No vague theory, no complex rating system - this our list of our current top affiliate programs which are earning the most money for AssociatePrograms.com [UPDATED 2012].

These are the best affiliate programs for us. They have superb products, pay very good commissions and provide reliable online reporting of affiliates' sales. They work well and are well supported.

If you have a site aimed at website owners, or a section of your site aimed at them, these affiliate products should sell well for you, too.

(Our sales are helped by the free Associate Programs Newsletter, which examines affiliate marketing and reviews the best and worst affiliate programs. It has more than 35,000 subscribers.)

#1 Affiliate Program: SBI

Ken Evoy's SBI is right up at Number 1, where it belongs.

I earn four-figure commissions (and have earned five-figure commissions) from Ken's affiliate program now, with only minimal maintenance.

Ken is a truly amazing, multi-talented individual. Among his achievements, he has taught medicine, designed toys and games which earn millions of dollars in royalties, and invented a "virtually impossible to sell" niche software product - which he sold on the Net, earning $1,000 to $5,000 a day.

SiteSell's fast-selling SBI has been my top money-earner nearly every month for 10 years.

It makes it easy for you to create your own website simply and easily, even if you have no technical knowledge at all. It analyzes which themes will be profitable.

Even better, it helps you optimize the pages for the main search engines and teaches you how to promote your site effectively. This remarkable tool also generates your Google and Yahoo! Sitemaps and automatically submits them when necessary so you don't have to!

SBI (formerly known as Site Build It) doesn't just teach you search engine optimization. It teaches you Internet marketing.

Most important of all, it teaches you how to be successful. No wonder SBI has tens of thousands of happy users.

Ken was the first to introduce the concept of PREselling to affiliates. This is the process of building relationships with your visitors and putting them into a warm, willing-to-buy mood so they are much more likely to make purchases based on your recommendations.

Ken Evoy explains how SBI changes lives

The SBI Action Guide and videos show you how to master this technique to drive your affiliate conversions through the roof. You won't just be building a website, you'll be building a long-term web business.

There's an incredible private SBI forum where SBI owners and users share tips and help each other. There's nothing else like it on the Internet.

I use SBI for several websites and highly recommend it.

SBI sites succeed. 61% of SBIers end up in the Top 3%. And only SBI! sites prove success. You'd think that others would if they could, wouldn't you?

See the proof.

As well as offering fantastic value for money, SiteSell President Ken Evoy works extremely hard to help his affiliates earn money. I've spent many hours chatting with him and learning about his products and plans. You can trust him to OVER-deliver on his promises.

The SiteSell program offers:

• Outstanding value for money. You can feel comfortable promoting excellent products.
  
  
• Lifetime commissions. You don't just earn a commission on the first sale. You earn a commission on every purchase by that customer - for life. Think about that. You sell once, earn indefinitely!
  
  
• Two-tier commission structure. You earn revenue on the sales made by the people you refer to Ken.
  
  
• Limited number of affiliates. Your efforts are protected.
  
  
• A fair contract, which has non-terminatable/non-modifiable features. Ken looks after YOUR interests.
  
  
• The BEST manual for affiliates - 224 pages packed with useful ideas - totally FREE. You receive excellent advice to get you started earning money.
  
  
• A site that SELLS!
  Ken's site makes the sale for you.

All these features ensure this program is a long-term winner.

SiteSell's lifetime commissions are for active salespeople only. You stop receiving lifetime commissions if you stop generating new sales. This program may not suit you, but it has worked remarkably well for me for a decade.

Ken writes THREE newsletters which consistently offer the most detailed, helpful, step-by-step advice for affiliates I've seen.

Click here to see a sample of the single best affiliate-support e-zine on the Net.

Join the SiteSell 5 Pillar Affiliate Program here

#2: Niche Profit Classroom

I like promoting Niche Profit Classoom, for three reasons...

NPC provides a superb business-building education from a real been-there, done-that affiliate, Adam Short (right), who owns more than 300 profitable niche websites.

• It has a superb sales pitch - profitable websites FAST. That has huge appeal.
  
  
• Not only that, but you get full access - you get to try everything - for one dollar.
  
  
• With a sales pitch as strong as that, it's not surprising that Niche Profit Classroom has been high on my list of earners for years.

