1. Start on one familiar niche. Pick the niche that you are very interested in so that you would be happy to research, think and write about it. Avoid building different websites with different topics, chances are you will loose interest and fail on your target.

2. Provide value. Offer valuable information to your visitors. If your visitors find your site useful and informative, they will stay and read on. Soon they will become customers and refer your website to their friends and even link to it.

3. Know and build relationship with your partners. When you plan on joining a program or network, research about them through their about page, faqs, and most specially affiliate forums. Keep in mind the must-have checklist when choosing a merchant. For a starter, it is natural to have questions so don’t hesitate to ask your affiliate manager, he or she will be glad to help you. Even experienced affiliate marketers have questions, too.

4. Be innovative. A website is never complete. There will always be new design, content, features and services to offer. Read on what’s new and what doesn’t work, there are kind people who are willing to share these useful stuff.

5. Never stop learning. As time goes by, competition is getting stiffer and strategies are evolving. Read forums to get more insights about affiliate marketing and your chosen niche.

Use the methods or advices that you think best fit your niche. One method that worked for others may not work for you. It is still important that you test on them for experience.

As a wannabe affiliate marketer, it’s your responsibility to know the risks and rewards inherent to the industry before jumping on the bandwagon. What makes affiliate marketing so popular right now? How much effort do you have to put into it? What are the common mistakes to avoid?

These questions are answered by a close scrutiny of affiliate marketing so bring out your pen and paper and let’s start tallying the pros and cons of this growing business trend.

PROS
Low barriers to entry. Affiliate marketing has low barriers to entry, which means just about anyone can get into it.

You don’t need extensive capital or a university degree to get a website up and running. All you need is a reliable internet connection, a target niche chosen through meticulous research, and a PC or laptop for creating website copy and design appropriate to your chosen niche.

Most affiliate marketing programs are free to join so you won’t have to shell out a lot of money to start earning referral commissions. What affiliate marketing demands most is your time investment for niche research, search optimization and content writing—activities that will keep attracting the right kind of customers to your website.

Scalability. Affiliate marketing is unique because you have control over the scale and speed of your business. You can stay small and be contented with one website that earns you a couple of hundred of dollars a month, like a dependable side income to help finance your hobbies.

Or you can go into it full-time, launching a couple of dozen websites and making them popular enough for you to earn a decent living for you and your family. Affiliate programs are flexible enough to accommodate your income goals no matter how small or big they might be.

Low risk to affiliate marketers. Budding affiliate marketers can also sleep well knowing they don’t carry as much risk as a typical business venture. Since there is little to no cash investment involved, you have more leeway for making mistakes.

Suppose you launch a website that fails to attract the right kind of audience. Then you can easily start over, find a more lucrative niche, build a more pleasing website, and basically learn from your mistakes without sacrificing your hard-earned nest egg.

High profit potential. It’s no secret that affiliate marketing is a lucrative business, especially when you are able to tap into a very popular niche.

The gaming industry which is represented by the EpicToon Affiliate Program is one such promising niche because of the growing numbers of gamers worldwide. These gamers demand high-quality services and products that help them enjoy their time in virtual worlds, and affiliate marketers who service this demand can earn top bucks on a steady basis.

CONS
Many low quality products. Due to the deluge of interest in affiliate marketing, there’s also been a flood of low quality products from merchants. The rationale behind this is if there’s a salesman willing to vend your goods, then why bother making it the best that it can be?

As an affiliate marketer, it’s in your best interest to avoid the low quality products and choose affiliate programs that will stand the test of time. Choose trusted merchants with a good reputation and test your products before endorsing them on your websites. Taking these precautionary steps will ensure constant support and commissions from your fans.

Stiff competition. Because of the low barriers to entry in affiliate marketing, you’ll bound to meet some stiff competition for commissions. You’ll need to work hard and differentiate your websites enough to get a substantial foothold in your target niche. Planning is key here so coordinate always with your affiliate program managers to keep track of your growth and to get sound advice on how to climb the commission ladder even more.

