Affiliate marketing is a situation where a person signs up with a merchant to sell the merchant’s products in exchange for a portion of the sale price. This sale is called a commission.

Merchants may also offer pay per click, where the affiliate is paid for each click through, or pay per lead, where the affiliate refers someone to the merchant’s site to complete a specific action, like completing an application.

For those who don’t want to create or sell their own products, marketing affiliate programs is an easy way to get started in business quickly.

With millions of products available on the internet to sell, there are a few things you want to consider first before starting your affiliate business.

1. What is your topic?

Before you consider anything else, you want to brainstorm your first topic. There are many ways to do this.

The search engines all have some type of site, like Google Trends, or Yahoo Buzz, to show you what the hot topics are. You may choose a hot topic, or you may want to do research on topics you are interested in.

I believe in choosing topics you are interested in because you will have to do some writing like product reviews and promotional materials. It’s easier to write about something you are interested in. Just make sure there is a market for the products you want to sell.

2. What types of products do you want to sell?

There are both digital and physical products available for sale on the internet. A digital product is an electronic type of product you download to your computer like an ebook or software.

The advantage of digital products is that they offer higher commissions than physical products. The problem here is that there may not be any digital products related to the topic you choose.

3. Will you build a website? If so, what type of website will you build?

There are lots of ways to build websites from creating a simple one page website for list building or offering a product review, to creating a blog or affiliate store using some type of script.

If you’ve never built a website before, then there are a few things to learn. You may consider building a blog on free sites like Wordpress or Blogger, but let me caution you here. Your site may end up deleted and then you’ve lost all of that content.

If you do decide to build a website, you’ll also need a domain name and web hosting. Do your research and get the most powerful web hosting possible for the price. You want tools like Fantastico to help you build your website and install scripts. This will make building your website a whole lot easier.

4. How will you promote?

It is easier to promote your affiliate business if you build a website, especially if you choose to write articles. The reason is that most article directories won’t accept articles that have affiliate links in the resource box.

The same applies to some free classified ad sites: some don’t allow you to use an affiliate link in your ad. That doesn’t mean there aren’t sites that won’t accept affiliate links. You will simply need to do a little research.

There are plenty of free ways to promote your new affiliate business if you have a website: search engine optimization, article writing, free classifieds, free ebooks, social marketing.

Consider what you like to do first. If you’re very social, you may find social marketing the way to go. If you like sharing information, consider articles. With free classifieds, it’s easy because classified advertising is something we are all familiar with offline.

Regardless of which technique you choose, remember to build your list so you may market to your visitors more than one time. This will help you recycle your traffic and get more from your traffic building efforts.

Like these tips? Then sign up for my free Affiliate Marketing Guide to get tips and free ebooks for starting your first affiliate business. Learn How to REALLY Start Your Business in 30 days: free ebusiness course.

Jinger Jarrett is the author of “Internet Marketing to GO! Cashing in on Online Business,” available on Amazon.

With a New Year, we often take a fresh look at the way we do things. This can be both in our personal and our professional lives. When it comes to affiliate marketing it should be no different. If you have a downline team, you must continually look at your role as an affiliate mentor.

The year 2009 is going to mean being creative in marketing your affiliate products. We are in challenging economic times and are in a recession. Those are the cold facts. However, does that mean you hide under a rock, or bury your head in the sand as a businessperson? No, it doesn’t.

It means you find ways to operate your affiliate business more efficiently. It also means you step up your efforts to promote your products and services, not curtail them. On top of all that you must step up your efforts to train your downline team properly. You are essential to their survival and vice-versa.

With that in mind, the following are some tips for effectively mentoring your downline team to success in 2009:

Open Door Policy

It’s imperative that you let your downline know you are available to them. As soon as you gain a new downline member, give them your personal contact information. If it’s an e-mail address, make sure it’s one checked frequently so you can respond to them promptly.

In addition, send messages to your downline encouraging their questions and input. This lets them know you’re concerned about their success, not just your own.

Flash: In Today’s Headlines

You are Editor-in-Chief when it comes to getting affiliate marketing news out to your downline. Is there a product upgrade on the horizon they should know more details about? Then you can supply them that news and add any details as you deem appropriate.

Does your downline team know about article marketing, how it all works? If not, then it’s up to you to inform them. Getting their article promotion campaigns in high gear is essential to their business.

Your job as an affiliate mentor is to let newbie’s know where the good article distribution services reside. Make sure you get the news hot-off-the-press out to your team concerning ways to build their business.

