Dummies - Is Affiliate Marketing For You?

There's a Dummies book for learning just about anything under the sun. So, is there an Affiliate Marketing for Dummies book? No! Mind you, I'm not surprised as the world of affiliate marketing is changing all the time and it would be difficult to publish new editions fast enough to keep abreast.

Anyway, the real point I'm trying to make is that affiliate marketing is not, definitely not, for dummies.(dummy='a stupid person') In fact, with the amount of information you need to take in, I'd say it was for people with more than an average grasp of business.

Consider the newbie. No matter how they arrived at the idea of making money at home through affiliate commissions, what will they need to do and learn before earning. In my own recent experience, I even find it difficult to explain to my friends and family what affiliate marketing is.

Can you start without the expense and learning curve of setting up a web site? Yes of course you can. Article writing, blogging and Squidoo are just three cost free methods to direct traffic to a free web site, blog or direct to an affiliate site. However, if you choose this route what do you need to learn? For example, if you decide on article writing then how do you learn to write effective articles that exploit key words (and another thing is how do you find the key words).

How long should the article be so that it's accepted by the very few most important article directories? What must you really include in the lresource box to convince readers to click on your link. How do you choose a catchy title for your article, one that will grab the casual reader's attention?

Well, I went though all this myself, and I can tell you it wasn't plain sailing. With limited money to spend it's undoubtedly a great way to drive traffic to your web site but I was floundering for a while before I learnt how to do it properly. OK, I needed to spend a little money to find out, but boy was it worth it. I joined an affiliate training program with a monthly fee (no big initial outlay) to learn the secrets of article marketing. I also invested in some quick and easy to learn article submitting software - with one click I can now submit unique articles to the top 30 article directories. It also included article rewriting software but I don't find that as useful.

I also spend a great deal of time reading other people's articles. It's fascinating to see and learn from the great article writers - and how the bad writers fail. This type of learning is cost-free. I also belong to some free to join forums of like-minded people who are very willing to share their experience with you.

So, to return to my initial question: Is affilaite marketing for dummies? As you can see from just one small aspect of it - article writing and submission - you've probably guessed that I really believe you need to be well above the average crowd if you are to succeed in affiliate marketing. I know that just by reading this you are one of those elite individuals.

By: Will Wordsmith

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

... more Top Tips can be found at www.affiliate-marketing-info-for-newbies.com . And the writer's Recommended Resources can be found at www.affiliate-marketing-info-for-newbies.com/main_page.php?id=Tonys_Top_Resources.html