Scammers abound. One of the worst things that can happen to you is to get duped by an affiliate marketing scammer. These can range from fly-by-night merchants who request upfront cash in exchange for membership in a program but will then vanish after a few months, to parasitic merchants who will feed off your hard work without depositing your deserved commission.

The EpicToon Affiliates blog has a great article on how to spot and avoid scammers in the industry, which can be useful especially if you’re just starting out. But in general, the best antidote to scammers is to partner with industry-leading programs like what EpicToon Affiliate Program is for gaming resources.

Trusted affiliate marketing programs offer tracking software, monthly sales updates, and an open line of communication through their designated managers. They also impart valuable tips on improving website conversions gleaned from first-hand experience.  These kinds of merchant-side support ensure you perform your best with minimal hassle and maximum profits at any given time.

For more information about the affiliate marketing industry, feel free to browse the EpicToon Affiliates blog and its updated list of resource articles. Or send an e-mail to the EpicToon affiliate managers who will be more than willing to help you through the sign-up process.

Taking advantage of their internet anonymity, online scammers will try to dupe wanna-be affiliate marketers for money. This can take the form of affiliate marketing scams that pose as legitimate business opportunities and can fool you into investing your hard-earned cash.

It’s a growing problem that has to be stopped so the EpicToon affiliate program team has compiled a list of guidelines from sites like Ehow and Reviewscode that can help you uncover affiliate marketing scams, no matter how good they are at deceiving or covering their tracks.

Beware of cash out programs. The first red flag of an affiliate marketing scam is if it requires you to give cash in exchange for information or membership. Affiliate marketing programs should be free of charge and have no business asking for any credit card information.

Test the products but never as a requisite. Before undertaking any affiliate marketing program, it’s good practice to know what you’re selling. Try out the product to see whether a merchant inflated its claims or understated its shortcomings. But never think of this as a requirement—scammers will often force you to test products at a hefty cost before running away with your cash.

Do not agree to monthly quotas. Reputable affiliate marketing programs will never require a sales quota. If a program asks you to make up for your sales with your own out-of-pocket expense, then leave the program immediately because you might be buying poor-quality products that nobody else is willing to buy.

Request for tracking reports and compare them with your own data. Companies should provide you access to a reliable tracking software that will show your monthly sales performance. Be wary of merchants that cannot provide you with some form of tracking software, chances are they might not pay your commission. Keep a close eye on affiliate link statistics because some scammers might give you only a fraction of your income due to statistics manipulation, so be vigilant!

You should also hang out in affiliate marketer forums like AbestWeb to keep updated in current scam methods like when merchants disable cookies and shopping carts just to avoid paying large commissions.

Keep your eyes open for scam rumors. Before joining an affiliate marketing program, scout out the forums and community portals for any scam rumors. You can also interview existing members to get a more personal look at how the merchant operates. An affiliate program might handpick evaluations from chosen members to create a rosy impression, but if you dig deep and cover all your bases then you will be able to see whether an affiliate program is the real deal.

Tour the merchant website and talk to the affiliate manager. The whole idea of affiliate marketing is to refer potential customers to a functioning website. Make sure merchant website links are working as intended, pictures are loading and that basic information about the product is available. Merchant websites with broken links and bad design not only reveal a possible scammer, it also hinders your referred customers from making a purchase and earning you a commission. A responsible merchant will ensure that its store is well-kept, organized and optimized for your referrals.

You should also talk to the affiliate manager in charge who will be assigned as the liaison between you and the affiliate program. Ask questions to see how the affiliate manager responds to your needs. If he or she seems to be evading your inquiries, then it might be best for you to choose a more trustworthy affiliate program.

EpicToon affiliate program has been vetted against these usual scam practices. So rest assured that if you become part of the EpicToon affiliate network, you’ll be able to track your performance with the help of our attentive affiliate managers and get paid well depending on your performance.

For more information about the affiliate marketing industry, feel free to browse the additional resource articles posted on this site. Or send an e-mail to affiliates[at]epictoon.com and our team of affiliate experts will be more than willing to help you  with your queries.

