Affiliate marketing is the best way for most people to start making money online. It’s that simple. Affiliate marketing takes less upfront investment, requires the least technical knowledge and often provides the quickest income stream for most people looking to start a business online and become a part of the work-at-home crowd.

Affiliate marketing is the process of selling other people’s products online - or more accurately, driving potential customers to offers presented by the affiliate programs’ owners. You don’t need to sell the product - you leave that to the professionally designed salespages already online - your job is just to get targeted people to that page.

Like any business startup, affiliate marketing success requires the investment of time and money - the more you invest of one, the less you need of the other. While affiliate marketing is one of the few businesses you can start with no money to invest, it will take more effort to get it rolling, and longer til you see a profit from it. But you can start of that way if necessary, and use some of your profits to invest down the road, making it a self-funding business opportunity.

For the best, and usually quickest results, start by setting up a blog and an autoresponder account. For best results, these should be on your own web site, using a domain name appropriate to the niche you intend to market to. Deciding on a niche can be as easy as taking any area you’re interested in, going to a major search engine and typing in the topic followed by Affiliate Program - so if you’re interested in golf, type in Golf Affiliate Program.

If you see a lot of affiliate programs in that niche, you know it’s a viable area for affiliate marketers. You’ll find that physical goods, say golf clubs or golf shoes, have a higher sales price but pay a low commission, whereas digital products like golf videos or instructional e-books pay a much higher commission rate, but have lower prices per sale.

For people just beginning their affiliate marketing business, I recommend doing 2/3 of your affiliate promotions for digital products and 1/3 for physical goods. Lower outlays for digital products usually make the sale easier to refer, but you don’t want to miss out on those occasional big-ticket sales either. Also, to stick with the golf niche, golfers buy only one set of clubs every so often, but might buy 4 or 5 different books on golfing, instructional videos, etc, every year.

Once you’ve decided on a niche to start in, booked your domain name, set up your blog & autoresponder account, and joined 3 or 4 related affiliate programs, it’s time to start adding some niche-specific content. All of that startup can be done in a few hours one afternoon, but how you’ll get your content depends on your writing ability and the ratio of time and money you have available.

If you’re an ok writer or better, consider writing your own material. Remember, the average education level online is Grade 10, so you don’t need to be a Lit major, just capable of successfully communicating via the written word. Since you picked a niche you personally were interested in, you probably already have enough knowledge to start writing your material.

If not, or if you simply don’t have the time, there are three other most-commonly used options. One is to use pre-written articles from the myriad of article directories online. These require you to keep the authors’ names and links in the material, but considering you just copy & paste them it’s a reasonable trade-off.

The second source is articles sold with Private Label Rights, or PLR rights. When you purchase PLR articles, you’re allowed to add your own name as author, and usually you can use them however you like - as is, rewritten to include your affiliate links, etc. If you don’t have the time to alter them significantly then people can still find the same articles on other sites, but again, you have content to use with very little time invested. Finding niche PL:R is as easy as typing in the niche and PLR at the search engines - i.e. Golf PLR or Golf Articles PLR.

The third option is the most expensive, but next best to writing them yourself - using a ghostwriter. A ghostwriter is a professional writer who can research and write articles for you on any subject for a fee. Far from expensive, such services usually go for twenty dollars an article or less, depending on the number of articles you order and what deals you can work out with them. The advantage to ghostwritten articles is that you have complete ownership of them - you put your name on as author, can claim copyright to them and have articles not available anywhere else. Even in the offline world, a surprising number of books are written by ghostwriters!

The first 7 - 10 articles should go into your autoresponder as an e-course, set to go out at a rate of two articles a week. Read each article and decide which affiliate program offers items most closely related to the content, and either put your affiliate link directly in the article, if appropriate, or as part of a PS you add at the bottom of it. As you get more proficient at this, you can also use an ad at the top of the e-mail, etc. Once the 10 are in the autoresponder series, use the form your autoresponder generates to add a signup form to your blog. Again, this is usually just cut and paste.

The rest of your content can now be used for blog posts. For best results, post at least one article daily or every two days. After each posting notify the various blog directories about your post, and use a free plug-in to notify the main search engines about the new post each time. For plug-ins visit the WordPress site or do a search for them, and check for blog pinging services at the same time. (Pinging is the term for notifying directories about your new blog post.) Be sure to include the major services like Technorati, MyBlogLog, StumbleUpon and Twitter in your promotional efforts as well.

