My last video on ClickBank generated quite a bit of curiosity. Many people wanted to know what programs earn me the most money and which ones I recommend they join.

You have to be careful about your curiosity of other Webmaster’s income. Remember, just because someone makes $5,000/month with one affiliate program, doesn’t mean you should expect the same returns.

Instead of focusing so much on the highest paying programs, first look for the ones that best fit your site and audience.

And if you don’t have an audience, work on that first and put the monetization piece on hold for now.

Remember, you can make a killing with any program with the right marketing strategy and enough targeted traffic.

Unfortunately too many Webmasters overlook those two things and find themselves jumping from program to program, on a continuous search for that online pot of gold.

Watch the video below where I discuss this topic in further detail…

Just like any other affiliate program, making good money with ClickBank requires having enough traffic along with finding appropriate and relevant books for your audience.

You also have to be careful with ClickBank.  Yes, the high commissions are nice, but you should choose products wisely.

Even though it’s one of my top money making affiliate programs, a lot of work and experimentation goes into getting those sales.

Watch the video below to hear my thoughts on the affiliate program.

As you probably know, Amazon’s affiliate commissions are pretty low compared to most affiliate programs (averaging around 4% per product.)

In this quarter so far, my sites have generated over $1,300 worth of sales, which earned me a whopping $50 bucks.

With most affiliate programs, that kind of revenue would generate at least $300 in commissions.

Nevertheless, Amazon.com is still worth considering as an additional revenue option, simply because they have great name recognition.

Also, Amazon suggests more products to buy during checkout, and people tend to purchase more than they originally intended. Of course, you earn commissions for those products too.

Just last week I earned $5.00 for a baby’s car seat and I am 100% sure I’ve never specifically recommended such a product from any of my sites.

Not to mention they sell almost anything. So if you happen to be endorsing a product, chances are, Amazon has it. You can refer your visitors to their site and earn a commission.

Widget-ize Your Site

In September of last year, Amazon introduced widgets to their affiliate program. Widgets are simply snippets of code that generate dynamic advertisements that you can customize.

Since the initial widget release, they’ve added several different varieties. I have to admit, they’re kinda fun to play around with.

Their most recent release (May, 2008) is the MP3 widget. If you have a music-related site or blog, you can promote specific songs right on your page, and earn a 10% commission for any sales made.

There’s even a widget that works a lot like Google AdSense. It’s called Omakase. You place the code on your page and Amazon will promote products that fit within your content.

I finally got around to seeing how the widgets would perform on my sites. My commissions are up about 20%, so they definitely seem to have an impact.

Lately I’ve been testing the widgets on the header of flat-stomach-exercises.com. The one I have up now is called “My Favorites” and it just happens to be my favorite widget so far.

You can choose which products you want to add to your widget and customize the colors. Notice how the widget blends nicely into my header’s background. This can all be controlled through Amazon’s affiliate management area where you can specify hex color values.

And if you want to make a change to the products or colors in your widget, you can update them at Amazon without having to update the code on your page. I even added the title, “Lisa’s Flat Stomach Product Recommendations” to give it a more personalized touch.

A lot of people pass on the Amazon.com program because of its low commissions. It’s not even close to being one of my top money makers, but the revenue is still a nice supplement, and if nothing else, it pays all my site’s hosting costs for the year.

Now that they provide so many types of widgets and different ways to link to their products (a specific search result, category, product cloud, etc.), it’s fun to experiment and see what cool ways you can incorporate Amazon products into your site.

So don’t discount Amazon’s affiliate program yet. If you haven’t tried their widgets, join the program or login to your account to see what they offer. You may find it’s worth it.

I’ve noticed from reading other blogs, readers seem to enjoy learning how other sites make money.  So I’ve developed a “Top 7″ list of my top income generators based on nothing more than monthly income earned.

Note: This list is from all my sites combined.

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1. Domain and Web Hosting Reselling

This program is a great example of why you should look for affiliate or reseller programs in your niche that pay residual commissions.

If my site got wiped out today, I would still be able to live off the residual income I’ve generated since joining this program in 2002. If you have a site that targets Webmasters, reselling domains and web hosting is a great way to build a long-term income that continues to grow and grow.

As a reseller, you receive your own customizable website that allows you to set your prices and determine your profit.  The parent company handles all the customer and technical support, so all you do is promote your own reseller store.

