Of course the question is what are these super affiliates doing that the other 95% of affiliates seem to be missing. Clearly they have an edge and a level of understanding that most affiliates are lacking. Let us look at some important things that all super affiliates seem to have in common.

- Choosing the right niche

Selecting the right niche to market your affiliate product is an important step. This is particularly important if you are new to internet marketing and have limited resources such as time and money.

Certain niches can be super competitive in terms of advertiser competition and thus the cost of driving traffic to your sites can be very high. Some examples may be the insurance and credit card niches. While these kinds of niches can be highly lucrative, the beginner may do well to stay clear until they reach a slightly more advanced level.

Many super affiliates operate in ultra competitive niches however most of them probably started out selecting low competition niches initially so that the profits are easier and the risk is lower.

How can you find a low competition niche? Well, it is simple, all you need to do is find a niche that gets lots of searches by buyers, but there is little advertiser competition. This is something you will have to research and one of the best ways to do this is to look at the kinds of affiliate programs offered at a place like Commission Junction and then use a keyword tool like the Overture keyword tool or the Google keyword tool to check for searches in the niches.

Then you need to check for advertiser competition. A good way to check this is by using the Google keyword tool inside your Google adwords account, this will give a rough idea of whether or not you will be able to get clicks at a fairly cheap rate. Of course you can also type the keyword directly into the search engines and look at how many advertisers there are.

Another great way to limit competition is by promoting only in countries outside of the United States. The U.S. market is the most competitive market, so you may be wise to limit yourself to other rich countries like Canada, U.K. and Australia.

- Tracking your results

It is critical that you track your results especially if you are using pay per click advertising. In Google adwords you can take advantage of the conversion tracking feature in order to know which keywords are performing best.

- Stay away from the hard sale tactic

Remember that most people are online to seek information and are not really in 'buying' mode. The only time I would suggest directing someone to a product pitch page is if you are targeting keywords that have the product name in it. These kinds of keywords are much more likely to buy as they have already done their research on that product.

However, how many times do you see affiliates directing general information seeking traffic to a sales page? Too many. Just do a search for 'make money' on Google and look at how many ads there are that will send you directly to a sales page.

It is important to realize that most people are searching for information so if you target general keywords then you need to give them that information, the best way is through an auto responder e-mail newsletter. This way you get to build trust with your visitors so that if at any point in the future you recommend a product they are much more likely to respond.

Look, affiliate marketing does not have to be hard, in fact it is simple common sense. Try to understand what makes people buy, most buy based on trust either in a brand name or in the trust they have in a friend that recommended a product. If you do not have a brand name product then you must break the trust barrier and become a friend in your visitors eyes first before attempting any selling. Do this and watch your profits skyrocket.