Small business owners who have their own websites have found that affiliate marketing is an interesting method of making additional money from visitors to their websites. Even if small business websites do not sell anything, and are only informational, they can make money for each and every visitor to their site by becoming part of an affiliate marketing program. Individuals can also add affiliate marketing to their personal websites, thereby creating an extra income with very little work.

Joining an affiliate marketing program is an inexpensive and extremely cost efficient way of taking your initial investment of creating and maintaining website and developing that into a fully independent money making business.

What is an affiliate marketing program? Affiliate marketing is a virtual partnership with other business on the internet. An affiliate marketing program provides more relevant content for your website which increases the ranking in the search engines. This leads to a potentially higher number of visitors to your site which, in turn, increases the number of visitors to your partner's websites. Offering additional resources for your customers is a valuable method of attracting, and retaining customers for your website and also for your affiliate marketing partners' web sites.

Affiliate marketing programs have a fairly long and successful history. They were originally organized between two internet businesses. Affiliate marketing programs are based on a very simple idea. Two companies agree to steer business from one company's website to the other company's website in return for compensation. When affiliate marking programs are organized the right way, all companies involved do well. Having a large business be part of the affiliate marketing program is always beneficial, but small businesses also help increase web traffic.

Joining an affiliate marketing program requires that you download a logo, icon, or button to your website. This logo, icon, or button acts as a link, when clicked by the site visitor, between your website and your partner's website. Your partner's business will have a computer program which keeps track of the number of visitors they are getting from your website. Each visit made via the affiliate marketing link entitles you to a pre-agreed amount of money. Many companies will also set up an additional percentage reward program. For example, if your partner site makes 50 dollars from a purchase by a person who was directed to their site from your website they would give you 2% of what they spent.