what exactly is an affiliate program?

[disgust]

I'm curious, because it seems like a lot of people are making a lot of money.

I run and own what's basically a hobby site- but a fairly successful one. we get about 10,000 unique visitors a day, about 50,000 pageviews a day. I run adsense, but nothing else- what I earn with adsense covers the hosting, but not much else.

I'm interesting in doing some things with my free time to try to make money. I've got experience with making sites- and even a good amount of experience with SEO- but my money-making experience beyond adsense is non-existant.

any advice?

[eljefe3]

Are you selling any products on your site? If you are, then set up an affiliate program and get other hobby sites to help sell your wares.

Are you not selling any products on your site? Find some other hobby sites who are in the same industry and who have an affiliate program and link out to specific products that your readers will be interested in. When your visitors buy, you get a commission.

[disgust]

how do you suggest going about finding a category specific affiliate?

and how do you know that they're being honest in what they're getting for per-sale/per-click/etc?

[Powdork]

What do you need for your hobby. Visit sites related to that, search around and see if their are any links that say affiliates or 'make money linking to us', etc.
What do your competitors (or other sites related to your hobby) do to pay their bills; what ads are on their site.
Visit cj.com or linkshare.com and search through their merchants to see if you find a fit, or something you like.
Do more than just post a banner. Write advertising, including your call to action.

[Powdork]

and how do you know that they're being honest in what they're getting for per-sale/per-click/etc?

You don't

also, if you have 50,000 views per day you should be able to do much better than just paying your bills with adsense. In many categories that would put you in the >$1,000/day range.

[fidibidabah]

Yeah, my suggestion is fix your AdSense.

Maybe give someone here a sticky (one of the guys who knows his stuff :P) and let him take a look at your site. You could improve AdSense earnings 1000% by the color/board/placement/size of your adsense ads. Just a suggestion.

[toast]

Use AdSense simulator [exe.adam.ne.jp] to browse what kind of ad will be supplied to your web site, thenm check web sites done by others.
Then optimize your contents to get preferable ads.

[TrustNo1]

Damn toast or is it nine? How many forums are you spamming today? The other one you left 20 messages of the same thing. You're only up to 4 here at the time of this posting. It is a nifty lil tool, i'll give you that.