affiliate marketing

[barney]

i learnt that the best way for a website to generate revenue is
thtough affiliate program form different partners. but each one of
them has their own way of signing up , code and programs and
comissions.
iam not sure whether i have to sign up through each one of them or is
there a common person where i can join who already signed up with
number of affiliate programs and providing with ads to serve.
Being my site going to be a serving a large group of people with
multiple interests i might have to sign up with lot more partners to
maximize my revenue.
so any pointers would be really appreciated.

[barney]

Commision Junction (www.cj.com) has a wide range of affiliate programs
serving a variety of interests and site content.
Its pretty easy to use... you sign up for a Commision Junction account and
then go over their affiliate programs (all the programs are different as far
as how much they pay, what they pay for, etc).

What might be best to do is go over your site and identify an affiliate from
their programs that best suits the content for each page (or each major
section) of your website... and then maybe pick an extra 15-20 that interest
you and you think would interest your users

Then when you develop the site you'll put the ads you've selected
specifically for the pages on each page (or on all the pages in a certain
section) and then with the 15-20 extra you might put in an ad rotator on
your site that will go through all the different programs you've picked and
randomly display one on each page too

When picking an affilliate program I think one of the best tips one can give
is to make sure the ads you pick reflect the content of your site, rather
than going for the ones with the biggest returns.
Examples:
If your site is a job board and resume databank then you might look for ads
about resume distributors, recruiting agencies, job boards... and not someth
ing like ads for a travel agency or cruises (the unemployed, your primary
site users, won't have money to waste on lavish vacations)
Or if your site is about customizing cars and hot rod racing in your home
town then picking an ad for a woman's shoe store because it offers a big 40%
commision would be a bad choice as well (who cares how much they offer, odds
are you'll never collect a penny on a site whose user base will probably be
99.9% males in the 15-25 range)

[barney]

Yeah, actually I don't use any affiliate programs myself so I might not be
one to really talk on the subject (I don't do any ads on any of my sites,
they generate enough revenue on their own without them). But was mostly
just trying to be of help, there are probably services out there like the
two listed here that are available... Commision Junction just comes off the
top of my head because I used them way back in 1999 and saw they are still
around

[cher]

I've recently signed up with Clickbank, whats your view on it?