To make money on computer with affiliate programs is simple. You just need to send visitors to your merchant's web site and collect commission if they buy. However, most affiliate business failed. Do you know why?

The first reason is due to the Lack of valuable content. If your web site don't have valuable content, its impact is 2 folds: - Readers will not like to visit. Readers are searching for contents, and will leave if can't find the content they want in your site. - Search Engine will not like to include you in their search list. Basically, their job is to support the readers. As a result, it will be very hard to attract traffic to your site.

Another reason is that affiliate marketers are generally a hard seller. Remember, readers do not know you. You need to build the trust. The more you sell, the more they will resist you. Thus, conversion rate will be very low.

You need a strategy, a really workable approach to build affiliate business. The best practice for small business to survive in Internet is to build the site that is valuable to the readers and tasty to the spiders. Instead of selling, you should pre-sell your merchants products. Following is the natural, proven strategic process you should adopt:

1.) Recognize the fundamental reality of how people use the Web. Eliminate offline thinking of ¡§location, location, location.¡¨ Online, people search for solutions through ¡§information, information, information¡¨ (i.e., Content). So plan to build a tightly-niched Theme-Based Content Site.

2.) Do the critical up-front thinking and planning...
¡E develop the best site concept/theme, based on what you know and love¡K perhaps a hobby or past work experience can be your springboard.
¡E brainstorm the most profitable topics related to your theme.
¡E select the best related affiliate programs.

3.) Then put yourself into the click path of your visitors. Achieve this by...
¡E delivering customer-focused Content (i.e., information that meets the needs/wishes of your target group).
¡E getting Targeted Traffic by building Search-Engine-Optimized pages that rank highly on a search results page. The higher the ranking, the easier it is for interested and targeted traffic to find you. More traffic means more potential sales, which means more potential commissions for you.
¡E PREselling (i.e., ¡§warming up¡¨ your visitors) through valuable content that establishes credibility. Once you have that, your recommendations carry more weight. The difference in Conversion Rates between visitors who arrive PREsold to your merchant¡¦s site via an in-context text link vs. a banner can be as high as 20-fold.

4.) Eliminate dependency on any single source of income. By diversifying into other complementary Monetization models beyond affiliate programs, you reduce risk and increase stability. You are protected in case, for example, your merchant partner goes bankrupt, or shuts down its Web division, or reduces commissions, or fails on its payments.

Multiple income streams also have the potential to make every visitor to your site count. A particular offer might not spark any interest but another one may be the match that lights a fire!

The above process for affiliate marketing boils down to this¡K

Create searched-for content that pulls in targeted traffic. Warm up your visitors so that they click on your recommendations with an open-to-buy attitude. And then generate income through those PREsold visitors using the low-risk affiliate model -- as a primary source of income (if you have no product or service of your own to sell) or as a profitable secondary source.

Is this process difficult?

Not at all! But do keep in mind that this is not a ¡§get-rich-quick¡¨ scheme. You need to bring effort and passion to the table. After all, you are building more than a Web site. You are building a real business! You may follow the detail step-by-step guides from this site: http://www.buildit.tophomebusinessprograms.com to complete the whole site building process and confidently making money with affiliate programs.

About the Author:

Leow Kah Yee is the webmaster for Make Your Own Web Site For Profit, and http://www.tophomebusinessprograms.com/ These are web sites dedicated to help readers build online businesses.