If you are just starting out with an online business and you are keeping yourself on a tight budget then articles are definitely the way to go.

Once you learn and understand how Ezine Articles works then you could be driving endless traffic to your websites now and for years to come.  That's right an article written today could still be driving sales 3, 4 or even 5 years from now.

Just because article writing is free never consider it inferior to driving great traffic to your sites.  In fact in many cases I get way more traffic and sales then many people I know who are using adwords.

The biggest thing is understanding that article marketing takes time and commitment.  You really need to love writing and need to understand what you are writing about.  A few articles will get you no where.  You need to write, write and then write some more.

With article marketing you can make great money working from home but like I said earlier a few articles just wont give you the results you are looking for.

I will tell you after a couple years a five figure income isn't out of the question but in saying that it will be absolutely necessary to have thousands of articles online.  That's right I said thousands. 

So right now you are looking around and thinking this guy is crazy.  As crazy as it may seem one thousand articles in a year isn't that tough.  Some days I will write as many as ten articles and I still have a full time job off line.

However, lets say you wrote 500 a year which once you commit to it isn't that big of a deal.  Just think in two years you have one thousand articles pointing at your sites.  If done properly don't you think that will give you a ton of traffic.

Your first 20 articles or so will likely be not very good.  This is the period in which you can write off to learning how to work with Ezine articles.

You want to learn how to write quality articles that will have people wanting more of what you are offering.  If you write garbage you are just wasting your time.  In fact since Ezine wants to continue being the authority in what they do they have recently started cracking down on the quality of articles that are being submitted.

They recognize the good thing they have with google and in an attempt to not wreck that they are looking at their quality control a lot closer.

This makes me very happy because quite frankly the last couple of years there has been a lot of garbage submitted to Ezine Articles which in turn has made the approval process so much slower.

I always have people asking me besides a free tool like Ezine Articles what else would I need to be successful.

To be honest no matter what anyone ever trys to tell you or sell you there is really only four other things that would be a good investment in the future.

You will want to build your own websites eventually.  You can get along with free blogs and websites for a while but at some point you will want to turn the corner.  For this you will want to buy some good website hosting.  Also in a similar category you will want to buy domain names at some point.

The next thing you will need is an auto responder.  At some point you will want to start building a list or lists.  When you hear the money is in the list this really is true.  However please stay away from all those so called list builders you find on the Internet.  Those are just garbage really and until I find one that is worth something I will also stay away from them.

The last thing you should consider at some point in your affiliate marketing carreer is a good all in one training tool.  A tool that takes you by the hand and trains you every step of the way.  The one thing you need to remember is no amount of training will make you any money.  How you decide to run with the training will determine your future.

I could have easily spiced up these Hubs and turned them into an ebook and sold it for 10 or 15 bucks easily.  These Hubs on Ezine Articles have a lot of powerful information to help you become successful as an affiliate marketer.

I decided to stay away from charging for this info because thats the problem these days.  It seems the new guy is having everything rammed down his throat as long as it keeps his wallet open.

Everything I talk about in these Hubs are how I succeed in affiliate marketing.  I haven't been brave enough even after so many years to spend money on Adwords.  Well maybe a few very small campaigns but for the most part I stay right away.

So go ahead and get your affiliate marketing business kick started with articles.

As for a training tool I do and always will recommend only one.  I do this because its where I got my start.  Practically everything I have done has been as a result of this training tool.

Take a look at it at Earn Money From Home and I guarantee you will be excited once you see what all is offered.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write this series for all interested.  Also feel free to email me with any of your affiliate marketing questions.