One of the great things about affiliate marketing is that it is extremely easy to get started with. Anyone can get started in affiliate marketing, even if they don’t have technical knowledge or do not know how to set up a website. Here are 3 incredibly simple ways to make affiliate profits without owning a website!

#1: Pay per click marketing

The Google Cash method was made famous in 2005. The concept was simple, alluring and very profitable: advertise your direct affiliate link on Google Adwords. It’s a method that anyone can get started with in under an hour. This method isn’t as effective as before because of competition on pay per click search engines, but it is still quite profitable when executed in the right manner.

#2: Article marketing

Article marketing involves writing lean, informative articles and submitting them to various article directories on the web. Doing so allows you to tap into the huge website traffic these directories get on a daily basis. Some article directories don’t allow you to link directly to your affiliate product in your resource box, but you can set up a redirect from your own domain name to your affiliate link. This is one of the best zero cost ways to get started making your first affiliate commission!

#2: Craigslist and US Free Ads

Craiglist and US Free Ads are online classified ads sites that are superbly effective in driving highly targeted visitors to your link! Whenever someone is surfing through these sites, they are looking for offers that interest them. This means highly targeted prospects. You are not allowed to advertise your affiliate link directly on Craigslist, but you can link to a website or blog that has your link.

Following the recent introduction of cutting edge technology we can now offset print full colour brochures and flyers including colour photo of the individual recipients, on each one, on the fly.

And you can do all this with offset quality.

You can print a full colour multi-page document one page at a time, in the correct page order, ready for binding.

You can run a live press proof, on the correct stock to see exactly how the finished product will look.

You can print say a small run of annual reports (say 10) at minimal unit cost.

The press is called the Indigo and here’s how it works.

The Indigo is a Digital Offset Press and it’s strength is the ability to print subsequent sheets entirely different from the previous sheet and the following sheet.

It’s primarily used for short run colour work and personalised direct mail documents.

Its printing process is based around the ElectroInk technology, which uses small colour particles suspended in Imaging Oil (Isopar) that can be attracted to the sheet or repelled by means of varying voltage.

The ink forms a very thin and smooth plastic layer on the surface of the paper.

These particles are so small that the printed image does not cover the underlying surface of the paper, as is generally the case with laser printers.

This process brings the Indigo print quality closer in appearance to conventional offset lithography, whereby the ink is actually absorbed into the paper.

The suppliers of the Indigo provide the option for users to mix their own ink colours to match Pantone references. This is common with non-digital offset litho presses, and is one of the primary features that separates them from other digital printing devices.

Users can also order special pre-mixed colours, for example fluorescent colours such as pink, orange, green, yellow, red, etc can be printed with great success.

Some Indigo presses can print up to or seven colours in a single pass.

The name Indigo comes from a company founded by Benny Landa in 1977.

His idea was to manufacture photocopiers, however the development of ElectroInk technology lead him to create a Digital Offset Press by replacing the traditional ink with the new technology.

The E-Print 1000 was the result, released in 1993, a plateless digital offset press.

Hewlett Packard, a long-term research & development partner of Indigo, purchased the company in 2002.

Basically there are two versions of the Indigo Press, which can be broadly grouped by commercial (sheet fed, mainly for paper printing), or Industrial (web fed, mainly for packaging).Operators need to be specially trained to run Indigo’s as they are quite different operationally to conventional offset presses.

Although print quality from early models was suspect, the current series does not suffer from any particular issues of note.

In any event, the versatility of the press in terms of personalising marketing documents would far outweigh any minor problems.

A lot of people jump into Multi Level Marketing (MLM) or Direct Sales because it offers them a chance to have their own business at relatively inexpensive startup costs. Most MLM or Direct Sales businesses allow the would-be entrepreneur to come in at anywhere from $100 or less, to a few thousand dollars. Which is a drop in the bucket when compared to trying to start a franchise which can start off on the low end at around $75,000 or more.

In my case I had a burning desire to be my own boss. I literally HATED the thought of working for someone else. I loathed the idea of having to ask someone to take a day off, to live MY life. My problem was I had no product no service and no ideas. I felt trapped. Actually as a Network Engineer I had a service but it was not something that I liked to do, so I knew it would not be a viable business for me to promote. I remember going to the bank to see what type of loan I could get to start up a franchise. The loan officer was actually an acquaintance of mine from college. When I submitted my paperwork he looked at me like I was an alien and said… “Wow! You make good money why do you want to start your own business?” In my mind I’m thinking “Why do you want to have your life controlled by your manager, boss or whomever?”

Before I go too far off on a tangent let me get back to the point of the article…

I have compiled some tips that I have used to run my business successfully. Keep in mind there are many schools of thought on this subject. I have listed below some things that have helped me maintain my focus and operate successfully.

