You've seen it all on those expertly designed web pages. You have seen dozens of web pages with pictures of mansions, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, yachts, private jets, pictures of the guru sipping a drink lying on a hammock, pictures of many a vacation with the family and friends, playing golf, riding a magnificent horse, and many more pictorial records of events designed to evoke the envy of even the richest of men.

Where do you fit in? Well, you clicked on a link of which the anchor text said something to the effect of you being able to have as many vacations as you please, drive a Ferrari, play golf whenever you feel like it, and so on.

The moment you read the header, you got interested.
Interested in what? Well, interested in following the same lifestyle as that young guy in the picture is enjoying. He is only 30 years old and has all these luxuries. Of course he has. You are seeing them with your own eyes, right? Besides, he works only two hours a day.

Is he a magician? ... Oh no! He's not! ... A swindler? No way! ... Well, then what the hell does he do ... working just two hours a day ... ?

Well, you really don't understand. He does business online, I mean on the Internet. All you need is a computer with an internet connection. Or a laptop with a connection to the Internet. Is that all?

Well, a little bit of brains would help too!

You mean anyone can succeed like he has? ... Well look at those pictures. Thay are real!

What you are seeing are the "after" pictures. The "before" pictures are not available because he was so downright poor he could not even afford to pay for a photograph.

Now read his life story ...  pathetic! A real tear jerker indeed. Enough stuff to make an award winning movie. But he chose to rake in his dollars using his computer "with an Internet connection," as he puts it.

Hollywood is not the place for him, says he. He wants a quiet life with his wife and two lovely daughters. The older of the two is on the verge of entering university. He has selected the best university on planet earth for his daughter's education. She deserves it. Thanks to the riches he has made online he can afford it twenty five times over.

Daughter? University? Well, wait a minute, if his daughter is entering university, she must be at least eighteen years old! Well ... well, thirty minus eighteen is twelve!

Hey Guru, you goofed!

Oh, that happens sometimes you know. Over-enthusiasm in getting the message across. He wants to somehow convince you that your 9 to 5 job will just not get you anywhere. He badly wants to get you off the rut you are in, and place you in the same grove that he is in, at any cost at all. What a nice guy!

He cares, he really does. He wants to somehow convince you. So he has commissioned one of the best ghost writers alive to write the content for his sales page. That's why you kept saying that the text on his web site is really powerful.

You decided to check it out one day, and take action too. Today is the day. You clicked on a link on an e-mail you recieved, and what a pleseant surprise awaited you! You arrived at the very web site you had decided to check out one day! Wow! This must be a good omen! So get on with the rest of the page.

However, it is the graphic artist who really grabs your attention. Macromedia Flash and Adobe Photo-shop together can pack a pretty punch indeed.

The versatility of Adobe Photoshop is such that it can show you how to superimpose Charlton's Lamborghini on to a picture of Yul's mansion with you in the vicinity.

Macro media Flash can show you close ups of the mansion and zoom out to bring into focus your picturesque garden and move on to the stables where you keep your horses and on to the runway where your private jet is parked.

You fell for it, right? Moving pictures and text which tugs at your emotions. You scroll right down and continue to devour the delicious rags to riches story, being thankful that you already have a head start. After all, you are not in rags, right? That means you have a head start. Having a head start means the journey won't take all that long. Wow! You can hardly wait!

Now you're planning. When success strikes, the first thing you will do is, go on a cruise. What a pleseant surprise for your wife! The kids deserve it too. They've been patient all these years. All those gizmos that they wanted will be theirs at last.

Okay, scroll down some more. This guy in a flowered shirt, sipping a drink will give you step by step instructions on what to do and how to do whatever he did in order to be where he is now. All this for only $47.95.

Now, how on earth did he arrive at that figure? He probably added the value of all of the components of the program and divided it by his date of birth so that he could arrive at a price that YOU will be able to afford. He has YOU in mind, as always.

There is a 49 day money back guarantee as well! If this program does not work for you, you can get 100% of your investment back. The refund is guaranteed by the affiliate marketing company which handles all the online sales of this product.

You see the "buy now" button directly in front of your right eyeball.

More encouragement is on the way! You just need to scroll down to see it! Did you hear that? The first 250 customers get these additional gifts too! The "250" has been slashed, and a hand written "47" appears above it.

This suggests that 203 people have already purchased a copy of that e-book and are well on their way to making a fortune online.

Hey there yacht manufacturer! 203 more yachts please!

