by Carl Nell

If you are looking for an easy way to start an internet business, I would like to share with you the 7 easy steps I follow on a daily basis. Obviously you need to have a specific plan of action like any other business. This is where most newbies get it wrong. You hear a lot about people making it big in internet marketing and it all sounds so nice and easy, but infect it does take time and dedication. The good news is, that it's relatively easy to start an internet business with little or no money at all.

The 7 easy steps I follow every day, I have found very effective and are making me sales every day. Just follow these steps and you will be amazed by the results. These methods are all free methods and are quite easy to follow if you are willing to try it out.

Here are my 7 steps to start an Internet Business

Step One

Register at clickbank.com as an affiliate to start promoting thousands of products of your choice. Clickbank will be a good starting point for new affiliates. They pay every 14 days and are highly recommended by most super affiliates.

Step Two

Get your affiliate link for that clickbank product or if you don't like the long affiliate link you can register your own domain name for the product at GoDaddy.com which will cost you $10 a year.

Step Three

Choose 5 to 10 long tail keywords with a monthly search volume of less than 10 000 searches. These keywords will be the ones you will use to build your squidoo lenses to promote the product to people that search under those keywords for your product. For this you can use the Google Keyword Tool or you can use SEO Book to do your keyword research. These tools are all free and work very well.

Step Four

Build a squidoo lens at Squidoo.com around those lontail keywords. For every keyword phrase build a squioo lens. This will tell the reader about the product with your affiliate links in. When readers click on the links it will take them to the sales page of the product. This is all you want them to do. From there the sales page should do the rest if it is a good sales page and a good product.

Step Five

Make sure if your squidoo lens gets ranked by google for those keywords you have chosen. Also make sure that you get ranked on the first page, otherwise nobody will click on it and no one will read your squidoo lens.

Step Six

When you get ranked by google on the first page, write an article for each squidoo lens and submit it to Ezine Articles. Remember to use the same keyword phrase in your article heading and in the beginning of your article. (The long tail keywords you chose at the beginning when you did your keyword research)

Step Seven

Monitor how many visits your squidoo lenses and articles are getting. If you have got visitors to your lenses and readers are clicking your Url links in your articles you can expect sales. Go to your clickbank account and see if you have made any sales.

Unfortunately I cannot explain every step in detail here, because then this article will have to be 50 pages long. If you are looking for more details of how this works step-by-step, you can download the first 18 pages for free.

by Michael Laleye

If you own a website and interested in getting involved in affiliate marketing, you will have several options from which to choose. The best affiliate marketing program may not be the one that provides a very commission on sales, but may be the one that provides the best opportunity to make more sales. For instance, some of a very popular and highest commission sites tend to be those that offer gambling and adult entertainment. These sites may not fit into the focus of your sites or your visitors.

The best affiliate marketing program will be the one that fits into your site and offers a regular opportunity to turn your visitors into sales for the company and improved profits for you. You can develop affiliate options based on the main focus of your site and that appeal to your site's visitors. If your site promoted sports, affiliating with sport related companies, may be your best affiliate programs.

Where to Look

Affiliate networks are the middle man between affiliates and web sites with affiliate programs. Look for affiliate networks that provide all the tools needed to set up and maintain an affiliate program. AssociatePrograms.com is a popular directory with information about merchants that pay you to sell their wares.

Commission Junction is a free network that offers access to thousands of the best affiliate programs. Commission Junction combines all your affiliate earnings (product sales, on-line ads, links) into one monthly check.

What to Look for

The best affiliate programs will be those that target your customer base. An on-line florist would certainly get little traffic from a pet supply website. You want an affiliate whose business is similar or comparable to your product. Avoid affiliates with low quality products. Ask to speak to existing affiliates to find out if a company is reputable.

Referral traffic may link to the merchant site and not buy initially but return to make a purchase weeks later. Look for affiliate programs that remember your site was the reason for that customer. The best affiliate programs remember you for 60 days by using cookies to tag the customer's computer when he visits the merchant site.

The best affiliate programs offer reliable support such as ads, logos, and sales advice. Good programs also provide timely updates on click through sales and earnings, and, respond to questions or problems within 24 hours.

Also, a profitable home business needs time to grow. You should never think that you are going to take off within a couple days of opening up shop. It is going to take you a bit of time to get your bearings and take off. For this reason, patience is important to the success of your home business. With patience you'll be able to wait out the rough times that are bound to show up time and time again. No home business starts making big time money in the first day. But if you take your time you will get to where you want to be.