Affiliate marketing is the number one  way people make money online. If you are looking into making serious money  online then you need to invest your time in learning the facts about this  business. There are no legitimate get rich over night programs, but if you want  to make serious income then you should look more into affiliate  marketing.
  
 Now the basics of affiliate  marketing....
  
 In order to establish a successful  affiliate marketing business model you need to first sign up for accounts with  each of these companies. Each is free and reputable and you can rest assured any  information you give out will be kept protected.
  
 Make accounts with these  services:
  
 I-N-Vest.com - By being in their  system you can get personal assistance for any problems you may have while using  affiliate marketing strategies. You can email them with any questions you have  regarding affiliate marketing, generating traffic, and much more. They also can  pay you to work online. By joining them you have access to investing tools, free  information, job opportunities, and other great services. Also if you decide to  work with them, and complete 100 jobs, they will personally show you how to make  thousands a year and guide you through every step of the process.
  
 Google - this will be used for  allowing you to post profit generating ads, and drive traffic to your site using  Google Groups.
  
 eBay - eBay is a very powerful tool  that makes it easy for you to buy and sell products. While this is not a pivotal  part of affiliate marketing, it can be very useful. It can also drive  traffic.
  
 Clickbank - Clickbank is extremely  powerful tool that will be discussed later, but right now you need to know that  it provides you with detailed stats about products you can host links to and  receive 75% of each sale. You register with Clickbank, then it will  automatically give you products to choose from, once you have selected one it  will create a link for you to use and you can get up to 75% of every sale that  results from your link. It is completely free for you to use as well. We  reccomend the CB Profit Tool Kit. It is an affiliate marketing super tool, that  anyone who wants to use clickbank for profit needs. It gives you programs that  will automatically create entire product malls and product lists with your  affiliate links built in already, so that you dont have to spend time doing this  yourself. It has many other great features and you can try it for  free.
  
 Forums - By creating accounts with  multiple forums you allow yourself to easily reach a large amount of potential  customers, drive traffic to your website, and generate advertising  profits.
  
 Once you have accounts established  with each of these companies you have made a vital first step towards success  with affiliate marketing. Now we will discuss the basic elements of affiliate  marketing and how each of the tools you registered for above will help you with  those elements.
  
 1. A niche business In order to make  any profit online you have to start out by picking a niche. While many people  will tell you that you should pick something you truly love, this is not  necessarily the case. You need to make sure there is a good market for your  niche. For instance if one of your hobbies is only possible in your local town  there probably isn't a good market for it online. You need to pick something you  will enjoy talking about, but that also has a decent market to attract. While  markets with less competition are easier to succeed in do not be afraid to  tackle competitive markets as well, as there is usually a good reason why they  are so competitive (they bring in the cash!). One of the major pitfalls  beginners make when trying to succeed with affiliate marketing is trying to  attract everyone. You don't need to be the next Google, or the next eBay to be  successful.
  
 2. A good promotional  program
  
 Probably the hardest part about  succeeding with affiliate marketing is generating traffic, and getting customers  to return to your website or blog. In order to do this you must first make your  information interesting and useful. You can not just quickly slap a website  together for the purpose of plastering it with Google ads and affiliate links  and expect to attract any customers. Just imagine what you do when you go to a  web page. Do you search for ads to click on? Most likely not, you look for good  informative content that will help answer whatever question you may have. So the  first way to promote your content, is by making it good enough to promote  itself. Make your content, informative, interesting, unique and most of all  useful to the customer and you will begin building a strong customer base. The  next and more difficult step is driving traffic. We recommend investing your  time in learning all there is to know about search engine optimization because  this will be a major source of all your traffic.
  
 We will not outline all the details  but here a few of the ways that you can help optimize your website or blog for  the search engines. Make a content rich webpage or blog and continuously add new  information. Search engines like to see that content is being updated, and that  a "set it and forget it" method is not being used. Get links to your page from  other web pages or blogs using the keywords you think customers would search  for. The more links to your website there are from other pages, the higher your  page rank and the higher you will fall in the search listings. Contact sites  that provide information or services similar to yours and link to their website  in exchange for them linking to yours. Submit your website to multiple  directories so that you can be sure it is even possible to find your website  when the proper key words are entered.
  
 Other ways to drive traffic to your  website utilize many of the tools listed above so if you haven't registered with  them you probably should. First we will discuss using Google groups. Google  Groups is similar to a forum in that it allows individuals to post articles in a  variety of different categories called groups. You can also start your own group  and get people to join. The service is free and you can use it to promote your  website. Create a helpful and informative article and post it on Google Groups,  including a link to your website somewhere or at the end. If people want to find  out more information they will visit your website and you will receive nice  bursts of traffic from your article. It is important to remember that you don't  just slap an article together as people will quickly recognize it as advertising  and probably not listen to what you have to say. Make sure your article will  really help the customer and make them want to learn more. You can also use  Google Groups to post your affiliate links in and with programs like click bank  you can earn 75% of the resulting sales.
  
 Another method for driving traffic to  your website is joining forums. Forums allow you to post information on a huge  variety of topics. Be careful however as many do not allow self promotion and  you have to be very careful in the wording of your posts. Do not join forums  just to spam advertising for your website. Give legitimate responses to topics  in the forums and include your link in the signature or at the  bottom.
  
 An under used tool for driving  traffic to your website is eBay. If you have e-books or items to sell, post the  on eBay with links to your website in the listing. This is a great was to  generate traffic because, before purchasing a product many customers will visit  the website to see if they can get it for cheaper or learn more information  about the product. Also if people send you questions about the item through ebay  you can refer them to the website for answers. Once again make sure what you are  selling on eBay holds some value and is not made just for the purpose of  allowing you to create a sales ad.
  
 Other methods for generating traffic  include you tube, and services like myspace or face book. Its easy to drive  traffic with these services simply by creating a video about your product or  service and including a link to your website at the end. Also you can target  specific groups like "males age 18-30" so that you have the greatest chance of  converting with these customers.
  
 Dont Give Up, and Put in Some  Effort
  
 Now that you know some methods for  driving traffic to your website, promoting it in the search engines, and making  the website attractive to your customers, how are you going to make money with  this information? Well you need to put in the necessary time and effort to make  these strategies work. While many of them are simple they may take some time to  get the hang of and patience will be required if you want them all to work. Do  not expect to get 10,000 new visitors over night, and don't be discouraged if  you just get a handful. Every visitor is important, and knowing that key concept  you can tailor your website or blog to inform visitors and make them want to  return.
  
 Find a niche, create interesting  content, utilize multiple outlets of promotion, find something to sell or use  products like click bank to promote other peoples products, utilize ad services  like google ad sense for additional revenue on the side and you will be on your  way to establishing a successful affiliate marketing business.
  
 There is still a lot of information  out there to help you with affiliate marketing and you need to seek it out and  learn everything you can if you truly want to be successful. Check Out  I-N-Vest.com if you want personal assistance with your endeavors, or if you need  some extra cash for your promotional campaigns. Lastly, good luck and don't give  up, half the battle is just staying motivated and not letting all the little  bumps in the road stop you.
  
 About the Author
  
 I am one of the advisors and  employment assistants for I-N-Vest.com We look to provide you with all the free  information we can so that you can get your business on the path to success. We  offer part time online employment so you can raise some extra cash for promotion  or anything else you need it for, and will try to assist you in any way we can.  Email us at in.vest@yahoo.com   
 by J Plappert