NPC provides step-by-step video training that shows you how to create money-making websites. You get to use NPC's software tools for market research, keyword research and to build your websites.

They make it as easy as possible for you. You can use NPC's own Niche Profit Press website builder to build your website fast.

"Believe it or not, it's actually possible to have a website up and making money not in months ... but in mere days," says Adam.

You get to watch over his shoulder as he builds a website, attracts traffic, and makes sales, all in DAYS.

As you delve into NPC, you discover that there are HUNDREDS of videos to help you as you gradually expand your knowledge of various aspects of building and promoting websites and making sales.

As a tempting bonus, each month you receive two ready-made businesses, niche packages with the research done for you. You can customize them, and plug them into the Niche Profit Press website builder to have websites built in minutes.

You also get hand-holding coaching where any questions are answered and free website reviews.

Another good thing about NPC is the weekly webinars. You can rest assured Adam HAS to stay on top of his game as he answers any questions tossed at him in those webinars.

Adam is so confident you'll love NPC that he's prepared to give you full, unrestricted access for just $1.

You can read Reena's long review of NPC here, or simply dive in now and try NPC for A mere $1. Where else can you learn so much for a dollar? Of course, once you're in and see the value, you won't want to leave.

#3: NEW
Fast Way To Earn Your First Dollar Online

There's a new really cheap ebook that is selling well for me right now. It tells people how to make money - being paid for clicks - by using a new social media site that many people haven't heard of yet.

This should suit absolute beginners and tricky power users. I review it here:

New Way To Earn Your First Dollar Online

# 4: Ready made niche content packages

If you're building a string of websites, writing a blog or distributing articles to article libraries, you need a lot of articles. It's time-consuming and tedious trying to research and write all those articles yourself.

You can hire writers at places such as elance and RentaCoder, but if you've tried that, you'll know it can be done but it's not as easy as it sounds. So you need a workable shortcut.

Stefan Everaet has come up with a good shortcut for you. He's creating ready made niche content packages. He makes at least three new packages available each month.

Niches covered include financial, gardening, pets, health, sports, travel and a whole lot more. Stefan even encourages you to let him know which topics you prefer and he'll do his best to provide content on those niches.

Each package includes about well written articles and beautiful graphics. I'm a subscriber, so I've had a good look at the quality of the content. I was pleasantly surprised how well written the articles are.

You'll want to tweak and optimize the articles to help search engines find them. This is a good thing. It means your articles will be unique. You can also add your own tone and personality.

UPDATE: Stefan's service is now hugely improved. You can choose between several monthly subscription levels. For example, if you're interested only in travel, you can use your credits to get only on travel-related content.

Check it out here but DON'T buy it through this link:

http://www.niche-content-packages.com

I've arranged a special discount price and a valuable special bonus.

Use this special bonus/discount link

...And a few other favorites

ROSALIND GARDNER
Super Affiliate Handbook

What does it take to be a super affiliate?

You'll find the answer to that question and hundreds more in Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 In One Year Selling Other People's Stuff.

Rosalind's success as a genuine super affiliate and the success of her Handbook is all in the details. She writes in a clear and concise style and presents the facts in a down-to-earth, no-hype manner that enables an absolute beginner or a seasoned veteran of affiliate marketing to learn what it takes to become a super affiliate.

She knows her stuff because she's been there herself.

This is a very comprehensive manual, covering a LOT of detail. It is regularly updated. She teaches you a multitude of marketing methods including PPC, email and list building. She also makes good use of blogs. The Super Affiliate Handbook is as much about what NOT to do as it is about what to become a super super affiliate.

Her focus is on choosing affiliate programs carefully, building simple but professional sites, writing compelling text and earning trust.

Rosalind makes it very clear that you have to get the details right first time, every time - that's how she generates more than $1,000 a day in affiliate income.

She describes her systems and how she manages to achieve conversion rates of between 2.5% and 6% (and higher!), when the average affiliate often considers 1% a successful conversion rate acceptable.

Whether you are just starting out in Internet marketing or have been around for a while but are still trying to find the magic formula that is going to drive more traffic and more sales conversions, don't do another thing until you've read the Super Affiliate Handbook.

If you wanted just one book on affiliate marketing, it would be very hard to find a better choice than Rosalind's book. I strongly recommend it.

