Affiliate Marketing is without question one of the best ways to make money online. How come more people don’t do it? Lazy Bastards? Possibly, but it mostly comes down to persistence. It’s not easy, and takes time to learn. But ask any successful affiliate marketer if it was worth it, and I guarantee you every one of them will look at you (from their brand new Mercedes) and say “hell yeah it was worth it.”

I can’t say I’m an expert at it quite yet, but I’ve learned a few things, and I don’t plan to stop any time soon. I still have a lot to learn, but then again you never stop learning in this profession. Things are always changing, and if you want to be successful, you have to keep up with the industry.

But how does one start? It seems like it can be very overwhelming, but take it one step at a time. Here’s a list that will help you on your way to learning how to start in this challenging but rewarding business:

• Be prepared to lose money at first. This is where most people give up. You aren’t going to make money right away; it takes trial-and-error. When one thing doesn’t work, try something else. When you find something that does work, find out why, and continue to apply that success to more projects.
• Diversify. Don’t pigeon-hole yourself into only one niche or market. If that market goes sour, which it often does over time, you’ll be out of luck until you find another niche.
• Read, Read, Read. Don’t stop reading. This business is always changing, and if you don’t keep up, you’ll get left behind quickly. Search engines make new rules (Like Google’s Quality Score,) and if you miss big events like that, it will dramatically affect your earnings. Here are a few suggestions for reading material:
  • Wickedfire
  • SEO Book
  • DigitalPoint
  • Syndk8
  • Black Hat World
  • Warrior Forum
  • Earners Forum

  I personally read all of those, and I’ve learned a lot with them. If you only read one, read Wickedfire, but to be successful, you want to read all of them. There are many more I can recommend as well, but stick with those while you’re just starting out, there will be plenty of material to read.

• Join a Good Affiliate Network. Forget about Commission Junction for now, no matter what you’ve been told. There are other networks out there that work better, especially for newbies:
• Copeac - They build your landing pages for you
• AzoogleAds
• CPA Empire
• Hydra Network
• ShareASale

I haven’t tried all of these personally (I’m too busy with Copeac right now,) but I’ve heard good things about them all. I do plan to eventually get an account for each of these networks.

• A couple quick pointers to help you out on your journey, and hopefully save you some money:
  • The days of running a PPC campaign and linking directly to the advertiser’s page are over. Google and other search engines are taking into account the quality of the landing page from the ad you place. This is called “Quality Score,” and you will quickly learn to hate it. A member over at Wickedfire posted a great article suggesting how he deals with the Quality Score problem.
  • To analyze a new program to promote, don’t just look at the payout amount. A program might pay you $75 per sale, but if it’s a crappy product, you won’t make any sales. Instead, look at each program and decide if you would buy it yourself. If you wouldn’t buy it, why would anyone else? I’d much rather promote a Zip Submit program for $1.30 per lead than a crappy $100 e-book with a $75 payout.
• Take advantage of new coupon codes for PPC networks, like the $199 credit Yahoo is giving new customers. Keep an eye out for these codes on the forums listed above.
• Don’t give up. Like I said above, this takes a lot of trial-and-error. This is why most people quit after losing a little bit of money trying this. Nobody is going to walk you through how to be successful at this.
• Don’t expect to receive any hand-outs. You aren’t going to find other successful Internet Marketers giving away their secrets. When they find a new trick, they use it to it’s full extent, then maybe let others know about it after they’re done. Why? Because if they have a trick that makes them a lot of money, having hundreds of other people start using that same trick basically makes that technique useless by diluting it’s effectiveness.

If I think of anything else, I’ll add it here. Feel free to add any helpful comments or criticism to the comments below.