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What if I told you that with very little outlay in time or money you could get others to promote your website? And what if I said that these people would post your banners and links on their sites *for free* and would actively seek sales on your behalf?

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

Luckily for those of us who make our living online, affiliate programs are the real deal and they're helping to sell products on all kinds of sites, from the smallest sole proprietorships to the largest conglomerates.

People use affiliates because they're a win-win situation for all concerned; others promote your site and get a cut of each sale and you get more sales overall.

Let's say you sell cute products for pets on your website and you also run a monthly ezine that features pet news and sales. You want to increase your sales by letting your "affiliates" promote your site.

Here's how it works...

1. You sign up with an affiliate tracking program.

2. You decide how much you're going to pay your affiliates for each sale; it could be a percentage or a straight figure, and it can vary for each item.

3. You work with the affiliate program to set up a system tailored to your needs; for example, you may want to write the checks to your affiliates yourself or you may want the affiliate tracking company to write them.

4. You design a page on your site and write a blurb for your newsletter that describes how your affiliates can make money promoting your site.

5. You design some buttons, banners and text links that your affiliates can use to promote your site.

6. You sit back and wait for the affiliates to sign up and start selling your products!

The tracking program takes care of the rest, and you or your affiliates can look up your stats at any time.

So, how do you find affiliates? You have several options when it comes to promoting your program.

1. Your customer base: Your site and your newsletter are good starting points, after all, these people already like your products. Put a link on your homepage that says "Webmasters: Make Money!" and talk up your affiliate program in the newsletter on a regular basis, stressing that your affiliates can sign up for free and start making money right away.

2. Other businesses: Target business that, say, focus on pets, but that are not your direct competition. Send an email to each business inviting them to join and put "Affiliate invitation" in the subject line of your email. Also mention each business and/or business owner by name in the body of your message to lessen the chances that it will be deleted as spam.

3. Your friends and acquaintances. Come up with a short blurb that talks about your affiliate program and ask everyone in your address book to send it to everyone in their address book.

4. Professionals: Veterinarians, breeders, etc. Anyone who deals with pets is a potential affiliate.

Which program should you use?

There are so many affiliate programs that choosing one can be a daunting task.

I use AffiliateTracking.net ( http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 ) for all of my sites, mainly because their customer service and support is phenomenal - they had my first affiliate program up and running in just days - and they're also very reasonably priced. In addition, multiple sites can be promoted in the same basic package; there's no need to spend extra for every site.

I heartily recommend AffiliateTracking.net, ( http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 ) but you can find other similar companies by doing a simple search for "affiliate tracking" in your favorite search engine.

No matter which company you go with, you could have others promoting your site and making sales for you in just a couple of days!