Can you make BIG money in Affiliate Marketing?

Yes, you can! Paul from Uber Affiliate just put up a new site compiling some of the pictures and earnings from a few large affiliates over at S.eriously.com. Those checks and earnings reports can certainly be motivating (Granted there is some discussion and debate over how many are real and how many are...touched up). But either way, as a firm, AMWSO has issued some big checks over the past few years. Of course these aren't generally net earnings, as a lot of that traffic might have been paid for via paid search ads. So even though an affiliate gets a check for say $100,000, they might have to pay $99,000 to Google, Yahoo or MSN for search advertising. Then of course, there is this other tried and true method of "earning big money via onlne marketing" :)

However, who can argue with an extra $1000 in the pocket. Plus, there can be ancillary benefits. Imagine if you're paying for all of those search ads on a credit card that gives cash back, or rewards points. 99,000 rewards points can add up to some nice all paid vacations in a short amount of time, or cash back, or any other benefits offered by credit card companies.

How can you start earning some of these monster checks? It isn't easy, but it's attainable, however it does take effort and work to build sustainable protected earnings.

The first thing to do, is to decide what product and how you'll be promoting a product or program. Basically you can make a niche site that is content focused, or a more general type of site like a coupon site or reward site.

If you decide to go with a niche site, then you must decide on what that niche is. There are various recommended ways of deciding on a niche, some advise to start off doing keyword research. I would recommend to start writing down some topics that interest you. At least, while you're learning to be an elite affiliate marketer, you'll also be learning about a subject that inspires you. Find some affiliate programs centered around these niches, sign up, and ask the affiliate manager for a keyword list. Then do a bit of keyword research to see what kind of traffic the recommended keywords are getting. See if you can come up with your own long-tail keywords using the provided list as a base. I would do a review of keyword tools here, but I don't think I could be more comprehensive that this keyword tool review by Aaron Wall.

In another post here, we'll talk about what kind of costs you might incur when investing in a keyword tool, getting a web host, getting some design help, and promoting your site.

If looking for program ideas, sign up for one of the AMWSO programs and get some help from one of the AMWSO managers to get you on the fast track to receiving one of those monster checks!