With thousands of merchants to choose from, I’ve created this must-have checklist that helps you shop around for topnotch merchants:

Attractive Payout Scheme. You want to get the best return for your hard work so the first thing you should seek out is an attractive payout scheme.

Merchants have commission structures that describe how they are going to pay each click, visit and purchase referral from your websites. Gather three or more for comparison and then choose one that has a noticeably higher rate than the others.

If there’s just a small difference, then start comparing their minimum payout rates or the minimum commission you need to earn before a merchant cuts you a check. In general, choose a merchant with a small, easy-to-reach minimum so you can get your payouts faster and reinvest them in your business.

Trusted Brand. Stick to merchants who have earned a good reputation over the years. Hang out at affiliate marketing forums and ask around for merchants with a solid track record. It’s also as important to read threads discussing fly-by-night merchants so you can avoid their scams.

You should also scrutinize a merchant’s products before signing up. A flashy merchant website filled with testimonials can mask an unpopular product line that won’t sell even if you gave it away for free. If you can, you should even order these products to see first-hand whether the wares are as dependable as the company claims them to be.

Attentive Affiliate Managers. You should look for merchants with attentive affiliate managers who try to help you in whatever way they can. Affiliate managers are your primary contact with a merchant and should give you a heads up on new product lines, your sales performance, and notable industry developments that will affect your business.

If an affiliate manager checks up on you regularly, sends you progress reports, and suggests ways to improve your earnings, then you have nothing to worry about. But if there is limited, often one-way communication from your affiliate manager, then consider lobbying for greater face time just so you don’t get left out in the dark.

Optimized Creatives and Landing Pages. Magazines keep in mind the three-second rule when creating their cover pages. The three-second rule means it only takes three seconds for a potential reader to decide whether he will pick up a magazine or not in a crowded newsstand, so it is important to create an eye-catching cover page.

The same mantra applies to affiliate marketing where it only takes seconds for a web visitor to decide whether he will browse through a merchant store or not. If a merchant has optimized creatives and landing pages, then visitors stay longer and have higher chance of buying products you recommend them. The result—higher commissions for you!

It’s also vital that the merchant you choose is open to feedback because you as an affiliate marketer can gather feedback from your readers as to what kind of graphics and fonts appeal to them. This varies per demographic so a merchant with a flexible creative team can easily change their branding and website design to suit their intended market.

These are just the basic essentials you should check out before partnering with a merchant. There are many more to consider depending on your niche and preference, so be diligent with choosing your merchant and you’ll end up with a partnership that earns you your dream commission.

These questions and more were answered in the 2010 Affiliate Summit AffStat report, an annual survey that asks affiliate marketers their preferred methods and strategies for doing business.

By interviewing over 1,150 affiliates, the report reveals the current trends in affiliate marketing. “The research has been designed to increase awareness and foster best practices in the affiliate marketing industry,” says Missy Ward and Shawn Collins, co-founders of Affiliate Summit who publishes the report.

I could have chosen to bombard you with pie charts and statistics from the report. But I summarized the major findings instead and added my own insights as an EpicToon affiliate. Feel free to use this article as a springboard for when you create or update your own business practices.

Start Small then Expand Big
Affiliate marketing is filled with young entrepreneurs. According to the report, more than half of the respondents began their affiliate marketing career within the past four years. A majority are still building their referral empire by promoting only 10 programs or less.

There’s nothing wrong with focusing on just several programs—in fact, it’s advisable if you’re a part-timer or a beginner. You should build these programs first until they earn you a steady flow of income, then that’s the time you can consider expanding your program portfolio.

The 21% of marketers who now promote 51 or more affiliate programs didn’t get there quickly. They pooled their resources and amassed a great deal of expertise in order to maintain such a large number of programs. Work your way up slowly but surely, and in time you’ll find yourself hiring additional staff just to keep up with all the work coming your way.

Negotiate Starting Rates and Payout Frequency
When signing up for an affiliate program, one of the first and most important things to ask is how they plan to pay you. Six out of 10 marketers weigh in on the commission payment policies of a program when deciding whether or not to promote the program—and for good reason. No one wants to work and not get paid well.

