Affiliate Marketing & Internet Marketing Basic Overview

You've probably heard the terms "affiliate marketing" and "internet marketing" being tossed around on the Net. What is this, and why is it so popular?

Affiliate Marketing - means promoting other people's products on your website, blog or mailing list and earning commission for the products sold.

Internet Marketing - is typically the same thing, but you sell your own products (and others' too). This term refers more to "where" you are marketing (on the internet), as opposed to "what."

For the most part these terms are interchangeable, but refer to the same type of internet business: selling products and services online!

Internet marketing can be incredibly lucrative. There are virtually endless products and services to promote. However, there is a lot more to it than putting up a website and slapping a bunch of ads up there. That's where most new affiliate marketers go wrong. Forget the phrase, "build it and they will come." You have to build it WELL, and give your visitors something of VALUE. Typically this means plenty of free information in addition to the products/services being promoted.

There are some excellent guides on exactly how to create a strong affiliate income (see the lower part of this page), but let's look at a few highlights:

• Choose Your Target Market - There are several aspects to consider. First, give some thought to your own interests. Do you have a strong knowledge base on particular subjects? Are a large number of people also interested in those same topics? Make a list of every topic you have an interest in, or knowledge about. Think about some niches you can fill by building a content website around those subjects.
  
  
• Choose Your Vehicle - Once you have a list of possible topics, give some thought to how you want to promote them. Do you want to build a large content website, a community forum, ezine, or a blog? You can certainly do all of those as one unit too! Or perhaps you prefer to build several "mini-sites" to promote various products. You can do all of the above, but choose one avenue to begin with.
  
  
• Research Demand - A simple way to determine the popularity of your chosen topics is to visit Wordtracker. They have a powerful keyword program that will allow you to see how many times a keyword phrase is searched for on the bigger search engines. Typically if there are several thousand searches for a topic in a month, it is a pretty popular subject.  But you could also target less popular search terms because they will probably have less competition.
  
  
• Check Out the Competition - Once you have an idea of how popular your chosen topics are, go to Google.com and do a search on your topics. See how many websites come up. (Look at the upper right corner of the search page; it will show you how many sites were found.) Take a look at the first few sites that come up in the search. Are they already doing what you were thinking of doing? If yes, don't despair! Give some thought to ways you can do things differently. Perhaps you can build a site that focuses on a slightly different angle, or another aspect of the same subject. It may take time to find the right "niche," but it can be done with just about any topic.
  
  
• Find Products and Services - The next step is to find some products and services you could promote and earn some income with. Obviously, you want to find items that go along with the topic of your website. There are tons of great affiliate programs out there, but a few of the most popular are: ClickBank.com, CommissionJunction.com, and Amazon.com.
  
  

Then you just need to build your website and drive targeted traffic to it! This is easier said than done, and there is a learning curve involved. Most likely, you won't be earning huge commissions right away. But as you spend more time and energy on learning Internet Marketing techniques and building up your web-presence, you should see your income steadily increasing.

Some other topics you may want to study: Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click Advertising, Marketing, Writing Product Reviews.

NEW!  Check out our Beginners Quick Start for awesome tutorials that can help you dip your toes into Affiliate Marketing, step-by-step!

Top Affiliate Marketing Resources

Super Affiliate Handbook
This is, by far, the best guide I've ever read on affiliate marketing. The author, Rosalind Gardner, earns an incredible income promoting affiliate products. Her guide is written in easy to understand language and takes you step by step through the whole process. Awesome for beginners.

Affiliate Business Blueprint
Great e-course by Rosalind Gardner and Jim Edwards. Use this formula over and over to create your own unique, online business - without having to create your own product.

Niche Marketing Secrets
Excellent home-study course revealing 47 niche marketing secrets that can explode your online business.