This is the first post in a mini series on affiliate marketing. Sign up to the RSS feed or subscribe via email (top right..) and stay tuned for the rest of the series.

Anyone can put an affiliate link on their blog, anyone can promote them, but only a few actually make money.

One of the keys for making money selling affiliate products is promoting the right stuff. Here are 5 things you should take into consideration before choosing an affiliate product to market on your site.

1. Relevance

You should be promoting products that are either strongly related to your website content or your visitors. The affiliate products may be quite different to your site content as long as they are relevant to the reader. For example, a blog about healthy food should be able to sell fitness programs as well as healthy food affiliate products.

Don’t limit yourself to your niche, but think about what your readers would buy.

2. Quality

There are so many affiliate products out there that you shouldn’t need to settle for a poor product. Also pick products with good advertising material. Having great banners and an excellent landing page will go a long way in generating more sales.

Check out the stats on your affiliate to see whether it is performing well for other affiliate marketers.

3. Would You Buy It

A great way to find products to promote is look at the ones you have already bought, or the ones you were tempted too! Buy the product (or at least test it) before you promote it. Not only will your personal testimony boost your sales but you can also share some useful insights to the product and maybe even some tips for use (note: good tips make people buy).

If you are really proactive you can even create a product to go with the affiliate product you are selling. Then you can give this away to make sure people buy through your affiliate link. More on this in another post :)

4. Hot Products

Selling products that are 5 years old is stupid, no matter how good they are. 70% of your audience either has it, or has decided they don’t want it. You need to focus on new prodects that are hot right now.

A product with a good buzz is easier to sell but bear in mind it will also have more competition!

5. Commision

You want to aim for products that pay a commission of 25% or greater (ideally 50%), and make at least $25 per sale.

Lifetime commission is another atractive option. When you sign a a customer up and all future purchases give you a commission. For example, hosting providers often pay a lifetime commission for affiliate sales. Lifetime commission usually pay monthly, and you can build up quite a significant constant cash flow with enough lifetime customers.

Often signing up other affiliate marketers to a product will give you a lifetime commission based on a percentage of their sales.