Once you have your blog up and rolling, go back to the engines and search for discussion forums in your niche, such as Golf Forums. Visit a few of them to see which have the most active member base, then start helping out by answering questions people post there. DON’T advertise in your posts - that will get you banned. Most allow you to put a link in your ’signature’, which gets added to the bottom of each post you make there. Watch to see how the most active people on the forum are formatting their signatures, and use a similar format. Link to your blog, not to specific affiliate offers.

Next, do a search for other blogs in your niche and visit those on the first few pages of results. Read their posts to get a feel for what’s working in your niche, and leave valuable, relevant comments. This helps to get your name out there in your niche, helps to establish your reputation as knowledgeable in the field, and in most cases gives a link people can follow back to your blog. It can even help your blog’s positioning in the search engines, since some enlightened bloggers use the do-follow & CommentLuv plugins, which means the link to commenter’s sites is indexable by the search engines.

Also, if time permits, submit articles to the various article directories. Again, there’s a link in your signature (called the Author’s Resource Box on many article sites) that people can use to find your blog, and you’re getting more 1-way links back to your site for the search engines to follow. Articles you write yourself or have had ghostwritten can usually be submitted as is, but PLR articles cannot - you’ll have to rewrite those first since directories want only unique articles you hold the copyright to.

These are the basic steps to an affiliate marketing business online; you’ll repeat these same steps over and over as your business grows. As time progresses you’ll want to add in more advanced steps, like direct solo ads to your lists, adding podcasts (audio recordings) and videos to your blog and your promotional efforts, etc. But before you jump into those, be sure you’ve got the basics down pat and have your blog well established, both in terms of content and links to it from every related source you can think of. And never pass up a chance to get more targeted people on your e-zine list - that list is where the bulk of your affiliate marketing income will come from in the long run!

Because of the popularity of Private Label Rights (PLR) products, the market has literally become flooded with them. Many Private Label Rights products are resold as PLR products, which are then sold as PLR products, and so on and so forth. This makes it hard to find and offer premium Private Label Rights products to your customers.

There is a solution to your PLR woes, fortunately! First, look for PLR deals where the number of PLR licenses sold is limited. The more limited the licenses are, the higher the price usually is - but this works in your favor. You will typically be getting a better PLR product, and you won’t have nearly as much competition when it comes to selling your converted product to your customers. Even though the licenses are limited, however, make sure that you change and repackage the original Private Label Rights product to make it your own unique offering before offering it for sale online.

On that note, look for Private Label Rights products that you can easily change to increase the value of your finished product. Using this method, a PLR product has the potential to be very profitable, simply because you will be making drastic changes from the original PLR package, and offering the market something that they don’t already have, and that nobody else is marketing online.

One of the easiest ways is to take PLR articles and compile them into an e-book - just cut and paste each PLR article into a .doc file, each starting on a new page, then create an index and a title page, add your Author’s page and niche-related recommended resources at the end, and turn it into a PDF - voila, a new niche product to sell or give away to build your opt-in list.

Look for what your niche wants. You can poll your customers to find out what they want or need, then go out and find a niche PLR product that closely resembles that. You can then change the PLR product to fully fill your customers’ needs or desires. One simple way to search for products with Private Label Rights in any given niche is to use a search engine and type in niche or type + PLR and see what comes up. You can also join PLR Article membership sites or E-Book membership sites that cater to a varied selection of niches, to allow you wider exposure and a better chance of making money online from your niche marketing.

There are even PLR membership sites that give you complete PLR web sites each month, either to use for Adsense sites or as a base to then add your niche products to - either way they save a lot of time over creating your own sites from scratch!

Those are the best ways to find profitable PLR products. Offer products that are not readily available or easy to find, and also ask your market what they want or need. When you take the time to consider these things, you will find that you have much more success with PLR in ANY niche!

Yes, it’s true - woofers are becoming tweeters in record numbers as a result of the Web 2.0 site Twitter. More and more of the Internet marketing ‘Big Dogs’ are posting a few times a day on Twitter, where the mini-blog posts are called ‘tweets’. But while definitely a Web 2.0 community site, it’s value is quite different to the Internet marketing community.

Tweets are limited to 140 characters, so all messages have to be kept brief - no long-winded sales pitches here. And, unlike the other Web 2.0 sites, Twitter uses a ‘nofollow’ tag, preventing the search engines from considering your posts as one-way links back to your sites, and preventing them from spidering a new site based on your links there.

