Who said you can retire rich by doing this stuff?

A blog post from the guys at iBlogMoney.com

This post is sponsored by Wholesale Laptop Deals — Making money through affiliate marketing can be fairly easy when employed with the proper tools and knowledge. I would say that it begins with picking the right niche market, with little to no saturation is the best way to go today, especially if you are young and eager to make a killing as an affiliate, there is a lot of money to be made. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that affiliate marketers don’t work to make money online or have to work a single day in their lives in terms of a regular job. I’m just saying that if you are expecting to sit on your wazoo and make cash online while watching the ladies in their swimming suits bake it up on the side of the pool, or gents, then you better formulate a plan to make it happen because it just doesn’t happen over night. Do you hate going to work every day? The hours you spend every week at the work place…. I guarantee, if you decide to work from home will increase significantly, in fact, your computer will become your buddy, your companion, your best friend and even your lover (depending on how much money it helps you bring in). So if this is the life that you want then go for it if not then stop reading here and start reading here…

Everyone tries to sell this pipe dream of freedom, the freedom to work in a relaxing environment or from home. Don’t fall for that, especially if they are selling something, because one, by buying their product you are funding their ‘Beach Bum’ lifestyle and two, their product probably 99.5% of time will not make you rich (or you just won’t do what you have to do to succeed with it). The “office” could be your home desk, the kitchen table or, why not?, a table by the pool. Actually, let’s be real, everyday may be “casual Friday” and although the computer appears to be your new found glory the life probably is not what you expect. Working as an affiliate marketer is sort of like a commission only sales position where the money is not guaranteed. The more effort you’re willing to put in building a maintaining your website, the more money you will pull in monthly, maybe even daily. So, basically the possibilities can be limitless depending on you and the amount of time you put in.

Some people think that affiliate marketing is too much work and that putting some Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher ads on a page or three and hope that the traffic will be generated with a few clicks, yes, this is easier than building a site around your niche. It might be so, but how much money can you get out of Yahoo Publisher and AdSense? Two or three dollars a day? Not even, unless you picked a great niche and even then without the traffic the most you will generate on a daily basis is probably a few cents. Come on, that’s loose change and a waste of time. Affiliate marketing may be a bit harder than most think, but this is where people actually spend money. If you play with the big affiliate marketers, you could make as much as $175 from every sale, even daily. That’s the equivalent of 58.3 days of AdSense at $3 per day you can make in one day, maybe even more.

What many people don’t realize is that the global economy is going through a huge spending period. In todays economy, it is far easier to recruit affiliates then it is to sell affiliate programs, well in most cases. Across the states, people are looking for ways to make a quick buck and would pay good money for all kinds of products and the Internet has made it easier than ever to spend money for just about anything from ’special services’ to wholesale pudding, who knows. eCommerce has made it possible for people to buy things they had never had access to before from groceries to movies, video games to magic diet pills. Most of you should already know how eCommerce works, you place an order via Paypal or online and orders are shipped throughout the world. This is another way to produce some cash flow but then again you have companies that promise you the world but cannot deliver, be aware of dropship programs that require a large upfront fee, check references, stats, product lists, ect. basically do your due diligence before putting your cash up. There are ways to make money with eCommerce with little to no upfront cost.

It’s like a river of money moving across the planet and you can become one of those who help connect the buyers with vendors and cash in commission while never leaving their armchairs. This is very much possible, there is a gap between offer and demand, and the supply must be met, so why not you? There once was a time when there were people with tremendous amounts of time and money on their hands, in today’s time this can probably still be said but on a different level, there are those with a lot of time but a little less money on hand. The key is to find products that are underrepresented, highly demanded and pay high commissions (with room for a great markup). Don’t get me wrong there is room to make good money with affiliate marketing, and with the offers out there if you know how to generate traffic then you can cleanup… Ever hear of ‘Free Gas’ offers? Well, with gas costing $4.19 per gallon, $250 - $500 worth of free gas could not hurt when targeted at the right audience. Especially, if you receive $1.25 - $1.50 per sign up, generate 1,500 clicks a day and only 100 sign up a day, you’ve just made $125/ a day. I hear people complaining because they want to make at least $1.00 a day with Adsense, small chips… If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t consider affiliate marketing.

I can tell you that things are about to change for you because help is on the way, but lets face it. I can load you up with all the tools that you need, software, templates, ads, high paying programs, content and most of you will still not apply it and build on it to make the amount of money that is out there. I’ll tell you the secret of the affiliate marketers that create products, same goes for the ’so-called’ gurus of real estate investing, and so on… You make and build their career, the $1,000 of dollars that you pay to attend their seminars and boot camps so they can upsell another product or service pays their bills, and the secrets that they give you, their secrets that you pay for they don’t care because they bank on you not applying them. Anyone selling seminar audio and or content?

Not to leave you on a bitter note, but affiliate marketing takes time, dedication, work and discipline. Here is your break down to kick off making money online:

Free Cash Flow Method:

1. Research and pick a niche market to cater to

2. Sign up for a free blog platform such as blogger

2. Either make your template or find a freelancer just getting started at designing blogger templates and offer them advertising for the life of the blog to design your template as long as you keep their template.

3. Join three affiliate networks or programs that fit your niche directly, and indirectly (upsell or that compliments your niche). A few recommended networks and programs that ‘Actually Pay‘: NeverBlue Ads, MoreNiche, Commission Junction, eBay Affiliate Networks, ClickBank, Amazon

4. Find ads and offers that suit your niche and place ads, links on your site and build your content around the products within your niche. (Don’t be quick to sell the products, but quality and informative content pays off big.)

5. Seek traffic, organic traffic, link exchanges, buying ad space, submitting articles to blogs and non-unique content articles to directories. Recommended resources: The Beef Jerky blog is seeking guest bloggers, Advertise at iBlog Money, Micah 7 offers traffic building services for cheap… and so on and so on…

That’s about it… It will take time if you pick an over saturated niche, but there are programs that will assist you with selecting a proper niche, take advantage of the ‘Free Trials‘…

Free Trial Programs:

Keyword Elite (Free Trial)
EasySEO (Free Trial)
SEO Elite (Free Trial)
Keyword Tracker (Free Trial)
Keyword Spy (Free Trial)

If you want to make money in 24hrs, I found this lens with some pretty good info: Bans Money

For More Information on Affiliate Marketing, tips and effective tools visit iBlogMoney.com