Going into business for yourself and making money through affiliate programs is one way to earn a six figure income on the Internet. By promoting goods and services offered by companies online, you will earn a commission each time a sale is made through a link you posted or through your web site.

When you become an affiliate, you will be able to:

- choose which companies you would like to promote
- decide where to promote them
- how often to promote them

You will not have to take orders or ship merchandise.

Whether your background is in marketing or waitressing, you can become an affiliate and start making money. You probably already have the basics:

- computer
- internet connection
- simple spreadsheet software
- few extra hours during the week

Using these items, you will be able build a successful internet home business and be able to make money online through affiliate programs.

The first step in starting an internet home business is to decide which affiliate programs to join. Not all of them are successful. You should research companies you are interested in, read trade magazines, and find out how popular their products are and how many affiliates are currently working for them. It will be more difficult to sell new products, but it will also be difficult if there are many affiliates working to sell the same products. Choose a company that has branded themselves well and one that shows continuous profit. This will make your job easier.

The second step is to build a web site. Choose a web hosting company that will make creating a web site easy. Your web site should be filled with articles, product information, mailing list information, and links to the company's web site. Keep the font and the background simple and make sure that people can read it easily.

The third step is to advertise your web site and begin posting links. This can be done in a variety of ways: blogs, swapping links with other web sites, article databases, open forums, email campaigns, and newsletters. Advertising is the only way to generate a continual profit through affiliate programs.

The last step is to constantly review your other steps to find ways to improve your visibility online. You can use pay-per-click advertising, adding keywords into your articles to earn a higher ranking in search engines, posting comments on other blog pages, writing ebooks, and working with other affiliates to promote their web site and yours.

The key to a successful internet home business is by monitoring your existing advertising and expanding into other areas. Research is the best way to accomplish these tasks. By tracking your links, you will be able to see which links are generating business and which ones are not. Reading about new ways to advertise can help you find a new market.

Affiliate programs can be a lot of fun. Working from home, keeping your own hours, and earning commissions is a great way to earn a living.