So if there’s no search engine optimization benefits to posting a link there, why are virtually all of the big-name Internet marketers taking the time to read posts and post their own information on Twitter? From what has transpired there so far, it would seem there are three main reasons to use Twitter in your Internet marketing efforts.

First up, your core followers can click a link to ‘follow’ you on Twitter, meaning they can read everything you post there from their own Twitter page. This makes for an easy way for fans to keep up with what you’re up to, and also to contact you either via replies to your tweets or by direct messaging. With so many Internet marketing mavens being completely swamped with e-mails and support desk issues, this might well become a standard means of contact with the otherwise unreachable superstars of Internet marketing.

Secondly, many of the tweets are quite simple and unrelated to business - ‘taking the kids to the park’ or ‘off to see the new James Bond flick’. This allows people to see a more human side of big-time Internet marketers, to see they’re just like the rest of us but with a bigger budget. This ‘human connection’ aspect may yet turn out to be the biggest part of the Twitter advantage, since the online world can seem quite cold and austere to those not overly experienced in the online world in general and Internet marketing in particular.

And thirdly, because you can reply to tweets of the people you’re following there, Twitter is rapidly becoming an easy solution for those in Internet marketing to stay in touch, to reach out to each other, and to maintain a sense of community between the live Internet marketing events. Spread out around the globe, many Internet marketers see each other only once every year or two, and often not even that frequently - many never meet their Internet marketing partners and compatriots in the offline world.

But so far Twitter does the best job of overcoming that hurdle, creating a sense of community that extends from the biggest internet marketing and affiliate marketing superstars right down to the newest of newbies - and as such may well also become the industry’s top resource for meeting, cultivating and recruiting future Internet marketing Joint Venture partners as well.

To put Twitter to use in your internet marketing or affiliate marketing arsenal, start by setting up a free account there using your real name (for branding and so others can find you easily), and then clicking the links to follow the posts of those Internet marketers you’re most interested in. Get a feeling for the common posts there, and soon you’ll be tweeting along with the best of them - and you’ll see your following growing right along with the list of Internet marketers you’re following there too.

Happy Tweets!

Dominating affiliate marketing and becoming a super affiliate isn’t easy - it’s a real jungle out there in the affiliate marketing wars. Every other affiliate is also trying to make the sale - of the same product!

Since we were old enough to go to school, we’ve been pressured to fit in and be like everybody else. But now it’s time to venture out into new territory, be different and learn to be a winning competitor if you hope to succeed in affiliate marketing.

Unless you’re a true Type A personality, this means some radical changes for you - no longer worrying about fitting in, being ok with making people jealous of you, ignoring those who talk behind your back - all necessary qualities in every super-affiliate and most others who want to have successful affiliate marketing businesses online.

And because affiliate marketing really IS a business in it’s own right, first you have to make sure that you have your own website dedicated to your affiliate marketing promotions. This is vital as it allows you to build your own affiliate marketing opt-in lists and an avenue to promote numerous affiliate opportunities and products instead of promoting just one affiliate link at a time - and having to start all over again for the next affiliate promotion you push.

Next up, always avoid using the affiliate marketing promotional materials that are provided by the affiliate manager or merchant. You will find that you make more sales when you create your own material, including free gifts such as e-books and reports. Use the copy and e-mails provided as a basis for your own articles and blog posts, and study them for any great selling points that were missed - those are the type of points to really hammer home and separate yourself from the affiliate marketing wannabes…

While you promote affiliate products in your affiliate marketing promotions, be sure to promote your website and your opt-in list more than you promote anything else. Super affiliates use article marketing, pay per click ads, forum signatures, social bookmarking and other Web 2.0 methods to drive targeted traffic to their affiliate marketing websites and opt-in lists, then promote the specific affiliate products to their opt-in lists and on their websites. Remember - bring the traffic to YOU - THEN send it to them.

Once in a while, offer bonus gifts to those who purchase through your affiliate marketing links. You can create your own gifts, or use private label rights products. Most affiliates don’t do this, however most of the super affiliates do.

Save it for the more expensive affiliate marketing promotions though - it becomes less effective if you are constantly offering bonuses and, worse yet, you can end up like some who no longer get a buying response from their lists unless they offer some heavy-duty bonuses. If you condition your audience to always buying for the bonuses, you’ll see your affiliate marketing results dropping when you don’t have new bonuses for them.

Another powerful affiliate marketing tactic is to host teleseminars to promote affiliate products. Your teleseminars MUST give your listeners useful information that they can use - and must be on a topic related to the affiliate product you’re promoting. Don’t make the bulk of the call a sales pitch - not only will they hang up, but they’ll avoid your calls in future.

