Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative business models available today. It has become very popular over the past few years and many people are now starting their own businesses based on this method of making money online. There are thousands of affiliate marketers around the world who are earning thousands of dollars every month from this business model.

Affiliate marketing is the practice of promoting other people's products in order to make a commission when someone buys that product. This can be done by creating your own website and posting links to the merchant's website or by writing articles about the product and placing ads on article directories such as EzineArticles and Go Articles. The merchant will pay you a commission when the sale is made through your website or link.

There are hundreds of merchants that are willing to pay you commissions for promoting their products. You can choose from a variety of different products to promote including books, e-books, software, electronics, health and beauty products, jewelry, tools, toys, clothes, food, weight loss products, dating services, etc.

To find these merchants you can visit ClickBank, Commission Junction, PayDotCom, Amazon, eBay, and other major affiliate networks. They all offer different types of products and merchants so you will have plenty of choices to make. If you want to get started quickly you should join some of these affiliate networks. They will provide you with the tools and resources you need to get started right away.

Once you have found the product you want to promote you will need to decide how much you want to earn per sale. The more traffic you send to the merchant's website the more sales you will make. If you are promoting a book you may want to charge $50 per sale but if you are promoting an electronic product you may only want to charge $5 per sale.

You will also need to decide if you want to sell the product yourself or if you want to sell it on behalf of the merchant. When you sell the product yourself you will need to set up your own website and post links to the merchant's website. This can be very time consuming and difficult to do. You may also have to spend a lot of money to purchase a domain name, hosting, and other items.

If you want to sell the product on behalf of the merchant you will need to register with the merchant and they will give you the product information. You will then write an ad about the product and place it on an article directory. The merchant will then track your sales and pay you the commission when the sale is made.