If you have a websites that is receiving decent amounts of traffic each day you could be making money with it by signing up for an affiliate program. Affiliate programs are the latest and greatest way to make money from your website by advertising merchant services to your website visitors. Sounds pretty easy, but how does it work?

The Referral System
The concept is really quite simple. Everything is based on a paid referral system. Visitors come to your website, you introduce them to a product or service from a third-party vendor through a banner or text link, and if your referral decides to buy, you get paid a commission. While it sounds simple, there are a few important details to know before you begin. Let's look at an example.

Case Study
Mary is interested in scrapbooking, so she sets up a website called Scraptips.com to share some of her ideas with others who are interested in the same thing. She begins to build up a loyal following of people who visit her site frequently for weekly tips and ideas. She signs up as an affiliate with a merchant called Scrapbook Supplies Online, and places their small banner link on her site. For each of her site visitors who clicks on the banner and visits the merchant, Mary receives $.10 per click (click-throughs) for introducing that person to the merchant services. In addition this article has all rights reserved and is copyright by 100 Best she might receive 10% of any purchases (sales/leads) that person might make. Everyone wins.

Counting the Clicks
Well, who keeps track of these clicks? And how do affiliates get paid? That's where web services like Commission Junction and BeFree come in. They make the whole process simple by doing all the tracking through your personal affiliate i.d. and then send you one check at the end of the month for all your commissions. Or, you use your affiliate's tracking software to keep track of the sales and clicks.

That's how the whole thing works. If you have a website sign up for an affiliate program to start making money from your site.

If you sell products on your website - you'll need a credit card merchant account and you can get one today through our sister site.