So where on earth do you start?

Rule number one - start with what's familiar. If you have an email list, that's the perfect place to start, providing you have found an affiliate scheme that would appeal to your readers.

The trick to getting people to buy the product is not to sell to them too hard. People are getting deluged with emails left, right and center all day every day, so for yours to get through and actually get read you need to make it worth reading.

Having a newsletter to put your affiliate products in is possibly the best way to do this. You need to focus on the benefits of the product you are promoting - that's the second rule of internet marketing. Remember the old tagline about the fact that Kodak doesn't sell film, it sells memories? That's the kind of thing we're talking about here.

If the product is a book, for example, don't tell your readers how wonderful it is and how packed it is with information. Tell them what that information will do for them. So instead of saying something like 'this book reveals how to earn $10,000 a month', change it to 'how would $10,000 a month change your life?'. Always put the onus on the potential customer.

So you need to turn each product feature into a benefit for your readers. Once you get your head around this technique you'll sell a lot more products from your recommendations. The same thing can be done via your website. Write a general article on a related subject and provide a link to your affiliate product within the text.

If you've bought or tried the product yourself, you can give a personal insight into what it did for you, and how it changed your life. This can be extremely powerful if you can give real evidence that what you are saying is true. This can work well in a blog, if you have one, as blogs tend to be a little more informal than articles, and you can be a bit more relaxed and conversational about your experiences.

Whenever you try a new recommendation of a new affiliate product, don't be afraid to test your results and tweak your promoting methods as you learn what works and what doesn't. This alone can increase your sales immensely.