Quick Start to Make Money Online with Affiliate Marketing

It is a bit of cliche to say that you can make money online with affiliate marketing, but you can. But the question is: 'Will you?'

That is not meant unkindly, but to make money this way you need to be determined to do so, and to follow a plan. Then you need to find the products or services that will help you do it.

Are you determined enough or desperate enough?

Let's start with the beginning. How determined are you? Or how desperate are you? If it just seems a good way of getting extra cash for a holiday or something, chances are you won't stick to a program. If you've lost your job, and want to be independent of jobs, bosses and getting fired, your attitude will be different. Also, if you are broke.

If you really want to make money online with affiliate marketing, the first job is to get a piece of paper and write on it why you want to do this. Then write down your goal three years down the road. Then, work backwards, putting down what you need to be earning at the end of the the second year, the end of the first year, and in six months time.

Then work back till you know what you need to do this month. Don't expect to earn anything in the first month, as there is too much ground work to be done, such as finding out what affiliate marketing is, how you do it, and what you need to be able to do it successfully.

What must I do today to make this work?

At this stage you will not know what you need to do in detail, but you should end up with: 'What must I do today to make this work?' Maybe you only have one hour today, so what is the one thing that must be done? It could be to brainstorm what markets you will enter as an affiliate. These need to be markets where there is a lot going on, plenty of products, plenty of buyer. But not much competition, which means it will be a small niche in that market.

That's the start. One way of doing it would be to go to amazon and look up the latest non-fiction books in the best sellers category to see what they are about. This is a good way of finding a market. Another is to go into town and look at the magazine racks. If there are plenty of magazines on one subject, that's a market. Note how each one targets a niche in that market.

After that you will want to find some products that really fit into that market. Then, you will be looking at keywords and key phrases to see how to promote these products.

By this time you will need to learn about affiliate marketing. There are plenty of programs and e-books out there, but start out studying some free reports, which will help you see which way to go. But each day remember to say: 'What must I do today to make this work'?