Do you know what the best way is? If you don’t, you are wasting time and a lot of money. But that will change once you read this post.

It’s really not that big of a secret, if you’ve been studying Internet marketing for a few months and you’ve been listening to the right people. Some people still don’t know though, because they are too busy doing the “get-rich-quick stuff.”

And to be honest, I don’t blame them. That’s what most opportunity marketers will pitch you, and all these newbies really think they’re doing the right thing. So don’t be mad at them. Eventually they’ll hit that wall and realize that they’re not doing it right.

How do I know this? Because I first learned about making money online from a friend, that really thought he was teaching me the right way to make an honest living online. But I knew there was something wrong with it. This method I am talking about is “cash gifting;” I can’t believe I am confessing this to you, but I feel like I have to. The good news is that I really never got to make a dollar from this business, but I did gift my “friend” $150 that he never gave back, he told me it was a gift that I gave to him and it was a legal agreement.

I’d rather not put his name out there, I am not that type of person, but recently I found him on Facebook and it’s sad to see that he’s still working with these get-rich-quick schemes that people keep falling into. It’s amazing how the FTC has not cracked down on these types of programs.

Anyway, now let’s talk about some positive stuff. What I really wanted to talk about was affiliate programs, and why I think they’re the best way to make money online long-term.

The reason I like affiliate programs so much is:

You can have basically become an affiliate site of any topic and sell anything suitable to that site. You don’t have to have so many readers, be ranked super high, or be super popular to make money from them. You can make your content extremely relevant with your content. And you don’t have to have massive traffic to make a good income from them.

Now the best combination that has worked great for me is taking an affiliate product and building a blog around it. What some people would call it a niche site. Basically what you do is, write relevant content that relates to the affiliate product you’re promoting and put links and banners of the product around the content, and drive a lot of organic traffic to the pages of the site.

It’s a formula that has worked extremely well for me so far. I am not making thousands of dollars like some of the big names online, but it’s growing slowly. Let’s just say that the more work you put in the more that comes out.

My best advice to avoid building spammy sites

One thing that I hate the most is going to some site online and knowing immediately that it is an affiliate site. That’s kind of an oxymoron, but what I mean is that the site alone doesn’t really guide me or anything it’s just pretty much saying all over the place click on the ads, that’s all. I believe that your VALUE/PROMOTION ratio should be 10/1. If not your customer/visitor’s BS alert is going to come up. I know that you’ve been in those blogs where you click away the moment you get there, don’t do the same.

Your site should say, “Here’s some great content about the product and the topic, how else can I help you?”

Quick tips for the best affiliate product + blog combination

Make your content unique and extremely relevant – Search engines love it, but more importantly, the readers!

Guide your readers – Helping your readers know what to do next will eventually lead them to the sale. Have calls to action at the end of the posts, or even in the middle. (In some markets, people need a quick solution)

Don’t have a flashy site – You know how annoying that can be, where the ad flashes to get people’s attention. (Let MySpace do that, people are not stupid, they know what that ad is trying to do), instead make it flow with the content (Let it be natural).

Keep it up with the trends – People follow what’s hot, make sure your site doesn’t look like it’s 1999.

Humanize the site – I don’t like going to sites that look like there’s nobody behind them. I think that’s why I like blogs so much better than regular sites. Write like you’re talking to a friend.  (Make it have its own personality)

I’ve really become a fan of doing affiliate marketing with blogs and I really want to become a master of it. My main goal is to really help the newbies so they don’t make the mistakes we all make when we come into this make money online niche. I think it only hurts the reputation of the Internet if people keep learning the wrong methods of making a living online.

If you haven’t read the other two latest posts on affiliate marketing and how to earn money online you should do that now.

Finally, if you know a lot or a little about affiliate marketing, give us some tips that people can use to be more successful with creating niche sites, and share a solution to get rid of all the spammers promoting unethical stuff online.

photo credit

Related posts:

1. Building My First Website in June that Makes $1 Profit