Welcome to the new improved affiliate guide, a step by step basic introduction to the world of the affiliate marketer.  Everyone wants to make a bit of extra money on the side and being an affiliate is one way in which an enterprising individual can do that.  For some ambitious, hard working marketers, being an affiliate can be an extremely lucrative business; a way to fund the type of lifestyle which may not otherwise be available.

Let’s start by explaining what an affiliate site is – simply speaking it’s a website (A) which points to another website (B) which sells things.  Website A will contain an individual link provided by Website B so that B knows where the customer came from.  If and when the customer buys a product, the owner of A will receive a financial reward, usually amounting to a certain percentage of the product’s sale price.

So that’s pretty easy or at least it sounds easy in practice.  In fact it is pretty easy to become an affiliate of a website; the hard part is attracting visitors to your website.  With all the hundreds of thousands of affiliate websites out there, how is your site going to be the one which potential purchasers are finding?  This is where the hard work begins as you attempt to build a website which can find it’s way to the higher pages of the Google rankings.

Some affiliate industries are more difficult to get into than others.  A good example is the online casino industry (you can check here for more information) which is extremely lucrative but oversubscribed with thousands of potential affiliates trying to earn a piece of that gambling revenue.  For beginners it’s a better idea to find a niche industry with very few affiliates.  Whatever you decide to do you can use this site as a reference point for your attempts to become an affiliate marketer.