A lot of websites talk about affiliate marketing as if it is a get-rich-quick scheme: Just post a few links, and money will start rolling in. Affiliate marketing can be an effective way to expand your market reach and bring in extra money. You can do this by creating an affiliate program and having others promote your products or by advertising other business’s products that make sense for your audience.

Affiliate Marketing and Affiliate Programs

In affiliate marketing, marketers promote products and include a link for consumers to buy the product. If consumers click the link and purchase a product, the marketer gets a referral fee. The referral fee may be a percentage of the sale or a flat fee depending on the affiliate program.

Affiliate marketing typically involves a few parties. First, there is the person or company who makes the product or service being marketed. Next, there is often a third-party site or service, such as Amazon, that offers the affiliate program and offers payments. Finally, there is the marketer or influencer who promotes the product.

Businesses can generate revenue with affiliate marketing through any of these roles. You can:

Choosing the Right Product

If you are planning to advertise affiliate links, the first step should be to determine what products you’re going to advertise. If you have a preexisting business, your affiliate links should make sense for your current customer base. For example, if your business specializes in high-end women’s clothing, it would make sense to send out affiliate links for luxury shoes and accessories that complement your items.

If you don’t have an established business or customer base, then you will want to develop a niche. A niche is a category of products or services. Although you can choose any niche, many marketers look for products or services they have used themselves, which allows them to market more effectively.

For example, if you are an avid golfer, you might make golf your niche. You could develop a blog about golfing, make videos highlighting your affiliate products and send relevant links to your email list. Regardless of your niche, it is critical to follow the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines for promoting products.

Follow FTC Regulations

The FTC requires you to disclose if you are being compensated for sponsoring or promoting a product. An affiliate link would fall into this category. Some affiliate programs have specific language they want you to use in your disclosures. For example, Amazon requires you to state, “As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”

If your affiliate program doesn’t have specific language for you to use, you could say, “I receive a commission if you click the link and purchase this product.” Influencers also use “#ad” in their feeds to disclose that they are doing a sponsored post with an affiliate link.

Once you have found a product, and you are familiar with the requirements of the FTC and your affiliate program, you are ready to begin advertising affiliate links. You can purchase online ads, of course, but you also have several options for getting started for free.

Build a Free Website

One of the best ways to advertise a link for free is to build a free website. You can build your website around a certain product, but a better approach would be to focus on a niche. For example, if you chose golf as your niche, your website would focus on golf. You could focus on the best golf products, ways to improve your golf game or the best golf courses.

Websites like Weebly allow you to build a site for free. A website might include: