Features : Money : Work At Home

Growing Your Small Online Business -
Selecting Affiliate Programs for Your Web Store or Site

Part 3 of a Series ( Part 1, Part 2)

by Lee Hansen,
editor/publisher- Pastiche Family Portal

There are hundreds of web sites promising fast cash to Work At Home Moms (WAHM). Well, many of those offers are frankly just scams. However, quite a few are legitimate business opportunities that offer you cash for your efforts, and offer your visitors and customers real bargains and values in exchange for their time or money.

From my research, I've concluded that most online programs fall somewhere in between the extremes. Picking the best is a matter of referral, experience and testing. Don't spend money for any work at home offers, and don't provide any personal financial data if you aren't totally certain the offer is bona fide.

Personally, I don't have the time to wade through trash to get to treasure. I don't want my web site to sell something unless I believe in the product, AND, I want to offer real value for their money to my friends and site visitors if I present a link to another web site. Finally, I don't want to be insulted or tricked, and I don't want to offend my site visitors.

I evaluate new products and affiliate opportunities every week; unfortunately many are simply rehashed pyramid MLM programs that require you to keep selling and upselling their program without giving your anything of value to your web site. Or, they offer you (hundreds of dollars worth, supposedly) 'free' e-books heavily embedded with their own advertising messages as an incentive to sign up for their course, email list, or reseller program.

Ugh! Too complicated, too messy and they sound too good ... they are not worth my time or money. I like to keep things simple, safe, and honest when it comes to business and the Internet. So, I am sharing my experiences (FREE! NO TIME LIMIT!) with you, and that's the full story.

This article contains a list of the programs I can speak about honestly, either because I am an affiliate member, or I am a customer (or, both, in some cases). I believe in these programs - they won't bombard you with junk e-mail or offer to "teach" you how to make money at home for a "special" "discounted" "today-only offer." These programs will not take your money and run for the hills. I haven't had a negative experience with any up to now, but be assured that if I do, this article will be updated to alert other WAHMs and small online entrepreneurs.

The recommended programs in the list I've compiled offer genuine benefits to your site; they represent a bona-fide value to your visitors or they enhance the web site or blog content in a non-intrusive manner. The progams also have no-tolerance SPAM policies designed to protect you and your site visitors, and the program owners offer a fair exchange for the clicks and hits you deliver from your online presence. Best of all, you may make a few dollars every month in exchange for helping visitors find what they want and connecting them with businesses that can offer them products and services. Now, that's good for you!

For example: your partner program owners should develop interesting creative content offerings; provide cooperative marketing tools; provide linking support for non-technical site owners; and provde you with incentive products or services that have real value (fresh articles, solid tips, contests, freebies, and genuine giveaways) to your web site, not just advertising content!

The links below lead to the products or content I currently or in the past have used on my web sites or they take you to the program owner's site for a personal look-see.

Happy Affiliate Partnering!

Recommended Affiliate & Link Programs

Google AdSense

  Google's AdSense program offers web site owners, bloggers and others with an online presence effective monetizing opportunities that site visitors find appealing and non-intrusive. These are key features for any site, and most important to me as a family-friendly portal site.

I like Google's program for many reasons, but most importantly because of these 3 key features:

• formats are highly configurable - layouts are easy to modify
• links are relevant to page content, thus adding to what I am able to offer my site visitor in the way of information and products
• minimal site housekeeping keeps information links fresh and interesting even when the page content changes

Within my settings for Google AdSense I can ensure that objectionable ads never appear on my web site - this is very important to a site like Pastiche Family Portal, where I present ONLY family-friendly and child-safe links and content. I can decide whether to offer text, search, image or a combination of content - whatever gets the best response and works for my content pages.

PayPal

If you buy or sell goods or services online, and you want the extra security of a service that protects your credit card or bank account information, then I recommend signing up with PayPal . PayPal is widely accepted and highly reliable; you can also use it to pay or accept payment by e-check or credit cards online.

I use PayPal services to buy and sell online securely, along with thousands of other folks.

Share A Sale

If you sell a product through an online store or web site, you can let shareasale.com find sales leads for you. Merchants only pay when it works! As an affiliate, it costs you nothing to join, and you help potential buyers find products they need by placing links to memeber merchants in the shareasale program on your web site.

Click here to learn how to become a Share A Sale affiliate and offer fine products to your site visitors.

ClickBank

If you have a unique product or service to sell, and it can be delivered over the Internet itself (via web pages, files, or email) then ClickBank is for you. ClickBank merchants sell thousands of the web's most popular info-products - ebooks, software, and digital art - every day.

CLICK HERE to learn how to become a ClickBank Affiliate or merchant.

Good luck, and get rolling with your affiliate programs!

© Copyright 2003,2005 all rights reserved Lee Hansen

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lee Hansen is a marketing communications consultant who successfully combined parenting and a successful career before it was the norm. She founded Hansen Communications in 1981, a firm specializing in helping to grow and marketing small businesses online. Lee is a veteran of SEO search engine optimization and small-biz/budget-wise marketing. Lee is a creative partner in Bluestone Studios, a cooperative artists group in southeastern Pennsylvania, and its graphic design and marketing collateral business Image Factory Graphics.

Lee is the publisher and editor of Pastiche Family Portal - a parenting resource filled with free printables, crafts and articles for parents, child care providers, grandparents, teachers and kids - and its companion web site, Clip Art and Crafts (www.clipartandcrafts.com), totally devoted to free graphics and crafts printables plus a free newsletter and crafters networking forum.

ClipArtandCrafts.com - Free Clip Art - Free Printable Crafts