So here we go...

First of all, you must decide what type of affiliate Internet marketer you want to be. There are many different ways to make money within a range of techniques known as Affiliate Marketing. Do you want to be a "Pay per clicker" (PPC)? Or maybe you want to be a content King. There are also Blogger, Pay Per Action (PPA), "Couponers", Comparison Searchers or even scummy Cookie stuffers... We will go into all of these in other sections.

Focus, Focus, Focus
I used to recommend that you start your career in affiliate Internet marketing as a PPC (Pay per clicker) but over time my feeling on the subject have changed dramatically. You can have a program setup and running in only a few minutes but you will probably be wasting your time and money. Most PPC Newbies tend to inflate the cost of clicks and generally spoil it for everyone. Now I recommend that before you do anything you should expect to spend the next few days or weeks just reading. Do not spend a dime on anything. Forget the eBooks about Affiliate Marketing, forget paying for domain names and webhosts. Just get informed and you will save money, time and wasted effort!

Niche is EVERYTHING
Pick a narrow niche with as little competition as possible. (No one would consider starting a Viagra or Cialis campaign now because there is too much competition) Pick a niche on a topic that you are interested in because you will spend many hours working on this topic.

Keywords
Once you have researched and found the perfect niche it is time to figure out your keywords that you want to rank well for in the search engines. This applies to both natural search and pay per click campaigns. Keep in mind that longtail search queries are easier to rank well for. That is, you should look for a mulit word search phrase instead of one or two words. For example "Nike ShockWave Extreme Sneaker" is easier to rank in the top 10 on a search engine than the term "Nike Sneaker".

Use Your Keywords
Your keywords should be present through out your website. Put them in the pages title text, meta keywords, meta description, image alt text tags, H1 and H2 tags and especially in the text on your pages.

Web hosting
Now you have to start spending some money... Take some time and invest in a good, reliable web hosting company that has good service and rare service disruptions. My recommendation would be WebHost4Life.com. They are great. I have been with them for years. I host half a dozen sites with them. They have a sweet $4.95 dollars a month deal that includes oodles of disk space and unlimited bandwidth. I do not recommend that you use a free host like Tripod.com or FreeWeb.com. They add all sorts of unwanted noise to your page like pop-ups and their Google ads. Free host also rate very low in the search engines so beware - is it really free? I have used enough hosts to know when I have a "keeper".

One way around spending money would to setup a free blog on WordPress or Blogger.com. Blogs enjoy superior treatment from the search engines and they are fast and easy to setup.

Get a domain name

Do not go crazy signing up for every "cool" program you can find!

Next you will need a domain name (like www.yourname.com). These run between $10 and $20 per year. I buy mine from two companies - ZID.com and SilentRegister.com. They both have great service. SilentRegister.com has an added benefit as they cloak your personal info. Yes, anyone can view your personal details when you purchase a domain name - just check out www.internic.org/whois.html. Make sure that your keywords are included in your domain name! Search engine robots love keyword loaded domain names. Example: if you sell widgets you could try to buy the name www.Widgets.com. A catchy domain name is a must for content sites as it can add credibility. Many Merchants and Merchant Networks will not have anything to do with sites hosted on free hosts. Unfortunately, many great names are parked by domain name resellers so you may have to get clever in choosing your domain name. One more thing - it is important that you pick a domain name that includes or refers to your target keywords.

Web design Software
So now you have the host and a cool domain name. Next you will need some software to create your website (if you are making a content site - PPC'ers move on). I use Dreamweaver from Macromedia. It is a great WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. I would avoid Frontpage as it crams in a bunch of code that can complicate things. I use Photoshop, Fireworks and ColorSchemer for my graphics work. I highly recommend taking some Web design and Graphic design courses - they will save you time in the long run.

Join an Affiliate Network or Merchant Program
Next, open an account with ONE reputable Affiliate Network (see the list on this site). Do not go crazy signing up for every "cool" program you can find - your job is to make money, not waste your time applying to programs that you will never promote! Carefully research a few key merchants. Look at their affiliate sections of their Web sites, carefully read the affiliate agreements - you would be amazed what lurks within. Finally check out ABestWeb.com. This is one of the best Affiliate Marketing forums where the people are friendly and very smart! Do not expect them to give away all the secrets on your first visit. When they get to know you, they will open up and help you on the road. ABestWeb.com a great place to get the low-down on what Merchant/Networks are good, which convert and what methods work in making money from Affiliate Internet Marketing. Find out more about choosing a merchant from the section titled "Choosing Merchants".