Affiliate marketing can be described as an electronic replacement of the traditional agent based marketing efforts. However the method of marketing websites and products with the sponsorship or electronic marketing is much more sophisticated here. Affiliate marketing is used to drive traffic to your website from the affiliate’s website. This is often categorized under advertisement because it provides the link to other website and in return a commission is charged. Affiliate marketing has three main components. First component is the customer who visits an affiliate’s website and gets the reference of another website. Second is the affiliate itself who guides the customer to collaborator. And number third is the retailer or seller, who in turn rewards the affiliate. Affiliate marketing today has become a full fledge career for many because it pays in bulk but only in short period of time. Advertising directly on internet is rather expensive but the ease of affiliate marketing has overcome this problem. Affiliate marketing provides commission for every product you sold for your partner plus on every referral you brought forward for them. All the big and small names are part of this affiliate marketing program like WALMART, E-Bay, and Amazon.com because it is cost effective and efficient way of transferring traffic to other affiliate links.  Affiliate marketing is not very complex and provides a sufficient income to run your website. Large companies are doing this practice to increase their profits while the small and new affiliates are driving not only goodwill through this process but also concrete income. In order to become an affiliate however it is necessary that your website is alluring and attractive. A good purpose built website draws the attention of visitors more. It is important here that you affiliate with the related products. For example if you own a website related to weight loss program it would be appropriate to make affiliation with weight loss selling products and specialists besides making a link with car dealers. Every game has rules,  the rule of this game is act smart and place your website with the top 20 or 30 websites ranked by the search engines. In this way more potential customers would visit your website and utilize your goodwill along with providing you sufficient income. Making your website in the top searches is not a big deal one can seek help from SEO professional or use he concept of free article submission or community blogs. This concept of affiliate marketing is now the bread and butter of many individuals, because it does not require large investments and a workforce. One can operate this business if he has knowledge of marketing and electronic commerce along with the dedication and skill to sell products.