When you start your affiliate marketing business, the most important tip I can give you is to work it as a business. First, you need to find yourself some space to work in. If you don't have a spare room, I suggest you put the computer up in a bedroom, where it is away from the noise of the TV and everyday life.

Now you have somewhere to work, set yourself a number of hours to work each week on affiliate marketing, whether this involves working in the evenings, or stopping the work you would be doing on other projects during the day.

Second affiliate marketing tip: set your working hours

How much time? The more the better, but if you are working at a job, I recommend you try to work 10 hours a week at affiliate marketing, and if that seems impossible start with 6 hours a week. That is about the minimum. That would probably include one hour at the weekend.

If you are not ready to spend an hour each weekend on this part-time job, maybe affiliate marketing is not for you. That may seem a bit harsh, but the fact is that once you have your own business you will need to work quite a few hours at it at least in the early days.

If you have more time, either because you have a part-time job, or have lost your job, then try to work 20 hours a week at affiliate marketing.

Set yourself tasks for each week

Next, you need to set yourself some tasks. These are the most important jobs, the ones that will have most effect on pushing your business forward so it is making money. At first, you will probably find that you will not get many jobs done. This is almost always the case.

Next week, carry forward the jobs you did not do, and add new ones. But this time, reduce the total number slightly, and re-assess the importance of each job. By now you may decide that some of the tasks are not so important after all.

You can also set daily tasks, but if you are only working a few hours a day at affiliate marketing, a list of weekly tasks will be more useful.

Choose carefully

My third affiliate marketing tip is to choose the affiliate products you market carefully. By all means sign up for quite a number of products while you are scanning the list of possibles, because you may find a way of marketing them later. However, you should start off marketing only one or two products. Here are my tips for selection:

1.Look for affiliate products in strong markets, preferably where you have some interest or knowledge, but where it is obvious there is a big market. If there is a market, there will be plenty of products out there, and there will be people who have a need or strong desire for that product.

2.Find a niche within that market, preferably a small market, but still where people have a need or desire. For example, dating is a big market, but you would need to find a product suitable for a small niche.

3.Find products that are selling well. On Clickbank, a high gravity tells you a product is selling well, and most affiliate networks have some method of ranking.

The 5th affiliate marketing tip

My final tip of this group is this: keep a journal, where you record what you do. This can consist of short notes, just to remind you what you have done, which programs you have signed up for, and so on. Of course, you need to record all your affiliate codes and programs, and the best place for this is a spreadsheet.

If you follow these affiliate marketing tips, you will soon get your business working for you, and will start making some money.