Most of us have visited sites that are very simple, a page or two with simple instructions to buy an e-book, a video or audio program and in many cases nothing more than a redirect to another website. The amazing thing is that many of these simple websites are making more money than the average e-commerce site is, this includes both the product seller and in many cases people that do nothing more than redirect you to the product.

A growing trend online is to create opt-in or "Squeeze" pages as they are know as in the industry. At first this was a rather annoying trend since it forced you to give your name and email address to the business or product you wanted to take a look at. The question remains, why are people having you give out your name and email address if it is so annoying? The answer is simple, single page websites that have opt-in lists to them make more money! If you are an Amazon or Staples customer you do this without hesitation, simply because they require you to do so if you create an account with them. The reason is that email marketing sells and for them to have your information means multi million dollars a year!

In fact there are so many products out there for sale right now that the hardest thing to decide now a days, is what do you want to make money doing? Affiliate marketing is become a very large industry, putting a whole new spin on what it means to advertise. In fact many smaller businesses depend solely on their affiliates on doing their marketing and are willing to give away a large chunk of their profits to them! In addition many of these sites are selling fairly cheap products (up to about $50) while giving away free things to increase the odds of the user buying the product they are selling. This means that businesses are now recalculating what things are worth and doing everything in their power to make sure that the user you directed to them now purchases whatever you are selling. All you have to do as an affiliate is to find a way to get the user to that site and they take care of the rest!

So why aren't you riding that affiliate"gravy train with biscuit wheels"? Is it because you don't know where to start or how to do it? Maybe you don't have a product to sell? Well in the world of online marketing you don't need any of those things to get on the train. With companies like Amazon.com, Dell.com and thousands of smaller entities offering to give you a percentage of the business you bring to them, and companies like 10make90forfree giving away websites, you can start getting paid to be an advertiser instead of just being a consumer.

Email and affiliate marketing are probably going to be one of the largest industries, simple 1 or 2 page websites are going to rule the internet. Free stuff and "bonuses" are going to be on every site and how businesses get new customers, after all even my cable companies competitor is offering me a free TV just to sign up with them for two years, and my bank offers me $50 for every new customer I refer to them. It has even gotten to a point where I can "refer" my friends and family using affiliate links to purchase electronics, coffee and daily household items online and making a profit doing so, and all I have to do is tell you about them once!

Now if that isn't a "gravy train with biscuit wheels" then I don't know what is. The question that keeps ringing in my head is: "If you can get a free website, sign up as an affiliate for free and get residual income with your free stuff, then why aren't more people making money doing it instead of complaining that they never have money?"

I don't know about you, but I am starting to like the trend of profit sharing and giving away free stuff. It is about time that companies start thinking of us not only as consumers but as valuable assets that can assist in selling services and products and finally get paid for it. After all, when is the last time your hairdresser or your painter gave you a part of the money he made when you referred someone to them?