it?

The only way this works is if you can drive hoards of traffic without paying for it – usually not an easy task. I read the blogs of many who have run this route. Their final conclusion is usually that affiliate marketing is a scam, no one makes money in it and Santa Clause is a lie.

The Look-At-Me-I’m-a-Fricken-Genious Method

Sending a few interested people to a targeted offer with a well done landing page is a much better way to go. This keeps your costs much lower as you’re not paying for hundreds or thousands of clicks and your conversion rate higher as the people comming to your sales page are actually interested in what you have to offer. Lower advertising costs plus higher conversions equal higher profits.

But, if it were only so easy. This method requires two very important things (and two of the closest guarded secrets of affiliate marketers) – great keywords and a great landing page. Both of which take a lot of research and experimenting to get. That’s more work than most people are willing to put into it and come to many of the same conclusions that the ‘Brute Force’ people come to.

Are you and idiot?

Obviously one of the two methods above isn’t going to win American Idol (or County Star Idol or Canadian Mountie Idol.) The thing is, most people try to succeed in affiliate marketing by using Method A. Sure, they’ll tell you that their keywords are targeted and they’ve spent hours stealing other people’s landing pages. But, their stats say otherwise.

Which category do you fit into? Honestly, most of us are fooling ourselves. We have to look at this stuff objectively. Affiliate marketing is a tough business, but if you’re really willing to put the work into it, it can pay off in big ways.

I’m spreadin’ some link lovin’ to my twitter followers. Props to Kate Brodock and Internet Marketing – Best Web Ezy. Want some linkage for yourself? Follow me on twitter!

When I started this blog a year and a half ago, I didn’t really have any intentions of making any money with it. Though, I guess you could say I’ve had a change of heart.

There’s lots of opportunities out there, but few that will work for low-traffic blogs. One of these programs that does work, however, is payperpost. Back before I went AWOL on my blog, I did a few PayPerPost opportunities and made a little cash on the side. For a blogger that’s making pennies on programs like Adsense, PayPerPost can be a goldmine.

How Much Money Can I Make?

The majority of PayPerPost opportunities pay between $5 and $20. In fact, I’m getting paid 20 bucks to write this now. Some people will say I’m whoring my blog out. I say, I don’t really care. I’m getting $20 for 30 minutes of my time. If you’re an active blogger, these opportunities can really add up. Blogger Robert MacEwan made $2,500 in one month from PayPerPost alone!

Most of PayPerPost’s more lucrative opportunities are reserved for blogs that have a PageRank of 3 or better. This tends to be somewhat of a flawed system as greater page rank doesn’t always equal greater blog. This really gets out of hand with some of the top paying posts. As I type this, the top paying post nets the blogger a cool $135, but requires a pagerank of 7. 7? Problogger.net, with over 45,000 RSS subscribers is currently sitting with a pagerank of 6. So you’re telling me that a blogger with hundreds of thousands of visitors making a six-figure blogging income doesn’t qualify for a $135 opportunity on PayPerPost? A little ridiculous. But I digress…

The bottom line is that PayPerPost is great for the low-traffic blog, but can quickly be outgrown as your readership increases.

If I didn’t just talk you out of it, check out the button at the top of this post to sign up for PayPerPost.

Here’s the first of my weekly updates on my search to make money on the internet. A while back I introduced you to AGLOCO. AGLOCO is more or less an advertising company that is fully owned by its members. The whole concept is that when you sign up for the program, they will place a viewbar at the bottom of your browser that features privacy protection, spyware protection, phishing protection, member IM and voice communications, RSS feeds, broadcast communication, community tips and other functions. In turn you are paid for the time that you are on the internet.
The program is still in testing and the viewbar hasn’t been released yet, however AGLOCO (aff) is encouraging its members to continue to build their downline.

Out of the many programs I’ve tried in the past, this is one of the more interesting ones. The concept is very simple. You get paid to surf the internet. While your personal earnings are minscule, with a large network, you can earn a nice income. There are several members that have already built an incredible network. For instance, John Chow has recruited over 3,000 members and he is looking to make 5 figures per month in this program.

I haven’t done so hot. I have a whole 2 people in my network. At this point I’m not looking at making any more than $20 per month on this deal.

Bottom Line

AGLOCO looks promising, but I won’t know until the viewbar is released in a few weeks. The big factor in this equasion, however, is my network. If AGLOCO sounds interesting to you sign up here (aff.) It only takes about 60 seconds and dosen’t cost you a thing.