This post is part of “August – Make Money Online Month”

Before you jump in to a new affiliate program there are five important points you need to go over, at least these are my personal five. If you have never done any affiliate marketing before I hope these steps save you a lot of time and money in the future.

1. Ignore the payout – Don’t be enticed by a high payout. This most probably means that either the product is in a highly targeted niche, like $100,000 diamond rings, or you won’t get many referrals, like text link ads.

2. Research the company and the site – Find out their ethics, any mission statements, the people behind them, past records if available and whatever else you can. People within this industry move inside it’s borders – meaning if you know of someone that has done something successful in the past and you see their name associated with a new project, you know you’ll be fine promoting them. Also, if the site looks ugly they probably don’t care – which means you shouldn’t either.

3. Do you like it? – If you don’t feel right or passionate about a product then don’t try to sell it. I have absolutely no excitement towards a few niches in affiliate marketing and will never promote them – no matter how successful other people have been in it.

4. Too popular – If you are thinking of entering a market that is popular, here’s my advice just stay out of it. Because by the time you hear about it, it is already dying in popularity. You might get a few referrals here and there but will end up spending much more than others to get favorable ROI numbers.

5. Motivation – If you don’t have motivation, well then you have nothing.

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About the author

Hyder has been blogging for the past two years on this blog. He started Weborithm, his web company, in 2007 and along with designing blogs and websites also releases various web related products.