It would be hard for any other affiliate program to bump this from the #1 spot.

2. SiteSell

I’ve been receiving checks from SiteSell’s affiliate program since 1999, but nothing like the ones I started getting when I bought Site Build It! and displayed my own success story.

(See the post about my February 2008 check)

This was my biggest lesson in the importance of knowing and actually using products you refer from your site.

SiteSell’s affiliate program pays a generous $75 per Site Build It! sale, plus residuals on all yearly renewals.  I really wish more affiliate programs would put the same amount of time and energy SiteSell does into helping affiliates.

I’ve never known another company to offer so many tools to help their affiliates make sales. From videos with your affiliate links embedded in them to over 60 audience-relevant landing pages, this program has it all.

3. Affiliate Networks (CJ.com, ShareASale.com, etc.)

I promote a variety of products that I find on some of the larger affiliate networks. From web software, web hosting, HTML editors, to anything I can find that’s useful and related to my audience.

Belonging to an affiliate network has its advantages…

1) If you’re looking for a specific product to promote, you can do a search to see if there are any relevant affiliate programs that offer the product.

2) You can join multiple programs with a few mouse clicks.

3) All of your earnings are tracked in one place, so you have one-stop reporting instead of multiple affiliate account logins.

The downside is that many companies who run their affiliate programs through large networks tend to have sub-par customer support.

There have been many occasions where I’ve sent an email to a company I’m affiliated with through CJ and never received a response. Companies that run their own in-house affiliate programs seem to have better customer support over all.

Nevertheless, large affiliate networks are definitely worth exploring, particularly if you’re looking for a specific product to promote on your site or blog.

4. AdSense

I hate using the term “easy money”, but if you have enough traffic, AdSense has got to be one of the easiest ways to generate an income from your site or blog.

AdSense performs much better on my sites not targeted to Webmasters and Bloggers – which is a big reason why you don’t see many AdSense units on this blog.

Bloggers and Webmasters tend to be immune to Google ads so they ignore them. However on my fitness site, my click-thru ratio has been much higher.

Even though my main site, 2CreateAWebSite.com targets Webmasters, it does OK with AdSense because it gets enough traffic to make displaying the ads worthwhile.

Watch a video about my record Google AdSense Earnings…

5. Thesis (DIYThemes)

This program just bumped Amazon.com off the list and beat out Clickbank and Adbrite.  So in August, 2009 I had to update this post.

I make most of my money from affiliate programs that are tied to products and services I own.  It’s so important to build credibility and trust as an affiliate, and one way to start is to buy and use what you recommend.

As soon as I learned how to use Thesis and realized the sheer power, I added a page here that illustrates how it works.  Since this site gets a lot of traffic from Bloggers, it’s a perfect fit and the earnings started coming in right away.

Thesis has a very generous affiliate program and if a person buys the Developer’s option, you can earn over $50 for one sale.

6. ClickBank

With ClickBank, you really have to feel it out and see what works for you. Even though it’s on my Top 7 list, I must admit there is a lot of garbage on ClickBank.

Many of the eBooks you can sell are a bunch of recycled facts you can find anywhere on the Web.

They are usually promoted by an over-hyped landing page with a loud sales pitch that promises you to either get rich quick, lose weight tomorrow, or get out of debt in seconds.

However, if you really comb through the ClickBank marketplace, you can find some winners. I was able to find a few good e-books to promote that convert very well on my sites.

The great thing about ClickBank is that the commissions are extremely high since product development and delivery costs are low. You could earn up to $75 on certain products in their marketplace.

7. AdBrite

Many people use AdBrite’s cost per click program (similar to AdSense).   However, I use them to manage my own flat-rate ads.

I have various advertising spots on 2CreateAWebSite.com where I charge a flat fee for the week, month, etc. and AdBrite manages the payments, ad rotation, etc.

If you’re looking to offer advertising on your site, but don’t want to deal with collecting the payments and setting up an ad rotation script, you may want to check into AdBrite.

They still have some kinks to work out (support response time, ad rotation options, better targeting for network ads, etc.) but they are getting better with time.

Note: OIO Publisher is a much better ad management program because you keep all your earnings.  However, you cannot install OIO Publisher on static/HTML websites.  It only runs on dynamic websites (blogs, forums, etc.).  I own it and used it on my forum.

