First I would like to start off by saying that this will be a series of 10 articles on the subject of Affiliate Marketing. This is #1 of 10 articles in a mini series guide to affiliate marketing.

As you should know already affiliate marketing is by far one of the best ways to earn money online. There are literally hundreds of people that have quit their day jobs because of all the money that they are earning as an affiliate marketer. As easy as it is to earn a great deal of money online from affiliate marketing,it is just as hard to earn a living and be successful affiliate marketer. Not to scare you away affiliate marketing is a easy field to get into but it is a very completive field and it takes a lot of hard work to be successful at it. It is a easy field to get into,all you have to do is find a Affiliate Network or a Contextual Network and join. It doesn't cost anything to get into the affiliate marketing field so in essence it's the perfect start up business if you want to start working from home and be successful at it.

First thing that you need to figure out is what kind of affiliate are you or want to be? Are you a Contextual Affiliate Marketer or a Traditional Affiliate Marketer that publish advertiser links and banners on his or her site to earn a commission from the advertiser when sale is drawn from the link that was on your site. Lets talk about a marketer that uses Affiliate Networks. There are a lot of different affiliate networks out there, examples include Commission Junction and Link share. To find a Affiliate Network all you have to do is do a quick search on your favorite search engine for Affiliate Networks and you will find various affiliate networks that you can choose from. Before you choose a affiliate networks here are some of the questions you might want to ask. Who are they and how long have they been around? When and how do you get paid? Is it monthly, weekly. Etc. What is required for you to join? Is it a simple sign up or do you have to get your account approved before you are accepted as a publisher into their affiliate program. What are affiliates saying about this network you want to join? Check the forums and do your due diligence before you join any network and make sure that the network you join is creditable among industry affiliates and advertisers. What type of advertisers are in the network that you want to join? You don't want to join a network that doesn't have quality advertiser that won't convert into money for you when you start promoting them or worst of all advertisers that Doesn't Pay. By quality I mean big name companies like Ebay, yahoo and others. The Network you joins need to provide a good mixture of both big brands and small brands. There are a lot more questions you need to ask before joining a network, but the ones listed above are the most important ones to ask at first. All the big companies online have some sort of affiliate program available to marketers. Some companies pays out millions of dollars in commission to affiliate each year. Some companies use Affiliate Networks like CJ.com and some have In House Affiliate Programs (i.e amazon.com) available that you can join right from their website.

Another way of making money in the affiliate marketing industry that we marketers use is called Contextual Advertising. Contextual Advertising is simple to get into and started plus it doesn't cost you a dime. The top two Contextual Networks are Google Adsense and Yahoo Publishing Network. If you have a website and you want to monetize that site than all you have to do is sign up with one of those contextual networks, get the simple script that they provide and place it on your website and then when some one clicks on the ads that show up on your site your are paid on a pay per click basis. Contextual advertising is simply the simplest way to make money online. If you have a website that receives a lot of visitors then this form of advertising can really be beneficial to you and your wallet.

Now that you understand the two most popular ways to make money online as an Affiliate Marketer than make sure to read the next articles in this series as we begin to analyze in great details in a step by step manner on how to make money in the field that you choose.

If you want to know when these articles are up make sure to visit my Site and Blog at The Official Website and Blog of Stanley Amazan. Affiliate and Online Marketing related information and products.

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The Official Website and Blog of Stanley Amazan. Affiliate and Online Marketing related information and products.