The Reality of Affiliate Marketing

Are you in the process of trying to decide if a career in affiliate marketing is for you? Perhaps you believe that this is a way to become rich quickly. So you have researched it and now you are overwhelmed by the whole thing. It is slowly beginning to dawn on you that:

Affiliate Marketing Is Hard Work

Hard work, or a lot of work? It can be both. First of all, there is a lot to learn. There are terms with which to become familiar, such: as SEO, PPC, Web2.0, article marketing, etc. Then, there are things such as websites, blogs and hosting that you need to understand.

Once you understand it, you need to apply it. That means you must get to work. You must work tirelessly.

You need to put in the hours just like you would on any job. And then some more. Like any profession, you can make a living at it, but you have to pay your dues.

Once you find out that you can, in fact, somewhat learn affiliate marketing, it becomes a matter of starting.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing

Essentially, affiliate marketing is about creating web presence. If you have not done anything on the web before, start by writing and publishing an article for EzineArticles.com.

You can learn about blogging by starting with a free blogging site such as Blogger.com, or WordPress.com. Write and learn.

Sign up for an AdSense account and set it up on your free blogs. Sign up for Amazon.com and get an affiliate id to use in your blog postings.

You can use other Web 2.0 properties such as Squidoo.com and HubPages.com to gain web presence and experience..

Just get your feet wet with any or all of these. But do not expect instant riches. You have just begun. All the while you are getting your feet wet, continue to learn.

Once you feel that you are getting the hang of things, you need a plan.

Next Step: Create an Affiliate Marketing Plan

Sooner or later, you start noticing that you are not making any money. That is because there is more to internet marketing than throwing up a web site or writing an article or two. That is just the start.

Now you have to put it together. You have to decide on what products you want to promote, and what method you will use to promote them. That is only the beginning of a plan: a product to promote and a marketing strategy. You then have to create a daily plan to execute your affiliate marketing strategy.

Finding Help for Affiliate Marketing

Even though you "get it" and are willing to put in the work, you still may need some help here and there. There are many communities of affiliate marketers that can be found out on the internet. Many of them are in private forums.

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Stop Dreaming About Affiliate Marketing and Start Doing

You need to stop learning about affiliate marketing. You need to finally stop learning so that you can start doing. Here are a few things you can stop so that you can start.

1. Stop chasing the next learning opportunity

There is always something more to learn. There is always someone who is offering you a product to teach you the next "proven" way to make money online.

The problem is that everything you read, and everything you buy never seems to quite give you the information you need. Maybe it does, but it just seems to do hard.

It is easy to get seduced by the next e-book as "the answer". Surely there is an easy way to learn affiliate marketing. You just need to find it.

At some point the learning needs to stop and you must begin.

Stop learning and start doing.

2. Stop assuming that you do not need to know anything technical

Making money on-line means that you use the internet to advertise or offer products or services.

Affiliate marketing requires you understand creating web sites and to be knowledgeable with things like HTML, URL, SEO, etc.

There is a lot to learn about creating web site, but you not need to be an expert in everything technical. You only need to know how to do it.

Stop denying and start building websites.

3. Stop going in circles

There is a lot of pieces to internet marketing. Learning affiliate marketing is only one of them. Building websites is another. And there is still more.

But at some point, enough becomes enough and you start to put your knowledge into action. You need to start somewhere and action is necessary. Action without a plan is random motion. You think you are moving forward when in fact you are going in circles.

You need a goal and a plan. A goal is where you want to be. A plan is the action steps to require to move toward your goals.

Stop dreaming and start planning.

4. Stop planning

Affiliate marketing is a business. A business requires a plan. Planning is not an end in itself. It is the beginning.

In order to be successful with affiliate marketing you need to work a plan.

That is, make daily goals and execute them. Successful internet marketers work a plan. Daily.

Stop planning and start doing.

5. Stop surfing

It is easy to get seduced believing sitting in front of the computer is actually working. Surfing the web, viewing statistics, visiting forums, responding to e-mail, FaceBook and instant messaging are not actually doing anything for you.

You cannot make money online sitting at your computer. You need to produce product for the web.

Stop pretending and start taking action.

6. Stop going it alone

It is hard to do things on your own. It can be lonely. It is nice to have colleagues who are doing the same thing as you. To find out about, and visit some good on-line communities.

Stop feeling alone and start getting help.

Click this to join the community at Wealth Affiliate University

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