What is affiliate marketing and how can you make money using it

We have all heard of these people who are making a living from the internet, no 9 till 5, no commuting, just a life of luxury. Sounds great doesn't it but how do they do it. How can you start living the internet lifestyle?One of the easiest and quickest ways to start making money online is by using affiliate marketing. Right thats OK, but what is affiliate marketing I hear you ask.Affiliate marketing is where you sell somebody else’s product and they give you a percentage of the cash back to you in the form of commission. These commissions range from 50% to 60% in most cases, so if you sold a $39 e-book you would likely make $20. If you sold a $1,000 online training course you would make whopping $500. Sounds good doesn't it.How do you find products to sell? There are literally thousands and thousands of products out there that the authors wants to sell, they will happily pay you for doing just that. These products range from e-books, MP3 audios, videos, online training courses, subscriptions to just name a few and cover every market sector, niche and interest you can think of. You could sell a e-book on portrait photography, a MP3 explaining how to advertise on Google or a online training course on how to make money from the internet. The possibilities are endless. What I would recommend is that you focus on something that is of interest to you, if you are interested in photography then you can search the web for affiliate photography products.As much as there are thousands of products in every niche, there are some products that always seem to do better than others. Internet marketing is always a popular niche, and can prove to be very popular. If you find a type of product that is being sold by many affiliates that generally means that the product can make good money. If it is popular its a good starting point.A good way of finding out if a type of affiliate product will sell in its niche is to search for forums and bulletin boards in that chosen arena. If you can loads of forums on health and fitness and loads of people selling health and fitness e-books, videos, online plans etc than that is a profitable niche to try to sell in.OK so you have found a niche, you have searched the web for a affiliate product to sell in that area. How do you actually sell the product? When you find the affiliate product you want to sell you will have to join their affiliate scheme. You will have to setup a online payment system such as Paypal of Clickbank so you can get paid, although this exact details will be specified by the affiliate product. You will then receive a affiliate link, this is a web link or hyperlink that goes to the affiliate products site but logs that it came from you, so if the visitor purchases the product you will get the commission. In a lot of cases the affiliate program will also supply you with free advertising material, these often include pre-written emails, sales letters, banner adverts, videos, MP3s, e-books for you to use to help you sell the affiliate product.Ok, so where are we up to. We have identified a niche, a product to sell and a online payment system so you can receive commissions. How do you actually sell the products? There are may ways you can sell you new affiliate system, the most common way is to sell the product through a website. but what if you don’t have a website. You can still make money using affiliate marketing, I would recommend you use the following methods. 1. Start visiting forums and bulletin boards relating to your chosen affiliate product. Look at what people are talking about, do they need help, would your affiliate product help them. If you see some crying out for help explain what product you have found and post your affiliate link... This is important, make sure you post your affiliate link, NOT a link to the normal product homepage otherwise you won’t get your commission.2. Include your affiliate link in the signature field for you posts. On most forums you can define a signature, usually this is 2 or 3 lines and can include hyperlinks. So input the affiliate hyperlink in here with a brief summary of what you are offering.Just one important really important point. Do not just go into a blog or forum and try to sell your product directly, try and give advise, try and gain the respect of the forum users and then you can drop in the odd recommendation.Finally you could email people you know, this could be friends and family who may have the same interest or a social group, fan site, golf club, you name it. Just always remember try to offer advise and why buying this product will be a benefit for the customer not just a cold hard sale.Get your free e-book on affiliate marketing from:MakeEasyCashOnlineNow.comLearn how to make money from affiliate marketing, how to build your own website and get traffic all with a simple step by step approach visit:MakeEasyCashOnlineNow.comI wish you the best of success.