When I first got started online, one of the things I became heavily involved in was affiliate marketing. Now it only occupies about 5% of my sales volume, but it was a great training ground for me. I was able to use other people’s sales pages and my traffic and create tracking stats. And since I am a numbers person, that was extremely effective for me.

Another big thing for me was that these affiliate products already have sales pages (boy, my first sales page was a disaster), they have been tested to convert, and you don’t have to do any of the backend work like customer service and deal with PayPal or credit cards. So it was really easy for me to get started with. Now, I didn’t make the money I do now, but again, it was a great training exercise.

One thing I decided to do was to test several different affiliate programs, sending them all traffic, and seeing which ones converted and sold and then paid me. And I am making money with affiliate programs. Case closed. And that is pretty much how I made my decisions.

So how do I do it, step by step?

1) I set up a website that offers a free ebook (which is loaded with affiliate links) and an Ecourse that is mailed everyday. On the web site I put a web form that collects the visitors name and email address and sends it to my autoresponder (step 2). This is one of the most important things – you have to have your own web site and your own email campaign – do not just send traffic to affiliate pages.

2) I set up an autoresponder and wrote a series of letters that teaches people how to make money online–in plain English, and simply, easy-to-follow steps. One of the things I did with this was set it up so that I could track the open rate and the click through rate of my emails – using aweber.com.

3) In the letters I recommend a series of products that will help them learn the skills to become successful online. It is important that people trust you at this point; that way they are prequalified before they get to the affiliate sales page.

4) When my subscribers purchase products from my ebook or my series of Ecourse lessons, I receive a commission. Of course that is the best part!

5) I write articles just like this one, post them on sites just like the one you are reading this from, and watch the traffic come in. This is how I get the bulk of my traffic.

That is about all there is to it. Now, this may seem much simpler than it really is, if you have tried it before. But I also think that sometimes people make things more difficult than they really need to be.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 800 articles in print and 9 published ebooks.

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