Before you get started on your new affiliate marketing career, use this affiliate marketing how to. Consider this your affiliate marketing 101 course. Obviously, I can’t possibly cover every aspect of this exciting career, but I can give you enough of the basics so that you have a solid foundation on which to build.

The first thing you need to remember is that you are building a business. Like any business it will take some time, commitment, and knowledge in order to grow and be successful. Don’t ever let someone convince you that you can be successful without working at it or that you can start making a six figure income in just a few months. You can make a six figure income but it will take some time to grow your business to that point, especially if you’ve never done this before.

Here is the guide of the basic steps you will need to follow to get started:

1. Sign up to become an affiliate. This is free to do and there are many places you can sign up. Most companies have an affiliate program. You can choose to promote physical items that need to be shipped or you may prefer to promote digital products that can be downloaded instantly. Just decide what types of products or services you’d like to promote and do a search for companies that offer affiliate programs for those products.

2. Decide how you want to drive traffic to your website. This is the only way you’ll ever make any money, you will need an ongoing stream of qualified visitors to your website. It will take a little time to get that traffic. Exactly how long will depend largely on the traffic generating methods you choose.

For example, if you choose the free methods such as article marketing ( a method where you write an article about your product or service that offers useful information. You then submit that article to an article directory which will publish your article for free. When someone does an online search using the keywords you’ve used in your article, they will be directed to your article. Once they’ve read your article they can click on the link at the bottom and be taken to your website) it will take a little longer but it is free and once you’ve got the traffic it will take very little additional effort to keep it.

If you choose to use Pay Per Click or PPC for your traffic you will usually get more traffic more quickly, but only if you know how to do it. PPC actually has a pretty steep learning curve and since you are paying to place an ad you are paying the whole time you are learning. It can get a little costly.

3. Build a list. The sad fact of the matter is that up to 98% of the visitors to your website won’t make a purchase, and they won’t ever be back. If you can capture their contact information on that first visit, you can keep in touch with them and hopefully at some point convert them into a paying customer.

To build your list you need to entice them to opt-in to your email list. This simply means that they sign up and agree to receive emails from you. That way you don’t have to worry about spam complaints. This method can be totally automated by using an autoresponder service. With the service you can simply pre-load a series of email messages that will go out one after the other over whatever time period you choose. This way you can have multiple contacts with your visitors and build trust and rapport with them.

The first thing you really have to remember, and I can’t stress this enough, is that even though affiliate marketing is not a difficult online business that doesn’t mean that you won’t need to learn some new skills…you will. It also doesn’t mean that you won’t have to invest any time in your business. One of the most common mistakes people make is that they don’t treat their business as a business. Instead they do a little work here and a little work there and then they wonder why they’re not rich after a month or two. Don’t fall into that trap. Work your business like a business with intensity and consistency and you can be very rich.

Don’t waste another day. Use this guide today and start your own business to maximize your profits with affiliate marketing.