You should negotiate starting rates and payout frequency, when possible, before signing with an affiliate program. Most merchants are flexible depending on what your affiliate websites have to offer, so be sure to know what you’re worth. Six out of 10 affiliate marketers were unable to request an increase of commission from an affiliate manager in 2010 so once the commission rates have been set, you’ll find it hard to ask for an increase.

In terms of payout frequency, you should also consider your business needs. Some affiliates require a weekly payout in order to roll their money back into advertising, which will then earn them referral commissions. Basically, it’s a cycle of investment and income. Determine if you need payments weekly or monthly based on business and personal needs, then seek out programs which can deliver on your chosen schedule.

With great commission rates and timely payments, you’ll be motivated to deliver the best results—as I did when I joined the EpicToon affiliate program. (Of course their yearly performance bonus and progressive income scheme makes the deal sweeter on my end.)

Demand Regular Feedback
If you don’t like to get e-mails and update reports about your affiliate programs, then you’re in the vast minority. A paltry 3.8% of affiliate marketers surveyed said they never want to hear from their affiliate managers.

Half of the respondents said they would like to hear from affiliate managers monthly, while 3 out of 10 would like a weekly talk with their managers. Only 1 out of 10 said they wanted a quarterly meeting, which shows the value of feedback when growing your business.

Regular updates from affiliate managers are useful in evaluating your progress and your merchants might have valuable tips that can improve how you market their products or services. But don’t pester them for a daily status report—it’ll waste both your time. It’s better to get a hold of weekly or monthly reports when studying the bigger picture.

An overwhelming number of marketers prefer e-mail as their main contact medium to affiliate managers because it’s the most convenient to use. Telecommuting is becoming an increasing consideration with the worldwide growth of affiliate marketing. Affiliates and affiliate managers may not be based in the same country so email is the most reliable way of exchanging information. You should also explore instant message chats and calls, both mobile and internet, for when direct conversations are needed.

Some friends of mine who read this article said that they have been guilty of veering away from these benchmarks one time or another. You’ll go against the grain, too, when you feel that it’ll bring higher profits or greater efficiency to your business. But just keep these benchmarks for reference, like a trusty compass that leads you back to the right direction.

But in my experience as an EpicToon affiliate, those that enter this business have more ambition than to have a couple of hundreds as spare cash. This dream is to earn thousand-dollar commissions per month, and make it as a bona fide super affiliate.

Super affiliates command perks and income that far eclipse those of regular affiliates. If you’re wondering whether you’re already a super affiliate, ask yourself: Do I bring enough business to my product vendors that they consider me as one of their best? If your answer is no, then you have a long road ahead of you.

And there’s no shortcut to super affiliate status, as I found out when talking to some super affiliates over the years. But I did learn some key strategies (and which I now share) on how to secure your own golden badge:

Build A Comfortable Trust. I wrote before the building block of an affiliate business is to choose a right niche and to develop a strong relationship with potential customers. Super affiliates go further by engaging their audience in constant, creative ways. They don’t just put up a cool-looking website and wait for people to visit them. They answer queries, send out thoughtful emails, and give cool tips on why their products will be useful. Super affiliates make their presence and products felt—but not too forceful as to be labeled as spam.

Optimize Your Websites. Super affiliates learn from their mistakes and grab tools to correct them. Is your landing page not effective in encouraging visitors to click and purchase your affiliate products? Then maybe that Nickelodeon green font isn’t cutting it or you may need more pictures to catch their attention. You should be able to look at your website and think about where to improve next—whether it’s catchier visuals, better SEO content or more interactive features like a grassroots community board.

Cultivate Market Insight. You need to have the eye of a hawk when it comes to what your market is looking for, why they need it and how much they are willing to pay for it. Read up on current trends you may be missing out on, and visit competitor websites to see what you’re up against. It’s all about keeping tabs on the changing wants of your market so become an expert on your chosen niche. Soon you’ll see that clicks, visits and conversion sales will rise as you turn your knowledge into solid selling techniques.

