Work from home jobs...scams...or advertising for affiliate marketing?

Today, I wanted to talk about a few of the scams (?) I have found in the last two years as I have been researching affiliate marketing. While as of today, I have never found a site that has charged me a fee to become an affiliate, I cannot say that there are not programs that do charge fees, I do believe that if there are programs that do, they are rare. The problem with affiliate marketing is that it is not always explained or sold as what it is.

Many work from home programs that promise huge payments like:
$220 a day from home, or $87 an hour...all promise the secret to make money online. Usually, they have testimonies of people who have made thousands from home and show pictures of checks they have made. Almost all of these programs...do charge a fee to find the secret. I have found that almost all of them charge you money to learn the same secret: affiliate marketing. I do believe that you do make money as an affiliate. Over time and with driving traffic to yours and different sites, you do have the potential to make a good, if not great, income online. I personally believe it is an AMAZING!! idea. Especially, since you do not have to make your own product or store any inventory. So why don't these money makers just say: here is the secret?

The truth is...I think most people are drawn in with the images of the checks and hopes of working from home..but most people who are placing these sites are actually affiliates themselves. They make a commission on bringing traffic to the site and this helps both the person who made the Ebook or CD/Download system and the affiliate. So why am I telling the secret and not charging $47.00? The truth is: I am an affiliate and I never really liked the whole bait and switch approach to business. I did actually purchase one of those kits (for $197.00) and what I learned and finally understood about affiliate marketing I learned for free online, through blogs and YouTube. After all that research, I found it can work and I really do not like the smoke and mirrors, that has baffled me for so long. I do believe in recommending great products and I would LOVE you to buy them..but also I would like to educate you on what I have learned. I do believe that is the teacher in me. I hope if I can actually make money, (which I believe is totally possible) I would like any of my readers to as well. Truly, if we can all become better together, then, that would be the best reward. :) That is why I am blogging and tracking my progress.

I have found two really great affiliate networks to join. They are: Amazon Associates and Google Affiliate Network. I do already have Google AdSense on my blog, but as yet have made little money from the ads. I still think they are good ads and am keeping them on. Today, I am just putting link to Amazon, and letting you chose any product you would like. I do like Amazon very much and was quite surprised to learn that they had an affiliate program. Happy shopping!!

07/13/2011

Amazon.com terminated me as an affiliate because of the new budget that was passed. This budget requires that California residents pay sales taxes at Amazon.com and that the retailer is required to charge it. In response, Amazon, is not letting any California resident be an affiliate. Not cool, but what can you do??

11-11-11

The California law was eventually over turned and a couple of months ago Amazon.com offered to re-instate me as an affiliate, but I elected not to do so. I do still have some ads on my site from Amazon.com, but these are random and selected by Adsense. I am still looking into affiliate marketing, but working on my Master's degree in Education and building traffic to this site, in order to see which affiliates networks would be most applicable to this site.