You have toiled for numerous hours slaving away building your dream website and now you want to make an income from it. Selling affiliate products is probably, by far the simplest way to create an income online. With affiliate products you refer a potential buyer or buyer to a merchant's website where they can buy a good or service. The visitor is tracked through an affiliate network and if a sale is made, a percentage or commission of the sale is paid to you for your trouble.



Which Network Too Choose

As with all industries there are non reputable and reputable companies that operate in the sector. The tricky part is working out whether the affiliate network company is trustworthy or not. As affiliate networks are internet based businesses, some companies may try to hide behind the invisible cloud and operate in a corrupt manner. However the internet is a powerful resource. Before joining an affiliate network do some research on the net. You may come across good and bad reports written by others about their experiences with different companies. It is better to learn from the faux pas of others than having to suffer an ill fate yourself.

Fees

The majority of affiliate networks allow publishers to sign up for free. If the affiliate network is requesting a fee, consider the following:

1.How much is the fee.

2.Is the fee recurring or is it a one off registration.

3.How long do you think it will take you to recover the fee you have paid to join. If the fee is only a few dollars, it won't take long. If the fee is 50 dollars / month you will need to make sure you are generating enough sales to cover this cost, or you will be making a loss before you start.

4.Are the merchants that are associated with this network worth the fee, or are the same merchants accessible on another network that is free to join.

Available Merchants

Before signing up to an affiliate network you should be able to evaluate the merchants they have on their books. It is important to check the merchants available as these will be the businesses you will promoting on your website. Are the merchants that are available selling merchandise that are comparable with the genre of your site. You need to keep asking yourself, if I was the visitor to the site, would I be attracted to buying the product that you are advertising for sale? Or is the product completely unrelated to the rest of the site. A number of affiliate networks are rather specific with the type of merchants they promote, e.g. merchants from the financial sector.

Getting Paid

This is the most important item to check as cash in the bank is the whole idea of selling the products. A number of affiliate networks require you to make a minimum amount in fees before they will make a payment to you. This can be as low as $30 in some cases. A number of affiliate networks pay monthly and others pay twice monthly if the minimum amount has been earned. This is vital so you can budget your cash flow.

You can easily make a comfortable living by promoting products through an affiliate network. The advantages of this include the fact you do not have to worry about guaranteeing the product, customer complaints or product returns. Just make sure you research the affiliate networks before promoting their products.