How about you? Get on the bandwagon maan! Get rich! Now, let's check out what those additional gifts are,

BONUS - 1: An e-book on how to lose weight by skipping all three meals.

actual value $275.00. But today it's yours absolutely free.

BONUS - 2: A complete guide on how to make the best use of your insomnia

actual value $375.00. But today it's yours absolutely free.

BONUS - 3: A step by step guide on how to get out of debt by robbing Peter and paying Paul all that you owe him. With a special introductory chapter by Ayam A Fruker.

actual value $430.00. But today it's yours absolutely free.

All these gifts having a total value of $1080.00 is yours for free today only if you make this purchase before midnight today!

Here is the Buy-Now button.

$47.75? Hmmm ... well if I buy it now, what if I don't understand how to work the program? What a shame it would be to call someone and ask what a target url is, and what a destination url is. I guess the program involves that you require a thorough knowledge of all these. It must be difficult to operate. What if it does not work?

$47.75? Hmmm --- mmm ...

Who the hell wants to laze on a yacht in the mediteranian? ... and lie on a hammock dressed in a flowered shirt sipping a drink full of sodium monoglucomate?

Should I not feel ashamed to lay on a beach, appearing lazy when all my friends are doing something productive, real busy participating in some economic activity in their work places, talking marketing crap at board meetings, discussing business at the Sheraton ballroom using overhead projectors, with power-point presentations showing bar charts, pye charts, figures, talking marketing slang while doing so, or conducting their own business and boosting the economy right along.

Who wants to give up that delightful 9 to 5 job in an office where you get to tease all those women every single day, to go out to lunch in groups, attend executive meetings where the Boss shows off his newly acquired knowledge of recently coined marketing terms, straight from Goyter D Frucker's latest best seller, to look forward to those birthdays of office mates, those weekends with office friends, that occasional surprise buffet at the Boss's house, Wow! I would not give up my office job for anything. Not me.

Then you scroll right up and once you've reached the top, look for that "X" on the right hand side to click on and bring about a halt to all this wasting of time and all this madness ... you locate the "X" and you click ... wait a minute, a pop up appears.

"Connecting to Agent ... You have been connected to Mag-Nysia ...

Mag-Nysia Says: Hey Wait! Before you go, I have just been authorized to offer you a discount of $10.00.

This offer will be valid only if you make your purchase within the next sixty minutes.

Mag Nysia Says: When you are ready, just type in 'Hi' and we can get started..."

At that moment you notice in small white script at the bottom of the page, the words "affiliates click here." You click on that instead, and you come to a page which says, "Affiliates Earn 75% Commission Reselling This Product."

An awesome sales page, with convincing content, super graphics, powerful sales message, I guess this would be easy to market. After all YOU nearly purchased it did you not? There would be many who like you would scroll right down to the buy-now button. Many of them, those who know how to insert a banner HTML code into the source code of a web page are certain to buy. All I have to do is to blast a few e-mails. Yes, e-mail marketing should work now. I mean those safelists which I have not used for months, let me try them once more.

You had given up safelist marketing after purchasing a program which claimed to be able to blast your message to 10000 safelists and reach millions each and every day. Your tracker did not register a single hit after mailing to ten thousand sasfelists with just one click. You tried it out for several days without even one single hit. So you withdrew your membership and gave up e-mail marketing completely.

Afterwards you did not even use the free safelists you were a member of, the ones that used to get at least 0.1% hits to your mail.

Now you think of using them once more. This time this particular program you have chosen to market looks so lucrative, anyone would buy it. After all, many people know how to insert an HTML code into a web site's source code. They all know what destination url is and what image location is. So they are all qualified to work this program. Why not make a buck on it?

So you start off once again. You first sign up as an affiliate, get your affiliate code and cloak your affiliate link.

You now create a splash page for the product. Sit back and write an article highlighting the product's plus points. Thank GOD you can write. You tweak this article five times to generate five different flavors, you hurriedly check out all those pdf files on SEO that you have in your collection, revive some memory on the proper use of SEO, apply this refreshed knowledge with renewed vigor, and then you forward each of them to five top article marketing sites with your splash page link on it.

You now create a blog describing the product in brief, and insert your cloaked affiliate URL into a powerful anchor text in the content.

Now you begin to think smart. Optimizing every action is your target. "Get the best out of it" you say to yourself. So you even insert your ad-sense code to this particular blog.

Cute! A skyscraper 120 x 600 on the right, that's where the eye of the reader will go. Next a 728 x 90 leaderboard at the very bottom, with a dark blue background and cream colored text, and in between, a 250 x 250 square, employing eye catching red text against a yellow background. Wow! Real cool!