1. Do your Due-Diligence!! If your planning on starting a franchise, or joining an MLM or doing Direct Sales make sure you research the company’s track record. Are they reputable? How long have they been in business? Are there any lawsuits pending on them for false claims or bad business practices? What kind of support will they offer you in running your company or selling their product?

2. Know your product and be proud of whatever product or service you are providing. You have to be willing to stand behind your product. Remember, when your doing your own business you don’t have that huge corporate company to hide behind. If your offering junk people will be linking that junk directly to you personally. It is hard to overcome a bad rep.

3. Run your business like a business! I cannot stress that one enough. Many people doing MLM or Direct sales don’t often achieve success because they do not put enough work into it. Act as if you are an employee of yourself, then think.. Would I pay myself for the work and effort I put in today? If you were working a 9-5 would your boss tolerate the effort or amount of work you did? This is very important in the beginning stages. Once you get your business up and going, you can then put it in to cruise control.

4. Stay Excited! If your not excited about what your doing odds are you will not stick with it long enough to achieve success. When most people don’t see that immediate success they lose the excitement that they had when they first started, with that they lose focus and desire then end up giving up.

5. Know what you want to accomplish every day. Write your goals for the day down if you have to. For example…

a. Ship orders.

b. Place 3 ads today

c. Send follow up emails to leads I spoke with yesterday

d. Call 30 leads

e. Come up with 2 new ways to market my product/service.

6. Look towards the future, vision your success. Some things that may keep you focused are… thinking about what you will do when you achieve mass success. Think about what kind of house you will buy. Will you go for the Ferrari or the Lamborghini, or whatever your dream car is. Also think about the people in your life you will be able to help. Will you pay off your parents home and your kids and school loans?

If greater than 97% of new marketers who start an online home based business spend far more money than they ever make and fail miserably within their first year in business why in your right mind would you want to start a home based business?

The answer is easy actually but we’ll get to that later on.

The reasons the majority do not see success when they start their online home based businesses are many and they all start with if:

• If you cannot generate traffic to your web page, you’re dead in the water.

• If you do manage to generate some traffic but your web page sucks, the traffic will not convert to leads.

• If you manage to generate a few leads, you still have to pick up the phone and call them. Most new markers sound so nervous and needy on the phone that they scare the heck out of their prospects before they have a chance to even introduce their incredible opportunity.

• If you do manage to luck out and make the odd sale but your product cannot stand on its own two feet, you’ll be toast before you know it.

• Finally, if you can’t generate business, you become increasingly desperate and deplete your savings account or worse rack up your credit card with a variety of opportunistic advertising methods and run out of money long before you make enough sales to get you started.

Welcome to the 97% club.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be like this any longer. Online marketing has progressed into the 21 century to the point where you can access turnkey marketing systems that virtually eliminate all the problems we’ve talked about above.

Using the right turnkey marketing system exponentially increase your chances of success by allowing you to build sales momentum making your business successful before you run out of money. This buys you the time to learn the complicated business of online sales and what will make you successful in the long term.

Just stop and think. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable starting a home based business if you could fall back on a marketing team and tangible products that will help you through the pitfalls of starting a new online business? The team can help you in:

• designing web pages that work

• generating traffic to that webpage and watch them convert into leads

• feeling great about the product your selling because it can stand of its own two feet with real value for the buyer

• most importantly, in not having to pick up the phone and call your prospects because someone with a wealth of experience will do that for you leaving you to educate yourself on what it takes to become successful as a savvy online marketer. This alone is an absolutely huge benefit to the new marketer.

The key is to do your homework and align yourself with industry leaders who will share the benefit of their experience and help you through the learning curves. If you’re new to online direct sales, why risk your future by setting out on your own when there are options available that give you a much greater chance of long-term success?

Keep in mind that you will have to pay a fee to join a system like this. It doesn’t happen for free. But while there will be a cost to having the majority of work done for you but benefits of using the correct turnkey system far out weigh the downside of the extra costs incurred. In other words you will actually have a much improved chance of making a fantastic income once you get up and running. It’s worth it.

Now, back to the question of why you would start your own online business in the first place? An online business in network marketing is a great choice for the budding entrepreneur because the start up costs are far lower than a regular bricks and mortar type of business. You do not have to pay huge franchise fees and with the right type of turnkey system in place you have the time to learn while you work.

Recognized financial giant Robert Kiyosaki has stated in a number of his books and presentations that the only way to accumulate true wealth is to either own a business or to invest wisely. Being an employee is sometimes a safe way to go through life but unless you take the time to invest your earnings (and few rarely do), you will never accumulate a healthy enough bank balance to live the life you want and pass on a legacy to your future generations. In addition, done correctly, operating a home based business can put you in an advantageous tax position allowing you to keep more of your income for yourself.

The opportunity offered by starting the right kind of online home based business with a turnkey marketing system combined with stand alone products is something that everyone should consider doing. The benefits are life changing and the lifestyle can be simply wonderful. I wish you the best of success.