The affiliate landscape today is the most competitive, hard-to-get-into, and complicated that it’s ever been.  Because of that, damn near anyone can make a few bucks online.  There are thousands of people out there clearing $500 easily.  Hell, I know people that clear $10,000 in a day without even breaking a sweat, and it always comes down to the same six elements.  You know, the same six elements that hang over any business, affiliate marketing included.

1. Determine your market - Your website should be focused around a market that you’re trying to target.  If you are trying to promote offers to 19-29 year old men, for example, your website needs to look the part.  This is the single most important part of your success is going to come from targeting (which this site has written about on numerous occasions).  Promote offers applicable to your target market, because doing so will ensure that the market responds favorably and that your conversions stay consistent.
2. Assess your approach - Will you make a site designed around making a sale, or will you shoot for high quality content and rely on passive conversions?  Determining how you want to address your market will determine how your site will be built.  In the end, there’s no “right” and “wrong” way to build a site, there is simply the fact that a site needs to be built.  It comes down to your personality type, so go with the approach that feels the most natural to you.
3. Tailor to your traffic - If you plan on sending PPC traffic to your website, tailor your site so that it reacts best to PPC traffic.  If you are planning on long term SEO, make sure the website is designed to be as optimized as possible while offering the user as much value as it can.  Make sure that you know the characteristics of your traffic (which bring us to our next point)…
4. Know your traffic - Know how your traffic thinks, feels, reacts, acts, eats, sleeps, dreams, and poops.  You want to know everything about it when it hits your website: where does it click, what pages does it stick around on, how long does it hang around, does it come back, what ads does it click, etc.  This is CRUCIAL if you ever expect to make a black cent online.  Don’t forget this, ever.  If you aren’t making money, it’s likely because of this.
5. Monetize - Display offers your traffic will want to see.  If you’re running PPC traffic, send the traffic to landing pages relevant to the ad text.  Make sure that the traffic knows exactly what it’s supposed to be doing, when, and why.  You do not want people clicking around because they don’t know what to do, and you do not want that traffic leaving your site without making you money somehow.
6. Re-monetize - So what someone has converted for you?  Try to catch them again!  Get their e-mail address, hit them up with another offer, and potential double their value to you.  This one is a literal no brainer.

Read those six points?  Good- a step by step guide to making it big on the internet.  No go do it!