How to start with affiliate programs - requirements

Target and plan

Your target (or goal) is to earn money. Set some amount, say that your
target is to earn $300 (monthly) from one or few sites.

Just one detail about this above. $300 is looking like small sum when you can read about 1000s earned from some people. Don't forget that if they are earning 1000s with their tactic, they will not sell you just that tactic. Build your tactic. Just start slowly and first get those $300, even that sum is not that easy to earn. Greed is the worst enemy, don't forget that, never.

Say that your plan is how to get that money using effort and investing
some amount of money.

Simple general plan is looking like this:

1. find theme for web site (you know about)
2. make web site
3. Get traffic
4. Analyze traffic
5. Find and test products on that site
6. Start again with second site using the same tactic

Make a few interesting sites with different themes and try to get steady traffic to them. Do not make experiments on those sites, build them with care and by the rules. Those sites are your backup. If they are earning only $300 per month, that is not important, maybe those $300 can save you later. Cat & mouse game with search engines can cost you if you are trying to apply dirty tricks on above sites.

Internet Marketing Trends

Most popular internet marketing game today is spamming search engines with unuseful content, trying to get more visitors.

Directory sites (scraped search engine results), article sites (articles about everything with very little or no value), made to get money displaying AdSense ads are now popular. They are popular now, what doesn't means that they will be popular tomorrow. Clever marketer knows when is time to change tactic.

Join to new trends only if it is on beginning stage. When something becomes popular, that is beginning of the end. It will not last long. Everything new and good is abused from lazy pigs and spammers very fast.

Many affiliates are following trends,( adwords and adsense, blogging) to get more traffic and sales. You can too, but do not use temporary popular tactic on those few sites above. It is not problem to make a few Mumbo-Jumbo sites where you can test newest tactics.

Do not put all eggs in one basket, anyway. Try other ways, but be carefull. There is no easy money.

Information is gold

Without information you are lost in space. Marketing Forums, Blogs, newsletters, in that order, are the sources of invaluable information. Read and learn. But, first decide what to do.
And, take all info from blogs and forums with care. There are many false posts in blogs, many blogs owners don't have enough knowledge to write about theme, they are simple recycling some forum post with many "IFs".
Do not read posts "as is". Pull ideas from there, and do your own research. Avoid crowd, if you don't have something to sell them.

Family support

It is not important if you are student or retired, you can
do this, but other family members maybe could not understand
what you are doing. So, expect comments like: "You are not working,
you are playing games, you are browsing on adult sites", [add more..]
For the first time, this is normal when they don't understand.
That could be even worse when checks starts to coming.
Expect something like this: "How you can earn money with THAT (computer)?"
"You must be doing something illegally", [add more here...]

After some time (and more checks), their opinion will change and
you can explain to them what you are really doing.

This was example what can happen when family members (usually older)
are not savvy, i.e. they don't know nothing about Internet and marketing.

Fortunately, today is situation little different. Building sites,
promoting Affiliate programs, and earn money from that effort
can be fun for all family members.
If you are lucky and you have a savvy wife (or husband), and
a few teenagers, you can include all family members in that business
and make a nice living from that.

Working environment and tools

Choose a good table and good chair, you can spend hours and hours
working. Sheets of paper and pencil. You don't want to switch PC on every time when you need to see plan for tomorrow or record new idea. Depending what is written on those sheets, later you can destroy them or keep in safe place. Usernames and passwords keep in safe place too, don't look later for them everywhere.

One good and fast printer, so you don't need to be at your working place all the time. Good information can be printed and studied even on the beach (bring pencil too)

Laptop/notebook with phone cable or (and) cell phone, so you can travel and keep your business going.

Cell phone with camera and voice recording. You can be in situations where some interesting pictures for web site can be taken, or you can simply record new idea. Can be used for check email too.

You can simple write ideas on piece of paper. Just write, do not try to remember, you will forget. And don't forget to take that paper with you.

Good software can save your time. Text processor with spelling checker, HTML editors, web site log analyzers... There is free alternative for almost every professional software. Free software is good for learning, but don't wait a moment to buy professional version if additional features can save you a time. Time is money.

Web site

Although you can find affiliate network or program where they don't insist that you have a web site, most of them are asking that you submit site for review. That is normal business practice, they want to be sure that their program will not be promoted on some illegal content site.

So, make one family friendly site for those reviews.

And, don't expect too much from the first site. experience and knowledge gained is worth more than a few bucks of commission. Be prepared for the hard work, 8-16 hours at day. No, not all the time. When you get some experience, a few hours at day will be enough. :-)

The Best Internet Marketing Secret

The best internet marketing secret for you is YOUR marketing tactic. Keep your mouth shut about your tactic and sites. Just try to leave message in any marketing forum that you are earning only $500 from web site (don't forget to leave link), and ask for suggestion how to earn more. Your site will be copied and duplicated to the death, and soon your income from that site will be $0, zero, nada. Leave link on marketing forums only to site where you are promoting marketing product.

Fly under radar, think outside of the box, watch, learn...

Super affiliates

To confirm this paragraph above, how many super affiliates you know? Say, Rosalind Gardner? Did you heard for her before Super Affiliate Handbook Yes, if you are her friend. The fact is there are many affiliates earning close to million/year or over, but sometimes even their friends don't know tactic and websites there are using. There is reason for that. Million reasons. Or, better explained - competition. From the same reason, you will not find any of my tactic described here in details, from the same reason, I may not link any of my other sites from this site, even when they are useful like examples. There are many copycats outhere, and all what they can do, is to ruin your business, trying to imitate your tactic and websites. Without success, sure, copy is always what that word says - copy.

Anyway, you can find some super affiliates in marketing forums, but on their signature is link to some marketing product, not to their real sites.

Common mistakes

Patience is required, but we want everything now and here. So, buying expensive marketing course just to see there is no any magic what will make us rich overnight, is not investment. Taking ACTION, following that course, or better, pulling only info useful for you, not only reading or listening, that is an investment.

Take all those ebooks you bought, open them again, print them out and read with pencil in your hand. One of common mistakes is information overloading, instead that we are following some good tactic, we are just looking for something what can make us rich without effort. And ebooks worth thousands of dollars (for you) are just forgotten.

So, you made your first site, no traffic or no sales, O.K., maybe second site will be better.
STOP. Back to the first site, if you are not sick of it. Why you don't have a traffic or why there is no sales?
Analyze where is problem, take an ACTION. That site must pay hosting expenses. That is one more common mistake, starting an other project, without finishing first one. Yes, there are more mistakes. You will probably find some of them.
Don't worry, *it happens. Learn something from that experience.

Three magic words are: PLAN, FOCUS and ACTION
Everything you need is these-three-words. So, make a plan, focus on that plan, and take an action. Or, easier if you want. Read that ebook or marketing course, write down most important stuff (focus), and use that (action). Let be patience with you :-)

And, please, do not and don't carry your laptop everywhere. That is not real life. Believe me, you will start looking for clickable links in magazines or newspapers.

What is your plan for tomorrow? Collecting info about new niche?