There are many ways to make money online, you can create your own products, sell your consulting services, create content and sell advertising AND sell other people’s products – also known as an affiliate marketing business.

In my own online businesses I like to combine methods and earn substantial returns using all of these methods. 

No doubt though that affiliate advertising is a great way to start out online, get a feel for how things work and can also be a terrific way to enhance your profits online with an ongoing supply of affiliate sales. 

So, if you are ready to try your hand at affiliate marketing, step 1 is picking a market and product to sell.

Here’s a formula you will find handy that I use to pick highly successful affiliate products to sell in 3 different niche markets:

Product Already Selling Well + Market With Content + Your Own Interest

Product Already Selling Well:  I’ve always done best with programs that are in the top 5 in their category – most affiliate listings will help you figure this out like Clickbank, Commission Junction, Linkshare, etc… These products sell well for a reason – there is demand and they convert. 

Market With Content:  To draw visitors to your affiliate sites you need content, and lots of it.  Are there articles, YouTube videos, PLR’s, news stories, etc… that make it easy for you to ramp up content generation quickly?  This will be the key to driving traffic to your hot selling product

Your Own Interest:  This helps a great deal as you are more likely to stick with content generation, seek out traffic sources and gain the interest and attention of your audience if you have an interest, passion or experience with your market. 

One final tip for building your own affiliate marketing business is to differentiate your content by adding the practical use of the product such as reviews, case studies, video demonstrations or audio testimonials and stories to help demonstrate value that will have your audience buying from you rather than other affiliates. 

Lastly – don’t rely on affiliate sales alone, seek to build a list and discover opportunties to improve existing products and create your own personal product line that will allow you to offer your own affiliate program where an army of affiliates promote your product 24-hours a day, 7-days each week.