David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

The way I see it, you have 3 choices when you want to pursue a career in affiliate marketing. One is quick but costly, the other two are cheap but time consuming.
 
So what are the three options?

Pay Per Click

This is the fastest way to make money online but it is also the most expensive and risky. Naturally, the more risky something is, the higher the rewards can be. Take trading shares for instance.

Get this right and you can be earning in the region of what Kieron does. Get it wrong and you could end up penniless.

Bear in mind that just because this way is fast, it doesn't mean it's easy. It's like most things in life - you get out of it what you put into it. However, with a bit of trial and error, you can get some good results.

Online Media Publishing

In other words, writing.

This can be a slow long slog but it has long term benefits. Writing one article a day will net you 365 articles a day. If you are writing for a career, you need to be looking at at least four articles a day (1460 articles a day) with an aim of 8 a day (2920 a year). If you want/need more, you could outsource but remember, quality costs time and money.

The articles need to be researched and cleverly written with keywords embedded in them.

The problem with publishing is that it takes an awful long time to get somewhere with it. Plus, you need to have a fresh style of writing that works with what you are trying to achieve.

Web Services

For the more technical marketer, creating monetised web services can pay dividends. A web service can be anything that helps a visitor by providing a service. Scholr helps people research books and Compare Sat Nav helps people compare prices of GPS systems.

The key here is that whilst it is easy to get carried away, your focus must be on the money. If you build a site that people can advertise their oversized snacks on, how can you make money from it? Furthermore, is there scope to earn a lot from it by using new and novel monetisation methods?

The Best Way?

The best way is probably a combination of the three - develop a web service, drive traffic to it via PPC and grow the site organically via publishing. The key is patience. Don't expect a flood of visitors when you launch a site. It's like a baby - it takes a while for it to find it's feet and grow.