When it comes to making money on the Internet, or more specifically with a blog, there are simply so many options out there, it can be a little overwhelming for someone starting out, trying to earn a living through blogging or through creating a website community. One of the highest paying and easiest to use ways to make money is with affiliate programs. Affiliate Marketing is a lot simpler than the blogging and marketing 'gurus' would like you to think, and I whipped up a questions and answers blog post, highlighting a conversation I had with a client a few weeks back.

Question - What’s the single easiest way to start Affiliate Marketing right now?

This is an incredibly difficult question to answer, let alone to start with… In Affiliate Marketing, relying on a ‘single’ technique or tactic, even just to get you going, is suicidal. You need to be using a wide range of different methods to drive traffic through your affiliate links – anything from PPC to blogging, SEO to viral marketing… It’s really up to you. In the Affiliate Defined videos I’m creating, there are some truly unique tactics, tricks, tips and ideas to get you started.

Question - Do you need a big website to successfully use Affiliate Marketing?

Absolutely not! You don’t even NEED a website! There are so many ways you can reach an audience on the Internet (whether you choose video marketing on sites like YouTube or PayPerClick advertising on networks like AdWords, maybe even a bit of t-shirt marketing from time to time) it’s reached a point where a website isn’t actually needed to earn an income online, and that’s what Affiliate Marketing is all about. Promoting other people’s products on other people’s websites!

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Monetizing your blog can be tricky stuff, and finding the ad networks/partnerships that pay most can be tricky. Stuff. In this quick guide, I'll go over a few of my personal top earners and how you can benefit from applying them to your own blog(s).

Pay Per Click - Chitika.
Let's face it. Very few people are making more than $5 a day now with Google AdSense, if even that. Isn't it time for a change? I'ev founded Chitika adverts have excellent CTRs and payouts are ridiculously high. Ad customization is second to none, and as a great alternative to the saturates YPN and AdSense networks, I highly recommend Chitika. What saves Chitika from going down the same road as the other major PPC publishers, is partly its hard stance on splogs, and each blog is individually approved into the network before any ads can be placed.

Private Ad Deals - You.
Private ad deals are far and few, but it's worth having that 'Advertise With Us' button in your header for the odd occasion where someone does stumble across your site and want to buy an advert. The best thing about these kind of deals, is that you get 100% of the profits. No middle-man deducting 40% or 50% off your due bill. Just pure cash, direct from the advertiser. You get to set your price and demand what you want. You have full control over the ads that appear on your site. Heck, you can even charge a monthly fee for banners, if you like. Not just boring ol' Text Ads.

Text Links - Text-Link-Ads.
When using large Text-Link-Ads, you'll get high-visibility listing in TLA's very own marketplace and a hoarde of hungry advertisers knocking on your door. The down-sides? TLA takes 50% of commissions for themselves. The good points? High pay-out (even after the large percentage deduction), quality customer support and high income opportunities are all part of the package. Well worth the 50% commission split.

Sponsored Reviews - ReviewMe.
Also owned by TLA, ReviewMe is the undisputed highest-paying reviews program. The great thing about RM is the sheer number of advertisers in the network who see the benefits of advertising through the program. These guys are willing to pay that extra $30 to get a quality, in-depth review, as opposed to a 100-word glossover as is so common on networks such as PayPerPost. Some guys even end up paying an extra '$2499' to get these high-quality reviews on top-blogs. ShoeMoney's blog is (to my knowledge) the current highest-charger for reviews. As you can imagine, even just one post a month for Shoemoney covers your bills, eh? Not that an Affiliate Marketing whiz like Shoemoney would need the cash, anyhow.

Feed Advertising - Feedvertising.
I've admittedly not had all that much personal success with Feedvertising. Like RM and TLA, it's created by the same company and integrates seamlessly with your Wordpress setup. From those who've had interested buyers and advertisers, I've heard it offers real quality content and provides an unobtrusive way for bloggers to earn money and advertisers to drive targetted traffic towards their websites.

All-in-all, there's no single way to create a cash-sucking blog by using just one method. It's best to mix and match programs where you can, try and test them as much as possible and optimize them to blend with you blog layout. Try out the networks and advertising programs I've recommended above and try combinations of them all on different pages on your blog. See which work, scrap the ones that don't. Most importantly - be persistent. Don't give up. When the blogging gets tough, just keep going. Plod along slowly, take the traffic dips like a man and keep your chin up. There's no "instant fame fix-up" that's going to make you blog instantly popular and the only way to do it, is to be yourself. Go out there and make a blogger of yourself!

This post has been written by David Wilkinson - 13-Year Old ProBlogger.

With all of the excitement nowadays, concerning boosting search engine rankings, Technorati visibility and creating a steady slew of backlinks to a website, it's hard to know which methods work in the never-ending battle against the powers and which tactics tend not to yield such flash results. One method of advertising a website and receiving a slew of backlinks that is becoming increasingly popular, is the sponsorship of Wordpress themes. Some people claim it's down-right outrageous to have 'sponsored links' in themes, others see it as their right. The way I see it, if a designer has worked hard, creating a theme for general use, the least that a user of the layout could do would be to have the courtesey to give something back to the Theme designer, in the form of a single, small backlink. Is it really all that much to ask?

Of course, ethics aren't the only matter being discussed. The monetary gain included, poses questions too. What should theme designers be charging for a link in a theme? Just recently - Performancing launched it's own "Sponsor A Theme" forum, in which users are being given a chance to openly bid for theme sponsorship, and from what I've seen, it's going pretty well. This, at least, solves the problem of setting a reasonable price-per-theme. In context though, whether you're paying $100 or $1,000 - you're going to be getting yourself a pretty good deal.

At Text-Link-Ads, you can expect to pay $50+ for a PR5 backlink. 1,000 people download a theme which you bid $1,000 to have a sponsored link placed within. 50 of these backlinks are PR5 or higher. Equalling only $1 per link, you're getting yourself a pretty good deal! Considering the fact that the one-way link you've got embedded in so many people's blogs is placed on every single page on the website, in reality, you could be getting tens of thousands of backlinks. The way I see it, opportunity like this is priceless.

Will you be bidding on a sponsored theme any time soon?

This post has been written by David Wilkinson - 13-Year Old ProBlogger.