How do I make money with affiliate marketing?

How do I make money with 

affiliate marketing?

Here's a quick recap of what you need to do:

1. Choose your niche.
2. Research different affiliate programs and products.
3. Build a site.
4. Produce excellent content.
5. Build an audience.
6. Promote your affiliate product(s).
7. Repeat steps #4–7 on a continual basis!

The lure of affiliate marketing is undeniable; who can resist passive income?

But to make that passive income happen, you have got to put in some work first. 

To succeed in affiliate marketing, there are a number of crucial steps you must take before you earn that first affiliate profits. And these steps are, well … not passive.

The good news is that if you’re determined to make this work and are willing to put in the time and effort, you’re already well on your way to affiliate marketing success.

All the work you put in is to help you make your first affiliate marketing sale. There is nothing like a first sale to motivate you and make you keep at it. 

So, what do you need to do to get started?

1. Choose a Niche

Before you even begin building your first site, you’ll need to decide which niche you’re going to target.

Obviously, if you don't know what your site is about or who you're going to target with it, you can't really build a site around it...can you? 

If you’ve already figured this one out, way to go! This is undoubtedly one of the most difficult and overwhelming steps.

If you don't quite know what your niche is yet, here's some advice that you might find useful. 

Some key questions to ask yourself when determining your niche are:

• What topics am I already passionate about?

It's much easier to work on something if you're passionate about it. Plus, when you have a passion, you're usually quite knowledgeable about it too, so that definitely helps. For example if you have a passion about about makeup, your niche of choice might be makeup related, too. 

• Is there money in this niche?

While following your passion is definitely the recommended option, sometimes the possibility of making money in a profitable niche trumps passion. So, you might not necessarily know much about your niche, but if it's likely to make you money, you can always learn more about it, right? 

For example, KitchenFaucetDivas is clearly a site that was built for profit, not passion. Unless of course there is someone out there with a serious passion for kitchen faucets! ;-)