There are many ways to make money online, some are extremely easy while others require some work on your part. when first starting online, I had a lot of  ways to choose from. These ranged from dropshipping, ebay marketing, multi-level marketing and information marketing. All seemed ideal for a starter but i had to weigh my option carefully based on the limited budget that I had.

To start with, i tried multi-level marketing because it seemed the easiest for me given the fact that i had very little web design capability. I spent some time on multi-level marketing but the cash didn't seem to come my way or I had to recruit a small country to make any decent income. Eventually, I quit multi-level marketing and i was on the drawing board again.

The other option that seemed to make some sense was dropshiping and I spent some time trying to figure out how it worked. I subscribed to various dropshipping ecourses and newsletters and within no time I suddenly found out that I had to understand web design and update my pages from time to time. But i was still shy with web design and i quickly gave up on the idea of dropshipping.

It was by chance then that I encountered a small report by Ewen chia which suddenly got me by storm with the idea of information marketing.  I finally made my decision that I wanted to dive into information marketing. At first, I thought that I was going to create my own information product and sell it online. By this time, I had already started the web design learning curve and was gaining confidence with it. But within no time again, I realized that I still had to learn some more techniques from sales copy writing to product research and handling payment processors. But I didn't have the patience and neither did I have the budget to outsource the work. 

Finally I found the ultimate model that was best suited for newbies like me. That is affiliate marketing. Within no time I had rolled my sleeves and was right into it.  I liked it because it eliminated the need to create my own product upfront, to handle  payment processors, to handle customer support or even to process refunds. I simply had to send qualified traffic to the merchant page and wait for my commissions while the merchant handles all the transactions involved. this allowed me time to understand the things involved as I generate an income along the way.

Despite being the easiest way for newbies to make money online, quite a number of people don't get it right and they of course fail. There are 5 steps involved in building a success ful affiliate business.

1.Niche research: -To start with you have to find a niche where there are people willing to spend money. You can get a useful insight by conducting a simple keyword research. Thinking over your hobbies can also help you because some hobbies actually represents profitable markets. For example, there are many people online lloking for ways to train thie dogs or for  healthy food for their dogs.

2.Find affiliate products to offer: - Next you need to scout several afiliate products to offer your target market. You can easily unearth affiliate programs by searching the affiliate directories online or searching on your favorite search engine using "your keywords+affiliate+program". For example you can search for "Pet training+affiliate+program"

3.Drive traffic to your website: - It's true you can make affiliate commissions by sending traffic straight to the merchant page. That is quite okay if you only want an extra revenue stream from your affiliate marketing venture. But this is not advisable if you want to make a steady income online and quit your day job. You need to have a website and build a list of subscribers.  Many people ,infact most people, are reluctant to buy a product on their first exposure to it. It's how the world has trained us to be. But with your list, you can promote affiliate products over and over again to them.

4.Build a relationship with your list: - Your relationship with your subscribers is not just about selling them affiliate products. There is more involved than just selling to them. this is where most people get it all wrong. you must give your subscribers useful tips, offer them subscriber-only discounts and benefits and maintain a two-way exchange of information in the form of feedbacks and support for their problems

5. Repeat the whole process in other niche markets: -Once you have made a decent monthly income from your affiliate business.Repeat the process in other niches and watch those affiliate commissions increasing.It is that simple.

You may also want to start developing your own products once you have figured out how things work out online.