With the help of these three broad strategies, you can expect to grow your business and proudly call yourself a super affiliate. And if you’re not convinced that all that hard work is worth it, here’s a rundown of privileges you’re missing out on:

Higher Commission Rates. Super affiliates receive higher commission rates from their product vendors. The EpicToon affiliate program, for example, offers 13% for affiliates who rack up $2,000 to $3,999 worth of referral sales in virtual game services. But this percentage goes up to a big 16% or higher (depending on website quality) once you reach $12,000 in monthly referral sales.

Royal Treatment. Affiliate managers also take care of their super affiliates because losing them would result in a big blow to their sales. These perks vary per product vendor but usually include prioritized pay-outs and yearly performance bonuses.

Niche Expansion. If you gain a reputation as a super affiliate in one niche, you can easily branch out to related fields. For example, if you sign up as an EpicToon affiliate and master the virtual gaming services field, you can choose to promote other gaming related products and earn more cash.

If your goal is to become a super affiliate fast, I can’t recommend enough EpicToon.com. Aside from having one of the best commission rates in the industry, EpicToon.com will help you understand the gaming services niche.

You’ll be marketing a very promising field and your customers will be the millions of gamers now signing up to play titles of World of Warcraft and Star Trek Online. Read up on the EpicToon affiliate program FAQ and maybe you’ll soon join me as their newest super affiliate.

Choose a niche—and know it inside out
Think a business tycoon just “stumbled upon” his or her field of success? Ventures spend thousands of dollars to find a profitable market. The same scrutiny applies to choosing a niche in affiliate marketing, but minus the big bucks investment.

In fact, you only need a good internet connection and some time for self-reflection to know which products you can promote and earn a commission from, which is what affiliate marketing is all about.

Begin by asking yourself these questions: What kind of products do I want to promote in my website? Who buys these products and why? How do I entice potential customers to trust the products I’m recommending? There are tons of other questions to ask, so consult others for advice.

Some affiliates choose their niche based on their “passion”—a good decision if you’re the type to lose interest fast. You won’t easily abandon products you know and love. Another valid route is to scan the internet for niches with growing markets.

I personally promote gaming services like those from EpicToon.com because I like online games and know a lot of more people are getting into them, just from observing friends and family alone!

Set up a slick website
Affiliate marketing boils down to a simple equation. If no one visits your websites or clicks your links, then you earn zero commission.

So after choosing a niche, you should focus all your efforts into creating compelling websites and links. I promote gaming services, for example, so I keep a website that has regular updates on online gaming as well as other topics that my readers will be interested in like computer gadgets and viral videos.

By keeping all these related content in my website, online gamers make it a point to visit my site often. If they browse more frequently, then chances of them clicking and buying from my affiliate banners and links also increase, thus giving me more commissions.

Of course you have to be strategic in where you place your ads and links, which is where good website design comes into play. If you have the funds, consider hiring a professional website programmer who can help you set up online—and is often worth every penny for the expertise they bring like creating an effective layout for your homepage.

Network, network, network!
So you’ve got your website up and running with fresh content, all the links are working, and a growing number of potential customers are saving you in their bookmarks. Great! Now it’s time to reach out and let the rest of the world know.

In boosting your website traffic, be as creative as you can be with your promotion. If you have some spare cash, you can even pay for advertising on other popular hangouts for your target market.

Or do a grassroots approach that doesn’t cost much, like how I spend a few hours posting on forums and blogs where online gamers hang out. Don’t discount real life friends and family who can get the word out there, whether through casual talks or by referring you via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Partner with Trusted, Reliable Programs
It’s easy to take all the credit for myself, that my affiliate marketing business got to where it is today without any outside help. But that would be a disservice to EpicToon.com and all the great product merchants out there who don’t disappoint the customers referred by their affiliates.

See, affiliate marketing is also a game of association—if you refer your loyal website visitors to sellers who then rip them off, do you expect them to keep returning to your site? Of course not—they could even do worse by spreading negative comments about you and the products affiliated with your website. So get a feel for your partners, visit their website, and try their products or services so you feel safer recommending them.

