If you have been looking around the internet for a while in search of ways of making money you cannot fail to have seen the words "join our free affiliate program" - probably followed by something about making thousands of dollars a month!

If you are like me you were a mixture of skeptical, intrigued, excited and also thinking "could this work for me?" Well to cut a long story short I was looking to work from home at the tail end of 2004 due to ill health and was surfing the net to find a work from home business. I kept seeing these adverts for affiliate programs but had never heard of them in my life. To say I was a newbie was a massive understatement!

I decided to find as much as I could about them and everything I needed was online. I soon discovered Google Adwords and pay per click as a way of promoting my programs and also found Clickbank.com, Commission Junction.com (cj.com) and Tradedoubler.co.uk as "libraries" of thousands of products to promote.

I then tried to learn all I could about how to promote on Google Adwords and also how to research the market place. I cannot stress how important this point is! It is vital to find a market BEFORE you find your product. I tried to promote many things I thought were great products before I realized it was not what I thought would sell that mattered! It is what people are looking for that is important.

You may have heard the term "Niche Market" and this is what you are searching for - a niche that may not have a huge number of potential buyers - but that has a large enough group of people who are very HUNGRY to buy your products. It is your job as an affiliate to target these people as accurately as possible.

There are many different e Books out there that will help you learn how to do this. Using the Overture search tool is an excellent way of finding popular searches and Niche Markets.

You can also promote affiliate programs through your own sites and this is the way to really generate those huge incomes you read about - but it can be a huge learning curve! Don't worry however as there are lots of good programs out there that will teach you step by step how to do this. The best I have come across is the Incredible Wealth Building System (see below)

As I said before I started as an affiliate just less than a year ago and now make my living full time - it can be done - but.....

You must put in the time, effort and, yes, money to prepare yourself. And you must research, research and research some more the market place! This is not money for nothing but it is definitely a business you can succeed in if you do your homework and are prepared to learn from those who have succeeded before you.

Best wishes for your financial future!