If you are like me, you are the type of person that has a variety of interests. Personally I think that this is a good thing. Why? Because a person who is genuinely interested in a variety of subjects can write articles with a variety of subjects granted the fact that a little research and concentration are invested into them. Fresh, unique content such as this is key to having a website.

This is the final chapter in the “How To Sell Online Series”. In this chapter, I wanted to discuss selling hard-goods as an affiliate.

So far in this series, we have discussed How To Sell Online Getting Started, How To Sell Online – Determining Demand Through Research – CH2, How To Sell Online – Can I Make Money In This Niche? – Ch3, How To Sell Online – Sourcing Suitable Products – CH4, How To Sell Online – Automated Product Delivery- Ch5.

In this final installment, I wanted to show that working at home for yourself and making money online is not limited to reselling old, cheap e-Books and boring informational products, even though many, many people make a great deal of money dealing in information that takes a variety of forms. What if your passion is centered around something tangible rather than digital? Well, I have good news for you. Affiliate products are not limited to Clickbank. If you passions are elsewhere, you have great options available to you. These days, if you are not familiar with this fact already, most serious businesses have affiliate programs and are more than willing to allow you to sell their products using their affiliate program.

Let me give you an example. One of my friends absolutely loves snow boarding. He is very good at it and has been doing it all of his life.

One day while we were talking, we discussed how much money he spent per year on snowboarding equipment. We calculated that he literally spends thousands of dollars per year on new snowboarding gear. I watched him surf the web and while I watched him, I noticed that there were a couple of sites that looked similar. I asked him to view the source code of the web page he was on and we discovered that the site was actually an affiliate site referring sales to a brick and mortar snowboarding company.

He looked at me and asked: “Why don’t you set up a site like this?”

Feeling spread thin already in terms of time, I down played the idea. However, I have tinkered with the idea and I began setting up to sub-sites that could act as potential snowboard gear affiliate shops that I wanted to show you.

There is TheBitBot Snowboard Shop which was set up using Joomla and Snowboarder which was set up using WordPress. Now, obviously neither of these sites has been completed. Actually, I have been so busy, that neither of these sites have even been tinkered with. But, if you look at either of them, you will quickly see that a fully functional niche website has been built. All that needs to be added is the content (i.e. articles) and affiliate links in the form of text links or picture links. Both of these sites literally took five minutes each to set up. The graphics were free templates. No graphic design experience necessary.

So, where is a great place to get hard-good affiliate products to sell? One place I like is Commission Junction. If you have a website, signing up with them is a snap and they have a ton of brick and mortar businesses waiting to sign you up as an affiliate. After joining up with CJ, I then signed up with the EVOGEAR affiliate program. Within one week, I was approved to sell their products and links, pictures, and descriptions were all made available to me. Yes, it was that easy.

If I was passionate about snowboarding, I would write articles and post them, interview friends and post them, capture videos and post them, document our trips and vacations and post the pictures, write reviews of the equipment I used and post them, ask friends to write reviews of the equipment they used and post these. The point is, I would have a steady flow of fresh unique content flowing to this site and then I would literally pepper it with EVOGEAR affiliate links.

Additionally, and most importantly, I would add an opt-in form to the site and harvest emails that I would send updates to in the form of a newsletter (CAN-SPAM compliant, of course). There is nothing like repeat traffic. Additionally, you could email affiliate links with special offers if EVOGEAR ran specials. The possibilities are endless.

Making money online is loads of fun. In the end, it all comes down to these simple steps:

1) Pick a niche that you are passionate about.
2) Buy a domain name that has keywords in it.
3) Launch a website using Joomla or WordPress on your domain (or your CMS of choice).
4) Begin adding fresh unique content on a regular basis.
5) Add an opt-in for and begin harvesting email addresses from your visitors.
6) Send a newsletter to your visitors every time you update.
7) Monetize your efforts by selling products (digital or hard goods, it doesn’t matter)
Have fun.

That’s it! It’s not complicated! I hope you have enjoyed this series. It was fun to write and I hope that it is useful.

If you have questions of comments, you can leave them in the comments section. Just please follow the rules. The SPAM protection software is very picky. Or, if you want sign up for my newsletter using one of the opt-in forms using the sign up form at the upper right hand of this blog or any of the free marketing tools or e-books available at the top of this article.

As always, I am interested in your comments…:)