Give them good solid information, either on your own or through an interview, for 55 minutes of a 1-hour call, then use that last five minutes to direct them to the affiliate offer on YOUR affiliate marketing website. Get their opt-in and then funnel them through to the merchant’s salespage - and watch the nice bump you get in your affiliate marketing commissions!

If most of your affiliate marketing activities are in the same niche, write and submit articles on a regular basis. Get your name out there and become a recognized expert in your niche. Also make it a point to actively participate in related forums and newsgroups - always with a link to your site in your signature. As your name recognition and credibility grow, so will the profits you’re raking in from your affiliate marketing efforts!

In summary, always strive to do things just a bit differently to stand out from the rest of the affiliate marketing crowd, but don’t ignore any of the proven marketing methods just because other affiliates are using them. Use EVERY affiliate marketing strategy you can - just be sure to ALWAYS put your own spin on them!

Is it really possible to majorly affect your success online in just one hour a week?

Yes, once you’ve mastered Article Marketing, one of the most powerful Web 2.0 tactics that can boost your branding, provide backlinks to your sites, boost your site’s PageRank, drive targeted traffic & skyrocket your profits in one hour per week.

Another big advantage is that Article Marketing can put you miles ahead of your competition, especially if you’re selling resell rights products or promoting affiliate marketing links, two areas with the most direct competition online. By raising the profile, links to and search engine rankings for your affiliate pre-sell pages, squeeze pages or resell rights sales pages, you can start to see results not matched by any of your competition.

Here’s a real-world example of the power of Article Marketing:

On April 23, 2008, I spent 15 minutes writing each of 3 articles - 45 minutes total. I was careful to pick topics that are tightly targeted to the sites and products I have online, so they were on resell rights, article marketing and affiliate marketing.

That’s an important point about successful article marketing - the more tightly targeted your article is to your sites’ target market, the better your results will be. With article marketing you’re actually pre-qualifying your traffic because only those who were sufficiently interested in reading your original article will click the following link to your sites, and if the article was highly relevant then this targeted traffic arrives at your site already accepting you as an expert in the subject area and ready to see what more you have on it.

Back to our article marketing case study… After spending 45 minutes writing the three articles, I then fired my secret weapon - the real trick to doing article marketing quickly, efficiently and effectively. I logged into one of the most-professional article submission services online and uploaded my 3 articles.

A week later as I was about to start week two’s article marketing activities, I logged back into the submission service to see what the situation was with the first 3 articles. How does 149 backlinks in Google alone sound to you?

In just one week, the numbers were:

55 pages indexed and live in Google showing my resell rights article;

43 pages indexed and live in Google showing my Article Marketing article; and

51 pages indexed and live in Google showing my Affiliate Marketing article!

That’s 149 more places for people to run into my name and solid info from me online, 149 more links back to my sites, each capable of attracting tightly-targeted traffic to my salespages and affiliate marketing pre-sell pages. For one hour’s work, total. That’s the immediate benefit to article marketing - almost instant spidering by the search engines, and a number of new profit conduits set up aimed at your payment button or affiliate links.

Assuming that was the average response rate, over the course of a year that would be about 150 articles you would write and submit, and the results would be almost 7,500 links to your sites, blogs and affiliate links - think that would help your marketing efforts? And even if you could find them, what do you think 7,500 one-way backlinks to your sites would cost?

And believe it or not, that’s just the tip of the iceberg with Article Marketing. You see, to already be spidered, indexed and appearing in Google within a week of going online, those copies of my articles are all at article directories or article repositories - the sites online where webmasters, marketers, e-zine publishers, e-book authors and bloggers go to find fresh content.

Assuming even a very small proportion of those people like the articles and choose to use them, the number of sites using the articles, promoting my name and expertise, and exposing people to my links will skyrocket exponentially. So during our sample year, as more directories are spidered, as more webmasters, marketers and bloggers use my articles and are eventually spidered too, the number of links to my sites from those 150 articles could easily reach 15,000, 30,000 or even 100,000 links, each it’s own tiny little salesperson for my growing online empire.

And remember too, article marketing is just one area of a professional marketing attack, a small part of the full Web 2.0 traffic-generating techniques, albeit a very powerful part. If you’ve been missing out on the power of article marketing, you may now have a better idea of why some marketers are doing so much better with resell rights products and affiliate marketing than you have been. Change that today - add the power of Article Marketing into YOUR Internet marketing arsenal today!