The vast virtual repository of information known as the world wide web grows rapidly with over a million pages added every single day. Incidentally, continuing advancements in communication and internet technologies are making the virtual realm even more accessible to more people in more places around the world. It is thus, not surprising that the increase in the number of virtual citizens, translates into an increase in needs that require remedy.

What once was just another source of information, is now a significant part of living. The internet today is a place for education and learning, a place to find entertainment, and an environment rife with business opportunity. The internet's fast-growing popularity has presented many with the opportunity for business; and while entrepreneurs in the real world need to possess certain skills, resources and a good measure of business acumen to ensure success, internet entrepreneurs need not have any prior formal training nor possess vast resources to start an online business. In fact, anyone is a potential businessman online, as an affiliate marketer.

Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing business model between a merchant who is the product owner and an affiliate who is the sales person tasked to sell the product owner's wares. The affiliate gets paid an agreed sum for promoting and referring a buyer to a merchant's products and services. Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular internet revenue sources today because it is proven to be cost-efficient and with a potential for massive profits for both merchant and affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is a partnership between merchant and affiliate. The merchant provides the product, the system and the sales process; while the affiliate brings marketing and promotions into the equation. The merchant does not have to worry about finding customers and can spend more time on operational matters like running the product website and its back-end; and the affiliate does not need to worry about processes like accounting, billing, inventory, and management of a product's website. The more effort an affiliate puts in, the higher the pay-out he can expect to get. The merchant is also likely to make more, by signing up more affiliates to market his product.

Here are four easy steps for a newbie to get started in affiliate marketing.

First is to identify a particular thing or subject matter you believe yourself to be an authority about. It could be something you are interested in or passionate about like a hobby. It could also be something you have technical knowledge about like something related to your profession. The point is for you to select something that you will not easily tire from or get bored over; and might make attending to the business more of a chore than a joy. When you focus on a specific area you know very well, you will be able to bring out your best without much effort. In doing so, you give your visitors the impression that you are truly an expert in the field and you will earn their trust.

Second step is to look for a great product to sell that is related to your interests. In choosing a product, you have to take into consideration a product's conversion rate; this is the percentage of website visitors that turned into buyers. There are other criteria that you can use in selecting a product, and there are affiliate networks that offer tools and data to help you make a decision. However when none of these are available, and when left to make a decision on your own, the easiest way is to simply ask yourself if the product does fulfil an important need, or satisfy a want in the buyer. Since this is a product that falls into a topic or category that your are an expert about or at at least familiar with, you would know if the product has selling potential or not. An affiliate network is like a marketplace where you can select a variety of products to sell. Some affiliate networks provide comprehensive product information, and one of the things in a product that you should pay attention to is its refund rate. It would be wise to determine if the product has a high number of refunds, as it could be a sign that the product is flawed. More importantly you would want to avoid instances where you lose money you thought you had already made.

The third step is to put together your website, which is separate from the website of the merchant or product owner. As an affiliate, you are to promote the product among your site visitors and send them to the merchant's website. Your website is where you welcome visitors that you promote a product to. Some visitors may be slightly interested in what you are offering while others are ready to buy; regardless what state of mind they are in, the primary purpose of your website is to provide your visitor with all the information and pre-selling needed to fully convince them to buy the product. Since most visitors do not usually make a purchase on their first visit, you would need a mailing list sign up form on your website that would allow you to get your visitors' email addresses. You are then able to contact them directly and send them more information, that would be helpful in helping them decide to buy. It may be easy to do while you have just a few people on your list, but when the list grows, this task could be overwhelming. If you have the money for it, try investing in a professional auto responder service and automate email messages to the people on your list.

The fourth step is promotion. This is very important as it is through this step that you are able to drive traffic to your site, and hopefully send that same traffic to the merchant's website where the actual sale takes place. An increase in traffic could also mean an increase in sales and profit. Since you now have a product and website in a niche that you are an expert of, the next thing now is to figure out how to attract traffic to your website. There are many ways to do this and the quickest way is through pay per click advertising on search engines, however this is a paid method and if you want to start out with methods that are free, you can try any or all of the following at the same time. Write articles related to your product or the niche that your product belongs to and submit these to article directories. Another is to leave links to your site on other websites by posting on forums and blogs, or doing link exchanges with other websites. It is important to also continually educate yourself on methods of website promotion and traffic generation.

Contrary to the many claims, testimonials and hyped up advertisements; affiliate marketing will not make you an instant millionaire. You will not be an overnight success, and like any other business, it will take time and will require effort and persistence on your part.

There are no hard and fast rules to finding the right product, building the perfect site, or planning out the perfect traffic strategy. All these have to learned and discovered by you through constant testing and trial and error, until you find the ideal formula that works best and converts the most. Once you have found it, it only makes sense to duplicate the method, duplicate the success; "rinse and repeat" as some may say; and apply this winning formula on other products in your other fields of interest.