Sign Up for EpicToon Affiliate Program
If you’re interested in promoting gaming services like me, the EpicToon affiliate program is a great choice. EpicToon has been delighting online gamers with their affordable virtual currency and dedicated customer service. They cater to a wide variety of top-selling games like World of Warcraft, Aion Online and Star Trek Online.

More importantly, they make sure my payments are on time and advise me so I can earn more. You can even refer fellow affiliates to the EpicToon affiliate program and get commissions from their referrals. Read up on their affiliate program FAQ for more details or, if you’re itching to get started, go sign up now.

I was skeptical at first when my referral commissions for game services sites such as EpicToon.com showed positive gains in the past year. I even asked: “How can I be making more money on the side when friends were losing their jobs and companies were announcing bankruptcies left and right?”

Affiliate Marketing is Cost-Efficient

Talking to other affiliates made me realize how the cost-efficient nature of affiliate marketing made it resilient against the recession. Companies who no longer had lavish budgets for advertising campaigns migrated online to attract buying customers at a fraction of the cost.

“I think 2009 was the first year where our industry was the only online marketing channel that showed growth year-over-year,” said Jonathan Levine, co-president of LinkShare in an interview last month with revenews.com.

“Because as an advertiser, if I have lots of money to spend I’ll spend it everywhere; but if I only had a very limited amount of money to spend, I’m going to spend it where I know I’m going to get a return to it. And that’s what affiliate marketing is,” Mr. Levine added.

Popular MMOs Weathered the Storm

Affiliate marketing as a whole gained traction among companies looking for internet customers. As an affiliate marketer in the game services industry, I got scared that gamers would leave their favorite massively multiplayer online (MMO) games in order to cut back on household costs.

But to my surprise, gamers still flocked the popular MMOs. Their reasoning is that online games provide cheap, but still fun entertainment. Gamers just have to shell out an average subscription cost of $15 a month per MMO in order to spend unlimited number of hours chatting with online friends or playing a fantasy character.

Looking back, the initial months of setting up websites and researching the MMO market were critical to the great supplemental income I earn today. Those early months learning from partners such as EpicToon.com enabled me to learn more about the MMO industry as well as tips on optimizing my sites for visits and clicks.

The Future for MMO Services is Looking Bright

While 2009 was a small success for me, I’m very excited for what 2010 will bring as the economy enters the road to recovery. Titles such as Star Trek Online and Final Fantasy XIV are launching this year and thousands—if not millions—around the world will sign up for these games. Being an affiliate marketer for services in these online games is looking bright as ever.

If you have the time and net-savviness to become an MMO affiliate marketer, I advise you to join the affiliate program of EpicToon.com. Feel free to look around the blog as well for more tips and information on affiliate marketing. Good luck!

In explaining the power of a niche market, a fellow affiliate with a booming network of referral websites said to me:

“Cornering a great niche is like putting up a lemonade stand across a crowded beach during a heat wave. And competing lemonade stands are camped ten miles inland.”

While the scenario painted a grim picture in my head-what if I ran out of lemonade?-it drove home the point. A niche would set me apart from the thousands of other affiliate marketers, and dominating the said niche could ensure a captured-if smaller-set of online customers for my partner products.

Choose a familiar and promising niche…

In my search for a niche in the vast interweb, I’d considered numerous novelty items, such orthopedic beach sandals and a female Viagra pill variant. But these products didn’t seem right for me. Heck, I barely even knew people who owned these items despite their alleged popularity.

So for a lack of a better solution, I turned to a time-honored ritual: I made a list of things I liked to do and hence, were familiar with.

Things I like to do:

1. Scribbling and doodling on ruled notebooks
2. Watching hypnotic booty-shaking videos
3. Playing massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs)

After writing down the list, it dawned on me that an affiliate business for MMORPGs was a good niche to consider, if only that it held more potential than the first two.

Another thing that encouraged me was how MMOs have been launching left and right, with titles such as World of Warcraft racking up millions in paid subscribers. So there was definitely a growing demand for MMORPG services and products.

…then zero in on a demographic.

