There’s a bit of competition out there when it comes to affiliate marketing. If you are promoting a popular program, you can be sure that you will face some competition out there. How can you be sure that your website traffic or list members will purchase through your affiliate link? The answer lies in incentives.

Customer incentives are free gifts that you can use to get your list to buy through your affiliate link. If you’ve ever been on a few different Internet marketing lists during a large product launch you’ve probably seen this concept in action. Internet marketing list owners will often give away large bonuses (sometimes free versions of their own products) in order to get people to order through their link.

You can do the same no matter what niche you are in. Affiliate incentives work well when you have already built a rapport with your audience through your list. Just create a solo mailing to your list that details the benefits of the affiliate product and share your special incentive when people order through your link. However, it can also work on your website or blog. You can put the same information used in your solo list on a mini-sales page on your site to direct traffic to your affiliate link.

What should you use as an affiliate incentive product? You have many different options, but as long as you follow these rules you can use whatever you like.

1. Be sure that the incentive is closely related to your main product.

Don’t just throw together any old product and think that it will encourage your list members or website visitors to buy your recommended product. The incentive has to be related to the product. If you are recommending a product on quick gardening methods you can offer your list an incentive product that lists the best places to buy high quality seeds online.

2. Be sure that the incentive has actual value.

An incentive should ideally be something that your customer would buy anyway but they’ll get it for free when they purchase your recommendation. You should look for other similar products in your niche to determine how much your incentive is worth. In your solo ad or your sales page you should let them know how much this gift is worth so they can realize the value.

3. Be clear about how the person will receive the bonus.

List members or visitors to your website want to know exactly how they will get their bonus. Be sure to give them clear instructions. Maybe there will be an optin list that they will need to join after purchase. Maybe you’ll be able to track their progress with your affiliate sales. Maybe they’ll need to send you a copy of their receipt in order to receive the incentive. No matter what the process is, be clear about it so the buyer can be comfortable knowing that they will get their incentive.

Affiliate incentives can take many different forms, from special reports to ebooks to free coaching. When you use them you can be sure that people will buy from your affiliate link instead of others.

Dan Higby is the author of eBiz Snap a free newsletter for online marketers of all experience levels. Fill your mind with business snap fill your pockets with profit with your own complimentary copy of eBiz Snap News Letter.

In this day and age, there are more and more people who are looking for ways to make extra money or who are looking to start their own business. Thanks to the Internet there are more ways than ever for people to start their own business. If you’ve got a day job, you may wonder how you can possibly start a second business while maintaining your day job. You’ll be happy to know that it can take as little as three to four hours per week to start and maintain your own online business.

An online business can take many different forms. There are people who make their own products and sell them online. There are other businesses that run entirely on auction sites like Ebay.com where the sellers ship items across the country and across the world. Online business people can also create information products, like ebooks and reports, and sell them through websites.

However, the easiest way to make money online is by becoming an affiliate for someone else’s product and directing traffic to their site. With affiliate marketing you don’t have to worry about product delivery or creation. You don’t have to deal with a lot of the hassles that other online business people do. You are simply in charge of driving traffic through your affiliate link.

You’d be surprised by how many different products and services offer affiliate programs. No matter what type of product or service you want to promote, you can find an affiliate program that fits your category.

To get started as an affiliate marketer, you first need to find a niche or group of people who have similar interests. For example, work at home mothers, middle aged golfers and seniors interested in natural health remedies are all examples of niches. Once you find a niche, you need to do some keyword research to find some terms that people are using to find information related to the niche.

Finding a niche and performing your keyword research can be completed within an hour or two. Once you have your niche and keywords, you can start a simple blog on the topic. You can use Wordpress or Blogger for your blogging platform, and add a few posts related to the niche based on your keywords.

Once you figure out your niche, you can visit one of the many affiliate networks (like Clickbank.com) and get an affiliate code. Place this affiliate code throughout your blog. Be sure to link to the affiliate product or service at least once per post.

After you’ve developed your affiliate website, you can start driving traffic to this website. You can write articles and distribute them to article directories in order to bring traffic back to your site. You can also use pay per click advertising and social bookmarking sites to drive traffic to your site.

Once you have the blog in place and choose your affiliate links, you can update your site and drive traffic within just three to four hours a week. You can see with this simple plan how easy it can be to develop a successful side business in your spare time.

Dan Higby is the author of eBiz Snap a free newsletter for online marketers of all experience levels. Fill your mind with business snap fill your pockets with profit with your own complimentary copy of eBiz Snap News Letter.