If you are considering entering the potentially profitable business of affiliate marketing, you need to know how it operates. Forget the get-rich-quick schemes and testimonials: affiliate marketing is a basic process that requires planning, effort and understanding. The following is a break down of that process, to help you get started on the right foot and be successful.

Make a website. You can utilize readily available software, or even begin by scratching a sketch with paper and pencil. Outline a crisp format that is easy to read and navigate, and fill it in with smart and honest data. Make learning about your promotions quick and easy, make sales a smooth operation and leave a place to keep communications with visitors and customers wide open.

Cultivate traffic. There are various techniques involved with getting people to your site. You can link with other sites, use a blog or article marketing and list with your network. Consider becoming familiar with SEO tactics that will generate page visits and create high visibility.

Thoroughly research your potential affiliates. Make sure you sign on with reputable, reliable business partners. Don’t sell for them if you wouldn’t buy from them! By treating your customers with dignity and respect by offering them good products at fair prices, you will be setting yourself up for long term success as an affiliate.

Pick a few affiliate programs. Take the cream of the crop from your list and focus on promoting their products through your medium. By choosing more than one, you keep your options open; should one fall through, you give yourself breathing room in the trial and error process.

Apply and wait to be accepted. Make sure to dot every I and cross every T in your application process. The major companies receive a lot of data in a day and you don’t want to be held up by errors. The approval processing time will vary between companies, but you should be good to go within a short period. You can use that time to ready your site or conduct more market research.

Have links, will sell. Once you are approved, you simply insert the links to your affiliate’s products on your site or blog. At this point, it is abundantly clear why your site should represent the items and services you are selling concisely and how your site should accommodate visitors. A self-service site will put customers and products together well, but you should be at the helm to respond to questions and address potential problems.

Customers begin buying. Eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, people will start placing orders through your links. Your user-friendly site should make the process very favorable for customers, and if you have chosen your products and partners well, sales will be self-driven.

Monitor stats. Various programs exist to help you monitor who visits your site, from where and what they do while there. This will make it easy for you to adjust tactics if sales do not abound. You will also quickly see if your efforts to promote your site are garnering the kind of traffic you were hoping for. Watch these stats closely and make any necessary changes as soon as it becomes evident they are needed.

Collect your commissions. At a specified time, your affiliate partner will send you the money you have earned. Whatever the agreed upon percentage per item that has been sold via your link(s) will be all yours. Of course, the more you sell, the more you earn so setting yourself up for success by following the steps of affiliate marketing with vigor and determination will really pay off for you.

The beauty of simplicity: affiliate marketing is a neat system of cause and effect which you can enter into with very little start-up, and earn success with very quickly. Knowing the basic steps involved will help you formulate a solid strategy and find your place in affiliate marketing. Learn each step and let them be the building blocks of your successful future.