You never ever thought you were capable of such brilliance. "Necessity" you say to yourself, "brings out the best in me."

The blog looks great! Contains text that is brief and up to the point, links positioned well, you have made the best use of all the images that you were permitted to, as an affiliate. And those adsense ads ... will never miss a single eyeball!

Now you ping it, you digg it, and even fff... it!

You have also selected fifty top classified ad sites and have already planted your urls in each of them with fifty different phrases as the anchor text.

Now, like Clint Eastwood seated in the cockpit of Firefox, you sat down and blasted your e-mail messages to thousands and thousands and thousands continuously ... with links pointing to your splash page. You even enrolled with some new safelists and blasted e-mails to all their members.

You then add the link of your splash page to all the surf programs that you are a member of, and you start surfing like hell.

For five full days you have been working hard. You are patient too. Really patient. You did not check your affiliate sales stats at all for five whole days.

Now at the end of five days, having written five really good articles, having blasted your e-mail messages to thousands and thousands of safelist members, having forwarded your blog url to all the social sites on earth, and having forwarded both your blog url and your splash page url to 50 selected classified sites, naturally you are entitled to be full of expectations.

You worked so hard and diligently, and obviously you expect an avalanche of sales at least this time. "At least this time!" Ah! in the past you have been trying to make money online and have failed miserably! The way you said "at least this time" indicates that this is so! Of course this time you have done everything right and have been consistent. For five full days.

Now you hold your breath, log in to your account and check out your stats. In your mind is the picture of the JPEG image of that guru's affiliate earnings. You expect something similar. Oh well, you would settle for something even half as good! You hit the enter button and wait! ... you watch the hourglass on your screen.

Then, slowly ... and dramatically the page launches. The drumroll was playing in your mind. Here is the moment you've been waiting for. The page has launched! Its now on your screen!

Well? ... Well ... what have you earned so far?

... Nothing! ... ¡Nada! ... Neechyevo! ... Rien!

Why not? ...

Simple! It is just because YOU cannot earn money online working from home.

Why not? Because you belong to that 97% of e-commerce enthusiasts who fail. Only 3% succeed.

What about that guy in a flowered shirt, sipping a drink seated on a hammock hung between two coconut trees, facing a glorious beach, sipping a fruit drink? ... probably fresh fruit juice!

He Lied!

When? Where? What did he lie about?

His daughter, and the "rags" part in his rags to riches story!

He has just one daughter, and that kid is only five years old, and he was not in rags when he started exploring the Internet to find something by means of which he could earn a decent living.

That was five years ago when his kid was born. He wanted an additional income with the new kid around. Thats when he started exploring online.

Of course, everything else is real. That yacht, the luxury car, the beach, those holidays, golf ... that's all real. Even the fact that he works only two hours a day is true. Absolutely true.

Then what's up really?

Nothing. It's just that he belongs to that 3% of successful Internet marketers and you simply don't!

Well, well, well. What did he do that YOU did not? Nothing at all! He did the same thing that you did! The very same thing! One exception is that he did not install his ad-sense code in his blog. Why didn't he? Because he was wise, that's why.

Is that all he did differently? Well, not quite!

Are you confused? Well ... let me explain.

Five years ago this guy came online and started exploring the Internet. He browsed, clicked on links, checked out several money making blogs and sites.

He subscribed to every possible free e-mail course which involved online earning. He clicked on virtually every link he received via e mail. He did not hit the spam button as often as you did. He did not want to miss anything at all.

Although he understood nothing in the very initial stages, by prolonged exposure and by context he began to gradually understand a little bit about affiliate marketing and most other online earning methods.

He found himself getting addicted to browsing the Internet and was gradually beginning to understand affiliate marketing and online advertising methods. His understanding was getting better and better with time.

The fact is, even if you are not making money, it is really interesting to explore. When you do explore you end up learning. That's just what he did. And when you experiment with what you have learnt for a prolonged period of time, results come your way.

By the end of the twelfth month of exploring, he thought he'd make use of his present knowledge by experimenting a bit with affiliate marketing. So he signed up as an affiliate of a certain product. Just like you signed up recently to promote his product.

From there onwards he did exactly what you did ... but not for a mere five days. He went on for three full months, tirelessly, before he began to see some results. Then he continued for many more months and slowly started gaining momentum. All along the the way, he continued to learn. He was able to tweak a little bit here and there and optimise the results he was getting. By the end of the twenty fourth month, he was earning a reasonably good income online.

