An affiliates program is offered through a company, to sell their products or services. It is like a partnership, where you earn a set % or dollar amount from each sale that is made through your website. There are many different affiliate programs on the web that you can join for free. After you sign up for an affiliate program, you will usually be given a unique ID for you to use in your links from your website, so that you get credit for each sale that comes from you. The linking structure is given you to by the affiliate company, sometimes even graphic banners to put on your site.

in short
An affiliates program is an automated marketing program where a Web merchant recruit webmasters to place the merchant's banner ads or buttons on their own Web site. Webmasters will receive a referral fee or commission from sales when the customer has clicked the affiliate link to get to the merchant's Web site to make the purchase.

How it works:

A user or customer clicks a text link or banner on your website, which has your unique ID within, and the customer is transferred to the companies website. Most affiliate programs also put your unique ID in a cookie, so that even if the customer doesn't buy than, your unique ID is stored in the cookie so that if the customer returns and purchases their product or service you will get credit for the sale. Some companies offer programs that have different rates of commission, sometimes you get paid-per-click or paid-per-sale. The most popular is pay-per-sale and usually offers the best return.

The key to getting a customer to click through one of your affiliate banners or links is to use relevant content. If you have a website for kids toys it would be best to have affiliate links to other companies that sell toys, educational resources, posters, movies, etc. Putting a link to an affiliate program to sell website hosting would not be related to the website content and would not generate many sales.

When you first join an affiliate program, the sponsoring program will usually review your site. This helps to ensure your site is appropriate for the product or service being sold. The affiliate owner doesn’t want your site if it is inappropriate for his product too.

Once your site is approved, you will be given a tracking code. This tracking code allows the sponsoring company to track the click-thru’s or sales generated from your site. Once the company tallies this information they will send you a check. Checks are usually sent when you have earned a predetermined amount. Many affiliate programs issue checks as low as $25.

Several studies estimate that affiliate programs will be among the leading ways to generate an income from a web site. To locate affiliate directories on the Internet, use the following search words: affiliate directory, associate programs, 2-tier, pay per click, pay to surf and partner programs.