MARLON SANDERS
The King of Step by Step Internet Marketing

Marlon Sanders is a zany, highly innovative marketer with a crazy sense of humor. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, grab it.

Marlon's affiliate program has been very successful for many affiliates, including me.

You may know about Marlon's classic Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy - it's the only Internet marketing manual which has more than 100 pages of testimonials.

If you want to sell lots of products, this the book you must get.

Marlon knows exactly which buttons to push to make people buy. He really DOES know how to make products fast and sell them like crazy.

In recent years he has launched a bunch of new products and new tools which make things easy for affiliates and other Internet marketers, including highly innovative stuff I haven't seen anywhere else.

An excellent example is his Traffic Dashboard which is beautifully simple to use. It has rows of icons you can select to learn how to get traffic, broken down into simple, easy to conquer steps. Brilliant!

CHRIS REMPEL
Confessions of a Lazy Super-Affiliate

Chris Rempel's ebook, Confessions of a Lazy Super-Affiliate, is NOT for affiliate beginners. It's aimed at intermediate-level marketers and website owners.

In a cool, logical style, Chris describes how to build a super affiliate business in which all the pieces join together, so that each action you takes applies leverage and multiplies your sales and commissions.

He doesn't tell you how to use AdSense. Do things his way, and you can make far more from affiliate commissions. He doesn't discuss paid advertising. He prefers to attract free traffic from search engines.

Don't "follow your passion", he says. Identify markets that have desperate buyers, people that are ready to buy. He tells you how to identify and target streams of such people, who are desperate for a solution to their problem. They make excellent customers.

He provides a multi-step income plan.

The first section describes how to build a 20-page mini-site that is targeted at visitors who are on the verge of buying. That's how you make the real money, he says.

I like this "lazy" man's style. Instead of doing the hard work of convincing someone to buy something, he says you should simply be standing in front of the right crowd and and saying, "Oh - you're looking for XYZ? Yeah, I would be, too. It's over here..."

Ka-ching!

Your mini-site does NOT merely contain rewritten PLR articles or any old articles on your chosen topic. Remember, you don't just want to attract visitors - you want to attract BUYERS. So you have to follow a carefully considered, logical structure designed to achieve affiliate sales. He tells you how he does it.

This book is NOT about doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It's about building a BUSINESS in which all the pieces belong.

He takes you through a structured process he's using - all the way from research and testing, from one little 20-page mini-site, to multiple mini-sites, to creating related freeware (no, he's NOT a programmer), to viral software marketing, to creating your own little "feeder" products, to creating a huge Mother Site, to creating more feeder products, so that eventually you capture and dominate your market and you own rock solid assets.

Even if you get only as far as Step 1 and Step 2, this book could change your affiliate marketing forever - especially the sections on identifying and attracting desperate buyers.

"Confessions" is very moderately priced. It's excellent value.

Get Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate-Affiliate here.

THE LATE COREY RUDL
The Step-by-Step Guide to Selling Online

The Corey Rudl's home-study Internet marketing course is a proven moneymaker that has spent years on my Top 10 list.

This #1 best-selling course sells for $197 - and you get a generous $65 commission for every sale you refer - plus another $20 commission for every sale that your sub-affiliates refer.

The course, now called "The Step-by-Step Guide to Selling Online", is a breeze to promote because Corey's company gives you real meat to work with. It used to consist of 2 binders and 2 resource CDs containing "Insider's Secrets" - a total of more than 1,000 pages of the exact information you need to start, promote, and grow a highly successful, extremely profitable Internet business. It is now totally online, so that it's easy for the company Corey founded to keep it constantly updated with the latest techniques as the Internet changes.

It was from Corey's company that I learned many of my success secrets.

Tips and techniques I learned from Corey's course and his free newsletter have helped me enormously, playing a major role in turning AssociatePrograms.com from a hobby into a rapidly growing, full-time Internet business which now employs people in three countries. (Thanks, Corey!)

And that's why I highly recommend it... both as a tool for learning how to increase your affiliate sales... and as an affiliate product you can promote to earn sizeable commission checks!

Corey died in a car crash in June 2005 but his well managed company has continued to go from strength to strength, producing useful new products under the leadership of Derek Gehl.

Get the home-study course here
Join the two-tier affiliate program here