If you are an affiliate marketer or considering affiliate marketing, residual income is a perfect opportunity to secure a steady income each month.

This means joining affiliate programs that offer residual affiliate commissions, for instance affiliate businesses that are membership sites or offer monthly services and offer their affiliates commissions for every month the member keeps their subscription or service.

Here are a few tips:

Don't be all things to all people, focus on a profitable niche and promote only products related to that niche.

For example, a skin care site is nice but a focused "acne" or "anti-aging" skin care site is better. If you've settled on an 'acne' skin care site, promote products related to acne, promoting a wildly popular lip balm wouldn't be a wise product selection.

- Pay attention to the payment terms. Some merchants pay weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly. Additionally some pay only when you've generated a minimum amount in commissions, for example, you may not receive payment until you've accrued $100 in commissions. If this takes a month or more, you could be waiting for you money longer than you had anticipated.

- Study the merchant's sales page. Is it sales worthy? Would you buy the product? Does it make a compelling statement? What is their return policy? What guarantees do they offer, if any? What payment options do they have? I've been to product sites that don't accept credit cards, do you think they'll make many sales that way, probably not.

- Read the terms of the merchant's contract. Look for things like exclusivity, which means you can only promote their products exclusively on your site. Some merchants allow you to promote all their products but only pay commissions on some of them. Be sure to read the merchant terms.

Don't simply promote products because they pay well, your customers and viewers will see through that. Instead find a good niche and promote products that are related to that niche that you find valuable by demonstrating why.