It can be easy to make a good income with affiliate programs. You don't need a marketing degree or a college degree to do it. In fact, affiliate programs are an excellent way to make money online for anyone, and it can be easy to do if you follow some key steps.

Step One - Find a company with a product or service you have some knowledge of, or passion for. Don't take on a product or service that you have neither knowledge of, nor passion for. There is too much competition out there that may cause you to fail. Normally you will sign up at the company's website. If they don't manage their own affiliate programs you might be registering at an affiliate

management site such as Commission Junction or ClickBank. There, you will be given your own unique ID# as an affiliate of the company which will allow you to sell its products online through its affiliate program.

Step Two - Take advantage of any promotional tools that the affiliate program may have. This will cut down on the time you would spend making your own. Most good companies will have a variety of marketing tools for you. Learn all you can about the product or service. In fact, the best plan would be for you to join as a customer and use the product or service, as this may afford you an insight into the product and company which most of the other affiliates will not have, and would give you a competitive edge to attract buyers.

Step Three - Set up your own blog or website and advertise your product with a link to the company's site that includes your affiliate ID# so you can be given credit for each sale. When people click on your blog or website, they will see the advertisement for the product or service you're representing and when they click the link to go to the company website, you will be given credit if they buy

the product or service.

Step Four - Market yourself through your blog or website. With a blog you can write personal, newsy messages and you go a step further by keyword enhancing them to give your page more relevance in search engine return results. It's a great way to "soft sell" the public on your affiliate program items. If you don't want to use a blog, set up a website. Successful websites are low-key in design using low graphics and light colors.

Another great way to market yourself is to write articles about your service or product you're selling. Use a product review style and post them on any of the free article databases out there with a link back to your site.

Step 5 - Keep track of all the Affiliate Programs you have signed up for, with special emphasis on which ad or article is giving the best conversion, i.e., which is sending most BUYERS to the company's website.

Concentrate on the best conversion rates, and TEST, TEST, TEST, your ads by tweaking them and measuring how the conversion rate changes.

When a sale is made, you will be given credit as long as your affiliate ID# was associated with the sale. If you market hard and consistently, you stand to make a good deal of money online through affiliate programs. That's the sheer beauty of using online affiliate programs.

Now that you know the potential for making money online with affiliate programs, sign up for some affiliate programs to represent products or services that you have knowledge of, or a passion for and that you feel have a mass appeal. It's not too late to get in on one of the fastest and easiest moneymaking opportunities you can find to make money online.