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These aren’t the only programs I earn money from, but these are the highest paying by far.  The rest of my income comes from a collection of other affiliate programs.

This post was not created to encourage you to join all these programs.  Quite frankly, if your site does not target the same people and does not have the same kind of traffic, your income will be drastically less.

But hopefully this shows you what is possible if you build a website that allows you to become the “expert” in your niche, and you recommend quality products that you use and are relevant to your audience. You can apply this strategy to any niche.

Over the recent months I’ve gotten several requests from people who want me to review their travel-related websites.

Many of them are Site Build It! (SBI!) customers looking for suggestions on how to improve their site, make more money, etc.

I was just thinking the other day, “Wow, why so many travel related sites?”

Then it dawned on me…

While researching SBI!, many of these people probably came across and were inspired by anguilla-beaches.com – the heavily trafficked Site Build It! site created by teenager, Nori Evoy.

Site Stats:

PageRank: 6
Alexa Rank: 53,000
Ranks #1 in Google for “anguilla beaches”

Anguilla-Beaches.com is a perfect example of what to do when you create a travel-related affiliate website.

Not only does it help you plan your perfect Anguilla vacation, but there are personal stories and recommendations written by Nori that make the site feel real and definitely worth bookmarking.

This is not just your average travel info website. It’s an inviting site obviously written by someone who is enthusiastic about their favorite vacation spot and visits there often.

What’s even better, is that it doesn’t even look like an affiliate site. You don’t see Google ads before you see the main content. There aren’t annoying banners yelling for you to “click here!” and there’s nothing “pitchy” about her writing tone.

The opening paragraph gives you the impression this site is here to entertain and inform you on the island of Anguilla, nothing more. A good affiliate information website should never appear as if the #1 goal is to sell something.

Where People Go Wrong

Many Webmasters who create travel-oriented websites simply re-write content you can find anywhere.

Unfortunately that’s not enough to keep the average person interested – especially when they know they can go to tripadvisor.com to get similar information.

Airport information, embedded Google maps, basic restaurant and hotel information is all too generic and overdone in my opinion.

Nori includes hotel information on her site, but she does things most people don’t…

1) Her detailed review of the room, food, and landscaping draws you in and makes you feel you’re there.

2) Her writing style is personal and inviting. You feel that she is talking to you instead of at you. I cannot emphasize enough how your writing affects the level of “visitor engagement” on your site.

(Tip: Need a refreshers course? Download Make Your Words Sell. It’s now free. Yippeee!)

3) She adds pictures that she’s personally taken instead of using generic pictures found on the Web. Your audience wants to know that you’ve actually experienced what you’re talking about.

It makes a difference when you can walk the walk.

Be Original

If you’re going to build a site about “things to do in New York”, don’t just put up generic information that people can find on newyork.com.

First of all, narrow your niche enough to give yourself a better chance of being found in the search engines. Plus, the more narrow your niche is, the easier it will be to target content, affiliate programs, etc.

Instead of building a site about New York, why not narrow it down to something like “New York transportation.” Many first-time New York travelers are often anxious about getting around the fast-moving city.

You could ease their minds and provide an “insiders guide” to getting around the city. Using your own experience and useful tips, you can educate travelers how to use the subway, taxi tips and other little known facts that the average traveler may not know or be able to find (easily) online.

Choose destinations where you can add as much personal experience as possible. This is another reason it’s good to pick locations you really know or visit often because you can go above and beyond just the basic information that generic travel info sites provide.

This Doesn’t Just Apply to Travel Sites

Of course you could apply this advice to any topic. You have to learn to set yourself apart from your competition, or you’ll get lost in a see of “already-done” websites.

I felt compelled to discuss the travel niche because I see so many Webmasters making the same mistakes when they create destination websites.

Even though Nori’s site has been around awhile, you can still learn a lot from her technique. In my opinion, it’s a brilliantly done affiliate website. Mainly because it doesn’t look like one.

Remember, being successful with an affiliate site or blog goes beyond just putting up generic information. People bookmark sites because they are useful, fresh and provide unique information that can’t be found everywhere.

Whether your site is on travel or another topic, what can you do today to make it stand out like Nori did? Are you adding enough of your own personal experiences to make your site seem real? Is your writing inviting? Creative?

