The first question you have to address is demographics, especially if you have a website that does not attract an easy to define visitors base. But, even if your visitors can be pretty well defined, there are important demographic questions to be asked and answered. Are your visitors men or women? How old are most of them? Do they have significant disposable income? Do they often make purchases online? What are their interests? What are their needs? Their buying habits?

It is imperative to know why people come to your website. What, exactly, do they think is in it for them? Is it entertainment, sports news, information or practical advice they can use in their day-to-day lives, or something else?

By finding out as much as you can about your visitors, you'll be able to more quickly and accurately learn what kinds of products and services they will find most compelling. Generating lots of traffic to your site is, as we've said, very important. But, for your website to be more than a hobby, you must provide your visitors with appropriate services and/or products. Luckily, and this is great news, you don't have to pick the right products/services the first, second, or even the third time. Just keep learning, keep thinking, and (most of all) keep trying until you're right.

Be sure to consider lead generation programs as well as programs which pay you on a per sale basis. Depending on the content of your site and the demographics of your visitors, they may be more interested in receiving car insurance quotes, for instance, than in buying auto accessories. Some programs pay you very well just to help them identify prospects for whatever it is they sell.

In fact, some webmasters earn significant income giving away coupons for a wide variety of products because to obtain those products, consumers must put themselves on a mailing list.

Obviously, you want to consider programs which pay high commissions, but your own sales and/or sales leads do not have to be your only source of revenue. Try to find programs which will pay you for attracting other affiliates, particularly two and three tier programs. One program to which I belong pays me 10% of the earnings of everyone I sign up.

Choose your affiliate program(s) with care. I suggest you confine yourself to those that:

1. provide you with accurate tracking information. You need to know about what is working well for you, and what is not.

2. offer you proven advertising to add to your website.

3. offer you a quick and complete response when you have a question or a problem.

4. offer a valuable, reasonably priced product or service which your website visitors are likely to want.

Offer your visitors a special piece of information, a widget, a newletter or a report using a sign up process in which you'll receive their email addresses and permission to contact them again. That way you can invite them to return to your website whenever you update it and you can offer them products or services via email. But, don't email them too often or they'll soon tire of hearing from you.

Finally, follow the great advice I once got from an extremely successful businessperson. Track and analyze everything that moves.