If youre an entrepreneur trying to build a consistent and reliable income online, then affiliate marketing may be the best solution to your problem.

When you promote affiliate programs, you dont have to worry about creating products or handling customer support. All you need to start earning a money is a website with sufficient contents thats related to the products you choose to promote.

Affiliate marketing is a relationship between a merchant and his affiliates. Your job is to direct traffic to a merchants website. If that traffic is converted into sales, then you will be compensated. Your compensation may take the form of either a percentage of sales or a fixed commission based on the type of affiliate program that the merchant has implemented.

There are many benefits for both the merchants and the affiliates. You get commission without having to create a product and the merchant gets traffic to his site and he doesnt have to pay anything for it unless a sale is made.

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular online marketing methods today. In fact, almost every merchant or retailer site today offers an affiliate program that any one can join.

Most retailers would entice people to become affiliates or members of their program by promising great benefits like large commissions, lifetime commissions, click through incomes and a lot of other benefits. But would all these affiliate programs bring the same benefits?

Most affiliate programs will pay you a one-time commission for every sale or lead you bring to the merchants website. Commissions for this kind of affiliate program are usually large, ranging from 40% to 75%.

Other affiliate programs will pay you a fixed fee for every visitor you send to the merchants site. Programs like this often pay a smaller fee, usually no more than 50 cents. The good thing about this kind of program, however, is that the visitor doesnt have to purchase anything for you to get compensated.

Another type of affiliate program is the residual income affiliate program. Residual affiliate programs usually pay 20% to 50% monthly. Because of the lower percentages, many people ignore residual affiliate program and would rather opt for the high paying, one-time commission affiliate program.

These people are making a huge mistake. Residual affiliate programs may pay at a lower rate, but merchants offering such programs pay you commissions every month for every single sale! That means, you get paid over and over for the same effort it took to promote a one-time commission program!

Lets look at an example of how this works:

Suppose there are two online merchants both offering web hosting services on their sites. The first merchant offers a one-time commission that pays $50 for every sale. The second merchant also offers an affiliate program, but this one is a residual affiliate program that pays just $10 for every sale.

As an affiliate, you may be attracted to the first offer -- $50 is definitely a lot more than $10. But lets not forget that the second program pays every month for the same sale. In 12 months, youll have made $120.

Youll get paid monthly for as long as the customer you referred continues to use the web hosting service. In other words, you get paid over and over for the same amount of effort it took to earn the one-time commission.

So, are residual affiliate programs worth promoting? Definitely yes, because you will earn more money in the long run! And youre building a consistent, ever-growing income that you can count on every month.