Ok, so no product costs, no shipping costs, no payment processor costs, and so on. So what is so hard about being a successful affiliate.

Glad you asked! Your first step should be to make a marketing plan, or as I call it, a 'decision plan'. How many of us really make a complete marketing plan. (Not me!) I know we sh ould, but mine never completed. This is where you decide what niche, or specialtiy you want to 'major' in.

Why don't I just be in 'affiliate marketing'? you ask. Wow, talk about shooting yourself in foot before you get off ground. It's TOO competitive, don't you know! Also too general, maybe too vague, all over map so to speak.

So how come it's good enough for Best Affiliate Products but too much for you? Firstly, I must mention that I do have other niche markets, and some in both planning and preparation stages. I do heed my own advise. Secondly, someone has to protect you and lead you down best path to success. I don't want you to experience all pain I went through.

This is why it's important to associate Affiliate Marketing with Niche Markets. By focusing on one topic, you magnify your chance of success many times over. Doesn't matter if niche is small or large, but you must align your thinking in this direction.

The niche can be huge, such as Auctions or EBay, and you will find a good market there. The EBay sales may be huge, but competion for affiliate products is not excessive at all.

Take another huge Niche (specialty) such as Health. Now this competition is ferocious. Personally, I would not touch it, even though a lot of people do well with it. Why fight an uphill battle just to get started, when you can surely find ot her prospective niches.

The solution is to find smaller niches of "in demand" products. Here we go again, you say. More speeches on what to do, but HOW do we do this? And how do we do this successfully, when everyone else is also looking for answer.

R.M. Blackledge TheWorkAtHomeBlog.com © Copyright 2005

The internet is known as "the global information superhighway" for a good reason. As this year's unfortunate Tsunami in South Asia demonstrated, information can zip around world in seconds, because internet makes that possible. In first few hours after disaster ordinary citizens had available first person accounts and video on their desktop almost as comprehensive as what was shown on CNN and Fox News channel.

The internet is as advantageous for global marketing as it is for news business. But how many of us realize that depending on products we have on sale, our most reliable customers may live thousands of miles away, and yet be extremely vital to our corporate bottom line.

That fact can be both a blessing and a curse.

Let's see.... If customer has a complaint about a purchase they've made, well they're much too far away to do anything about it except send off a few tersely-worded emails. But, all kidding aside is it very comfortable to have your most reliable spenders on far side of globe?

Afterall, if they're so far away, then these individuals are indeed strangers.

This is point of our article. An anonymous website may earn you money, but a website that has your picture and name up near top can help establish strong customer loyalty, and gives consumer confidence that they are dealing with a real live business with responsible people on other end of keyboard, and not just some robotic web page that is eager to gobble up their credit card information.

In such a circumstance, miles between website owner and customer is meaningless.

You may not have realized it yet, but your name and your face can be an extremely valuable asset even if you don't have much personal involvement with product you have for sale, beyond fact that you've given product your tacit endorsement by placing it on your site. And if you've produced a product on your own, such as an e-book or software, then your name personalizes product.

Afterall, wouldn't most people prefer to purchase "John Smith's Valuable Internet Marketing Essays," rather than just an e-book entitled "Valuable Internet Marketing Essays."