In todays online market there are many people who use PPC to generate revenue from their site or blog. PPC programs like Google Adwords and Yahoo Ads are used by many webmasters to advertise random products from their own sites. This obviously means that if someone clicks on a PPC ad, you will make a very small profit (from around 1-2 cents all the way to around $5 or more). If you get lots of clicks that means you earn lots of money, however if your site is targeted enough and has a good niche, then you can earn a lot more money from different methods of advertising.

Because PPC markets are so popular, they are mostly used by webmasters to generate revenue. Although this is a smart move, you could make an even smarter move by going over to affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing (as many of you may know) is a market where you earn money by targeted advertising. Targeted advertising means targeting the audience that you think will buy a specific product, most of whom are adults with Credit Cards. The way that affiliate marketing works is simple: You sign up to an affiliate marketing site (i.e. Clickbank or CJ) and search for an online business that sells a certain product. You then create a “hoplink” to the business’s website and start getting visitors to visit the site. If the visitors then go on to purchase a product from that site you will earn a percentage of the sale. The percentage of the sale varies from product to product, however on Clickbank the going rate is usually 75% of the sale.

The advantages of affiliate marketing:

• Targets a specific product based on your site’s niche. For example, if you own a site that reviews Playstation games, you can show ads linking to business’s that sell Playstation consoles and games.

• Pays very well, usually in the area of $10 – $30 per sale OR more.

• Brands the site a lot more and makes it look professional and targeted.

The disadvantages of affiliate marketing:

• Unlike PPC advertisements you are not guaranteed to make any money, even if a visitor does click on your affiliate link.

• Advertising your affiliate based site may be a complete waste of time and money.

An example of a targeted affiliate marketing technique is a site that I built which provides information and reviews hydrogen car kits. Three different products are up for review on the site, and I provide a link to each product through my Clickbank hoplink. When people click on the link they receive a cookie from Clickbank that can track the products they purchase. So after people have read the review on my site, they then choose a product and (in some cases) go on to purchase something. I use various techniques of advertising to get people onto the site, however more specific and in depth advertising techniques will be published as part of a Money007? eBook in the future.

My earnings from this site were actually quite good considering that I put hardly any effort into creating and maintaining the site. I would like to share my earnings with you by providing a screen-shot of my Clickbank earnings during that specific period:

As you can see, affiliate marketing can turn over quite a profit and can be very useful for webmasters who run sites with a healthy stream of traffic and a selling niche. In part 2 of ?Generating extra revenue from your site?, I will talk about different affiliate marketing sites, as well as the differences in selling electronic and real products online.

Hope you have a good day,

The team at Money007.