Class is in Session

This one is straightforward for 2009. If you have never done so in the past, now’s the time to institute training modules. Make a commitment for this New Year to train your downline in a systematic manner. This means thinking about, planning, scheduling, and doing the actual training.

Pick different marketing tactics you want to teach your team. Plan a lesson based on each tactic. Come up with a schedule for when each module will be taught.

Get that schedule out to your team and encourage them to attend, if the training will be via teleconferencing. Of course, you can engage in e-mail training and send out regularly scheduled newsletters or lessons on effective affiliate marketing.

Incentives

As an affiliate mentor, explain to your downline your affiliate parent’s bonus/reward program. Many affiliate marketers sign up for a program because they love the product and like the main commission offering. They sometimes forget to read further and look at what other monies can come their way for sales performance.

As a mentor explain to them the different levels of payment. Encourage them to be proactive to reach these levels.

In addition, offer your own personal incentives. Reward creative downline members who work hard and excel at promoting the program. Your commitment to reward them from your personal resources raises your credibility as a mentor.

Structure

One way to inspire your downline and discourage affiliate attrition is to implement some business structure. In so doing, you add extra professionalism to your affiliate business.

Structure would be in the form of regular monthly meetings with your downline. This is different from the casual open door policy. It’s different from your planned training sessions as well.

Regular meetings with an agenda, focus on affiliate marketing within a team framework. They are organized meetings that encourage give and take when it comes to ideas. These meetings have a touch of a corporate aura to them, which is where the professional persona comes in.

Planned meetings, with a purpose, via conference calls, online video, or text chats, are useful. Use them to show your downline you operate as a real business. Use them to show them that you are committed to their success and have the structure in place to help them.

There you go; the above are some ideas for mentoring your downline effectively. The New Year is your opportunity to run your affiliate business in a new manner. Run with all, or some of the above, and inspire your downline to grow their businesses in 2009.

Rebecca Taylor is a coach for the Affiliate Program at Article Marketer. She assists and coaches Article Marketer affiliates. Are you an Article Marketer Affiliate?

In the Internet marketing arena there are millions of different websites vying for the public’s attention. You set up your site for a specific purpose. As an affiliate marketer your purpose no doubt was to highlight the products you sell. You deemed it feasible to promote from your own portal instead of just relying on classified advertising sites.

However, is your website one of the top places to be? Are you working to make it the place consumers’ think of when it comes to affiliate products of your type? You can establish your website as the place to be by populating it with elements that people find useful. Even the best affiliate programs can falter on a website considered unimportant by consumers.

The following are five steps to establish your website as the place to be. These are from a customer point-of-view, not a technical optimization point-of-view. While that’s vitally important too, today we’re considering what customers want from your site. When promoting affiliate products you must offer your potential customers more than just the affiliate products.

Offer Quality Information

Think of the many websites you come across as you search for information on the Internet. Many offer products, and that’s it; there is no supporting content talking about the products. Other sites offer great products with poor accompanying content. You learn nothing from the text that you don’t already know from the product picture.

Then there are those sites you make a point of frequenting. Why do you go to them? You go because they offer content that tells you something new concerning an affiliate product. They are always up-to-date with fresh relevant information that you can use to make buying decisions. Make your website content as informative as your article writing which you engage in to promote your site.

Offer Something No One Else Can

Are you an expert, or at least very well versed, concerning an affiliate product related topic? Present this on your website. People love information that they cannot find anywhere else.

This is different then just having quality content. Many sites can have quality content: the same or similar quality content that consumers find useful. Having unique content that comes from your expertise, experiences, and research establishes your site as different. People have to come to your site to get this; they won’t find it elsewhere.

Offer Truly Useful Giveaways

When you offer EBooks, reports, audio downloads, and the like make sure they are rich with information. Don’t encourage your visitors to download a resource that is nothing but fluff. Don’t offer a report, which is really just another version of a commercial hyping your affiliate product. Giving away something you proclaim as useful when it isn’t will destroy your credibility as an affiliate marketer.

Offer Links to Other Valuable Resources

If you have your customers’ best interests at heart, you won’t be afraid to send them elsewhere. Sure, you risk them not returning to your site. However, because your site steered them to places where they can receive extra help they will remember you. Odds are they will return to you to see what other valuable information and resources you can supply them.

Offer True Support and Transparency

Your potential customers want to see that you are a reputable business associated with top-notch companies. Make sure they realize that any product they link to from you comes from a quality manufacturer. Explain to them your affiliate parent’s money-back refund policy, warranties, and guarantees. You increase the likelihood that clicks convert to sales when you show the affiliate parent stands behind their product.