When you’ve got the niche problem solved, it’s time to move on to the demographics dilemma. Who among the thousands of online gamers should I go after? What’s their age, interests, and in-game habits?

Pinning down your market demographics-or who you want to visit and click on your sites-is vital for any niche marketing strategy. From product portfolio building to web design execution, these decisions require a precise demographic target, which only you can choose through insightful research.

To help with this, I resorted to using online demographic trackers such as adlab coupled with my own online surveys and industry research. Using these information helped a lot to increase the quality of traffic going to my referral websites.

Of course, real money trading (RMT) sites such as EpicToon.com should help newbies along the way. EpicToon in particular has a great affiliate program for quick and easy online business starters.

For more information on the program, visit http://www.epictoon.com/affiliates or sign up by following the step-by-step starter guide here .

Niche and demographic. Easy to remember right? Use these concepts well, and trust me, you can easily find yourself sitting on some well-visited pieces of online property.

In a normal workweek, it’s not unusual for an affiliate marketer to hunt for cubicles at Starbucks or avoid cute cats like the plague.

Like the other day, I bumped into a college friend at the corner street Starbucks where I grab an occasional latte while managing my budding affiliate business. After the usual pleasantries, my friend asked me if it was my day off from work since it looked like I was spending a weekday just catching up on the latest video posts from the hilarious smosh duo.

Maybe he got the idea since I was wearing my Not Suitable For Work shorts and crocs.

But when I explained to him the nature of my affiliate marketing business-and how it works quite differently from the 9 to 5 job my friend held at the bank-he gave me a quick nod, the kind you receive when people think your ideas are weird but are polite enough to keep their opinions to themselves .

My friend and I had exchanged business cards, and this afternoon he gave me a quick email asking: “Hey, I’m curious. What do you like about your job?”

Having received similar questions from my family, I casually shot him back five reasons why it rocks-and what it takes-to be an affiliate marketer.

Great Income Potential. I didn’t go into affiliate marketing to get rich the quick and easy way. It started out as a way for me to build some supplemental income. I spent a few hours every day fine-tuning my websites and researching great products to promote. Every successful click and purchase earned me a few cents, and roughly a year or so into it, with revenues from referrals slowly reaching hundreds of dollars a day, I decided to trade in my corporate job to work as a full-time affiliate.

No Fancy Prerequisites. One aspect that appealed to me-and other online publishers I’ve met in chat rooms or in real life-is that affiliate marketing is not an elitist business. I’ve met affiliates who became successful despite the lack of a college degree or thousands of dollars in start-up capital. But what they had were spot-on instincts on how to attract online customers and dedication to do research, skills that even soccer moms with web access can hone in their spare time.

Be Your Own Boss. Those who’ve had the displeasure of working for a slave driver can see the benefit in being their own boss. On a more personal note, though, I’ve learned how to avoid procrastination by rewarding myself after a productive day in front of the computer. Not everyone can work efficiently without external supervision, but working as an affiliate forces you to obey your inner taskmaster.

Learn Valuable Trade Skills. Being an affiliate marketer has also sharpened my creativity in solving problems at hand, whether it’s determining a profitable portfolio of products to carry or developing affiliate marketing strategies to entice the right kind of customers to my websites. Thinking on your feet and having a firm grasp on what makes online buyers tick are valuable trade skills that will become an in-demand commodity among firms looking to sell their wares via the web.

Work From Anywhere. As a child, my parents diagnosed me with a serious case of wanderlust. I couldn’t keep still and was always excited with our yearly out-of-town trips. The mobility afforded by my affiliate business allowed me to indulge in this guilty pleasure, so I spend half of my week working out of home. Cafés, libraries, parks-any flat surface can be my office space provided I bring along my wireless broadband and some extra laptop batteries.

Sounding convinced, my friend replied that he’d love to join me in one of my Starbucks work days to observe. I agreed, jokingly asking though that he refrain from sharing the misadventures of his pet kittens (he’s a confessed cat lover).

He asked why, and I said it would send me in a LOL cats viewing frenzy–and my inner boss definitely won’t have that kind of distraction!