Non-Stop Income Streams - Part #1

Before you actually start creating your website, you need to decide what income streams you would like to take advantage of.  What is an income stream?  It is simply a way of generating money.  And when it comes to websites, there is no limit to the number of income streams you can have. 

In fact, the more income streams you can make available on your site the better.  For this reason I’ll present for you an extensive list of the most popular income streams used by the Internet gurus.  As you read through this list take note of the income streams that interest you. 

1. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you promote another company’s website in return for a commission.  This commission can be generated in a number of ways, though the most common is when a sale or lead is actually made from your advertising methods.

Less popular ways of getting commission could be based on if a company’s URL has received a click, or if their ads received impressions, (which are simply the number of times an ad has been viewed).  Either way, promotional methods would be the same regardless of how commission is generated.

This means you would either advertise the URL directly or use the URL within a banner.  In both cases the URL would contain special coding that would trace back to your affiliate account.  This is done so you can be properly credited if your visitors take the actions that a company desires.

Most of the major companies on the Internet are using affiliate marketing.  However, they do not necessarily advertise their affiliate opportunities blatantly.  Most of the time you’ll have to scroll down to the bottom of the site, where you’ll find in smaller font ‘Affiliate Program,’ ‘Affiliates’ or similar wording. 

If you’re not interested in signing up for affiliate programs through an individual company’s website, you can consider joining an affiliate network.  With an affiliate network, you can apply for more than one company at the same time.  But first, you must get approval from the network itself.  You do this by offering the same information as you would if you were applying to an individual affiliate program. 

This would be your name, address, telephone number and site information.  You may also need to fill out a Form 1099, depending on the affiliate network.  Once you get approved, you’ll get access to an account manager where you can start applying for the affiliate programs of specific companies.

One of the most popular affiliate networks around is Commission Junction.  All you really need to get approved with them is a URL, which you can get through a web hosting company or a domain name service.  After you provide this information, they’ll let you decide what companies you want to work for.

Another widely-used affiliate network is Clickbank (they are great!).  Signing up with Clickbank is easier than even signing up with Commission Junction, since a URL is not required and the approval process is done instantly.

However, Clickbank is not as extensive as Commission Junction.  All you are able to sell through them are e-books and software.  Yet, the network has over 10,000 of these products, giving you great latitude for what you should promote.

~Chris

P.S. In my next post I’ll get into the next Income Stream you can use in your business.

Written by Chris Koehl - Click Here to see the most effective tool for building your online business.