Concerning transparency, let people know who and where you are. On your website have an ‘About Us’ page. Have one, or all of the following posted: a physical address, an email address, a telephone number. People like to know whom they’re dealing with and that they are easy to contact.

Your web presence can be the place “to be” in your customers’ eyes. Give them, of course, the best quality products. Give customers quality information and unique knowledge.

Let them know where they can learn even more from other experts. Offer support and stand behind your products. In addition, let them know more about you as an affiliate marketing enterprise. Make their decision to buy from you an easy one.

Jim Slader manages the affiliate program at Article Marketer, the largest article distribution service on the Internet. Earn commissions on a product that virtually sells it; become an Article Marketer Affiliate today. Join the winning team: it’s quick and easy .

There are many people who are under the assumption that you can make money online using the same tired old marketing tactics that people have been using for years. This is simply not true. In order to make money online, you have to know not only the latest techniques in marketing, but how they can be applied to online marketing. An online coach can help you not only find the right product to sell when you are trying to make money online, but can also teach you how to promote your product through various online marketing techniques.

Why do you need a coach to succeed when internet marketing? One reason is that the coach has experience in online marketing and you do not. Just the same way as you need training when starting a new job or seek a mentor when you are trying to do something new, you need a coach when you are starting your internet business. Not only does the coach know how to market your product and which products to sell, but they will also know where to get the products and how to procure trust from your potential customers. With this experience being passed on to you, you cannot help but make money online.

Another way that a coach can help is to give you a plan. Your coach has been in your position at one time and knows what you are going through. The reason your online marketing coach is where he or she is today is because they most likely developed a plan that they learned from another online marketing coach. You need a plan if you are going to be successful at internet marketing. The best way to do this is to use the advice that you get from your coach and follow a plan that has already been known to work.

Imagine that you are going on a trip to somewhere and you want to see a certain attraction. Your goal is to see the attraction and enjoy your day. Does it make sense to follow a map so that you can find the attraction or just drive around aimlessly hoping that you will get there? The map is the way, of course. You need to look at your online marketing endeavor the same way. Follow a plan that has been tested by your internet marketing coach before you just blindly start using your email list to send out announcements and sales that will not get you anywhere.

In addition to giving you a plan and providing you with experience, having an internet marketing coach can also help you develop goals for your internet business and will prompt you to achieve those goals. Your internet marketing coach is there to motivate you every step of the way and will force you to hold yourself accountable for your actions.

If you want to make money online, you need more than just the knowledge of how to build a list for email. You need experience, a plan, goals and motivation to achieve those goals. These can all be had when you use an internet marketing coach.

Ron Subs is a marketing consultant for http://FromSuccessfoolToSuccessful.com

The larger your Opt In list is, the better you can manage your list, the more frequently you keep in touch with your list and provide them with valuable information, then the more likely you are to sell your product and service.

An Opt In List is a collection of Email addresses you receive from people who are interested in your product or service and ask to join your auto responder list.
You can build your Opt In List using free techniques or you can pay a third party to expand your list.

Free techniques to build an Opt In list include writing articles. Although this may take a little more time and effort, your articles can be a very effective method for getting new subscribers to you. You can write articles focusing on your topic or articles that contain some of the information in your product. It is the useful information readers find in your article that will inspire them to look you up and see how they can find more useful information.

You can then post part of the article on a blog you are writing or submit the article to different directories for publication. You can also post the article as a separate page on your own website. When submitting your articles to other sites for publication, be sure in include your name and a link to your web site.

If you like the idea of free list building techniques, think how much your potential customers may also want something of value that is free. Write short, informative Ebooks or special reports on your topic or on the topic of an affiliate program that you are marketing. Offer them as incentive to those who OptIN to your home page.

Develop a mini Ecourse, a shortened version of your complete product or service. Break your product up into several sessions. You may want to give away a few secrets with every lesson but keep some secrets in reserve. Remind subscribers that there is more information on the full version of your product and include links to your product page on your web site. Download your mini course into your auto responder program to save you time.

Pop Up ads are effective for collecting Email addresses but only use them on your own site. Used on your own site, Pop Up ads let people know they can sign up for your list and get the information they want almost immediately.

Build a list on Facebook. Join forums and participate in some of the discussion. Leave your link to your Opt In page. When you just leave a link to your website or blog, you will not be capturing the name and Email addresses of people who clicked on your website looking for more information on a particular topic.

If you are interested in finding out more about expanding your Email list and making your on line business profitable, check out this home study course on starting an Internet Business
http://www.internetmarketingnewsuccessguide.com