Now he went on to write an e-book on how to make money online. In this e-book he clearly and honestly stated exactly what he did to get to where he is.

Or better still what he did to get to where he was just before he wrote that e-book.

That's the one you nearly bought, but decided to become an affiliate instead and promote it for a commission, just because you did not know how to insert a banner code in the HTML source of a web page.

The very same e-book you tried to promote and failed miserably. In that e-book he explains in detail exactly what he did to generate an income for himself online.

Now, in addition to what he was already doing to earn a decent income online, he started promoting his e-book. By sheer experience he knew if he could get affiliates to promote his e-book, he could earn more while working less. So he started offering 75% commission on each sale for affiliates. Some of them who saw his page signed up as affiliates, and started promoting the e-book.

Unlike you, most of them did not stop after five days. They went on and on for months until success hit them hard on the head!

He then found that he was signing up affiliates at the rate of about five a week. Ten months later he had 200 affiliates. 100 of them were like you! The rest were not. Out of the rest, each of his affiliates made a minimum of two sales a week. That amounts to 28 sales a day for the author.

At the end of two years, he had a total of 570 affiliates, out of which 200 of them sold one book every other day. That makes 100 sales a day.

At the rate of 25% on each sale, the guy wearing a flowered shirt, sipping a fruit drink while lying on a hammock makes a minimum of $844.00 each and every day only on the sale of his own e-book, thanks to his affiliates.

In fact he does not need to work at all right now to generate this income. In addition, new affiliates are signing up every single day.

So what on earth does he do "working online" for two hours every day?

I really do not know. I guess he's probably trying some advertising to get more and more people to sign up as his affiliates.

Achieving all this is a result of working very hard for several hours a day continuously for five years!

Does he not deserve that yacht? That Ferrari? Those holidays? He sure does!

What is it that he has that he does not deserve?

YOU as an affiliate!

... end of part 1 ... scroll down for part 2 ...

Affiliate marketing is a cool way to make money online since it does not cost anything at all to enroll as an affiliate with some of the well known affiliate marketing organisations.

So is selecting a product and promoting it using the services of free advertising that is available in abundance on the Internet.

Here is a hypothetical case where a raw beginner or a newbie is taught the mechanism of affiliate marketing, and some methods of free advertising.

For starters he is given a list of thirty two safelist programs, also known as e-mail marketing devices.

First of all he enrolls with an affiliate marketing company, selects a product to market, and gets his affiliate link. He then checks out the sales page of the product thoroughly, and creates a very concise but precise sales letter describing the product.

In the beginning he joins just five of the safelist programs each of which has one thousand five hundred members. He then blasts his sales letter which contains his cloaked affiliate link, to the members of the five safelists he has enrolled with.

His message is very likely to reach seven thousand five hundred people. Now, according to statisticians, 3% of e-mails received by safelist members are opened. 5% out of the 3% who open such mail also click on the link and view the website of the product being promoted.

So, going by statistics, the affiliate product that this newbie is promoting gets viewed by eleven people as a result of his first marketing campaign.

The same statisticians say that the sales page of a product has to be shown to one hundred and fifty people for one sale to be made.

They also go on to say that anyone buying a product online does so on the seventh time he is shown the advertisement.

Does that mean that out of the one hundred and fifty people there is bound to be one who is seeing the ad for the seventh time?

I really do not know.

However, by some fate, out of the eleven people who view the newbie's affiliate product, one of them decides to buy. This action will defy the theory of the statisticians.

This can be explained as the good fortune of the affiliate marketer which is very much similar to the good fortune experienced by the winner of a lottery.

So the story of the newbie goes on to say that he became an affiliate in the morning, set up an advertising campaign in the afternoon, and by evening he had already made a sale.

The logic that follows is that all he has to do is to rinse and repeat as many times as he wants, in order to make as many times as much money as he made the first time.

Unfortunately it does not work that way at all! The Internet is a game of numbers. The more people whose attention you attract, the more you increase your chances of making sales.

Attracting the attention of people online is of course via online advertising. There are dozens of legal ways by means of which you can advertise online. Examining as many of them as you can is advantageous indeed. Understanding them and their terms and conditions is a must.

Likewise, the more you understand the intricate mechanisms of advertising online, the more you qualify to succeed. The best way to find out is to actually participate actively. The longer you stay online and explore, the more you learn. The more you learn ... Guess what happens?

... concluded