If not, maybe it’s time to re-work your content, add more personal touches and provide information that can only be found on your website.

While there are several reasons some affiliate websites never get off the ground, here’s a few reasons I believe many people struggle with affiliate marketing…

Am I flashing my SiteSell affiliate check in your face to brag?

No, not at all.

When it comes to telling other people how to make money online, it’s all about credibility.

And if you can’t prove you’re actually profiting, then you sort of get lumped in with all the other “how-to-make-money” sites that leave people wondering if that Webmaster has the profits to back-up their advice.

So I thought about it and realized I could turn my success into a blog post to help inspire others.

That check meant a lot to me. Not just because it’s the largest check I’ve received from SiteSell, but because it caused me to reflect on what so many people do wrong in affiliate marketing.

So I thought I’d tell you what has worked for me…

I Use Most Products I Promote

I’ll be the first to admit, when I first started telling people to buy Site Build It!, I didn’t own it.

I was extremely wowed by the fact I could earn $75 per sale (and yearly residuals) that I immediately begin blasting banner ads and text links for SBI! all over my site.

Not a single person bought it for months.

And why would they?

I was just another cold, impersonal website asking them to shell out $299 for the possibility of making money with a website. But of course, I couldn’t really prove it worked because I didn’t own it.

As the years went on, I kept reading all the successful case studies about SBI!. It seemed that every month SiteSell was adding a new success story to the batch. My curiosity got the best of me.

So I bought SBI! in 2005 and created flat-stomach-exercises.com. Not only did I make my investment back in 3-4 months with Google ads, but the site rose to the top of the search engines faster than any site I’d ever created.

Of course this made for a great story on 2CreateAWebSite.com – a site that teaches people how to build websites.

Case studies and real-world examples sell like crazy. So if you are trying to get your audience to buy something, why not build a case study that outlines your experiences with the product?

Saying “The product’s great!” is one thing, but being able to show how it’s worked for you takes PREselling to a whole other level.

I Try to Be Brutally Honest

It seems when I started emphasizing that not everyone succeeds with Site Build It!, my affiliate sales went up. Sounds kinda strange at first, but if you think about it, it makes sense.

When you are reviewing a product and only talk about the benefits, people get suspicious – especially when there’s an affiliate link tied to the recommendation.

However, when I started creating videos and explaining that Site Build It! is not a get-rich-quick program, it’s a lot of work and does not promise instant success, that increased my credibility and helped my sales.

People are so used to websites aggressively pushing products, they find it refreshing when someone doesn’t sugarcoat everything – especially when it comes to a product that supposedly helps you make money.

People Often Ask Me For My Affiliate Link

When you PREsell effectively, you’ll find some people want to make sure you get that commission. I get emails all the time from people who want to make sure they are purchasing from the right link.

Long gone are the days when I used to hide the fact I was an affiliate.

I decided that if I’m giving people my honest opinion of something and showing that I use the product, why should I hide the fact I’m getting a commission?

Sure, the affiliate link probably turns a few people off, but for the most part, people don’t mind it if they believe you are being upfront and honest.

So What’s the Point?

I didn’t write this post to tell you to join SiteSell’s affiliate program, because if I may be honest, most people are not going to generate 4-figure checks every month. (Unless your site is geared toward Webmasters.)

SiteSell’s products perform well on my site because I have the traffic and the right audience. And you can do the same with a product or service that fits with your visitors.

The point is, if you are not seeing the type of commissions and sales you’d like to receive from your affiliate programs, think about your model and approach.

• Are the products you market relevant to your audience?
• Are your recommendations filled with all fluff and no facts?
• Do you even use the products you promote?
• Do you make it easy for people to ask questions?

And if you’re spending so much time trying to hide the fact you are affiliated with the company then ask yourself “Why?”

The way I look at it is, if you really do like and use the product, what reason would you have to hide your affiliation?

Years ago I would never admit I was an affiliate because I thought it would turn people off.

And while that is still true to some extent, the majority of the people won’t care as much when they feel you are being honest and giving them valuable information.

Yes, developing case studies can be a lot of work, and that also means you’ll have to invest in some products along the way.

But wouldn’t you agree the credibility and rewards you’ll gain in the long-run are well worth the effort?