Now, let's begin: Affiliate marketing is something that many online marketers already know how to do. They know how it works, and what it takes to be successful. However, if you’re new to it, you may be wondering what it is, how to get started and how you can use it to generate a sustainable income. The good news is that it’s really not that complicated, and it’s relatively easy to get started.



A basic definition of affiliate marketing is when you sell or get leads for someone else’s products or service. You are going to find that there are many people who already do this. When a company needs some help making sales, and they allow people to sign up as affiliates, they are willing to pay a commission or a flat rate per lead or sale. Depending on the company, this percentage or flat rate will vary. As an affiliate you are looking for companies that have high payouts and long-term tracking.



Affiliate marketing can be used to make sustainable income in a number of ways. You can do your promotions via a website, blog, newsletter, social media email, PPC ads etc. The list is long.



However, the most popular form of long-term affiliate promotion is done with a website. When you choose the market that you want to promote, be sure that you choose one that you are somewhat familiar with. This will make it easier for you to become an expert on the topic which is key when it comes to content creation and promotion.



There are a few ways that you can guide people to your affiliate links and one of those is by purchasing your own domain. This way you can cloak your affiliate links (redirect) and build your own brand at the same time. You’ll want to choose a domain that is related to that niche you are targeting. For example, if you are marketing coffee related products, you don't want to send people to a URL that has woodworking stuff in it.



After you have a good domain you will need a reliable hosting for your website. Make sure that is a dependable hosting for the best results. A hosting company that has more up time than down time is best because during the down time, your website will not be accessible. So, get some recommendations from others that have tried a few and use the best that you can find. It makes sense to pay for a good hosting, don't underestimate the importance of it.



Once that is done, you are ready to get your affiliate links and website set up so that you can start marketing. Determine the amount of money that you want to make, and set up an outline of how you are going to make it. There are so many ways that you can get a website out there to be seen, and you will want to make the best decisions. Don't put much money into "unknown waters" or some type of paid advertising you don't really know about. Learn how to drive traffic first and then put it into practice. Better idea to practice one traffic method at a time.



For example, learning SEO (which is also known as search engine optimization) is a great idea. Using SEO to get your site higher in the search engine rankings with keywords will pay off in the end. You can learn it yourself, or you can pay someone to do this part for you. It is up to you. However, you should know that learning and using SEO yourself is time consuming. Hiring an SEO guru perhaps might be better option for you.



Write articles about the market that you are promoting from your website and submit them to all of the article directories. When you include a back link to the site that you are optimizing that will help you as well with the search engines.



Affiliate marketing is not anything that you can make money with overnight. You need to be able to build up and keep adding to your website daily or weekly, and keep it going. You can do it, just don’t give up.



Make sure you look for your next issue soon. We will be talking about the benefits of affiliate marketing.