Finances are tightening up across the board due to the current global recession.
Almost everyone seems to be affected so it's hardly surprising that people who need extra cash are looking to the internet for the purpose of making money online.
You don't have to spend long surfing the net looking for business opportunities before you come across the term Affiliate Marketing.
It's a simple concept: You sign up to promote an existing product with a large market.
You become an affiliate for that product.
Basically you post links to that product in places on the net where it will be seen: on Google, on MSN etc or maybe eBay or your own website.
There's loads of information "out there" on making money online and Affiliate Marketing: so much that it might seem overwhelming.
But basically it's quite simple and just needs an ordered, systematic approach.
The first thing you need to do, if you are interested in affiliate marketing is Market Research.
You need to find out what people are looking to buy: What they are willing to spend their money on! Time spent now on market research will pay dividends later on.
This is called keyword research.
We look for the actual words or phrases people type into the search engines in search of answers to their problems.
Keyword Research is absolutely essential for making money online, or more specifically affiliate marketing.
If you skip this stage in your market research you will live to regret it.
Targeting the most popular keywords will ensure that your product promotions rank highly enough in the search engines (in other words they are listed in the first few pages of Google or MSN etc) to generate a perpetual flood of targeted traffic to your site.
Keyword research is not difficult! Think of a problem that a lot of people want to solve, (say making money online, curing some medical problem or keeping tropical fish - It doesn't really matter as long as there's a huge demand for it), type Google keyword tool into Google and enter in a keyword or phrase that you think people would use if they were searching for products in that market.
(For instance keeping tropical fish or making money online).
Click on get keyword ideas and a list of related keyword ideas will be generated, along with the number of times each one has been searched for in Google per month.
If lots of people are using those keywords you know there's a demand for your chosen product or service.
So now you have to search for ready made products that will satisfy that demand.
These are usually ebooks or other downloadable digital products.
Don't choose products that bring you into competition with huge organizations or companies because that competition will be much too steep.
There must be a demand for your market.
Affiliate Marketing costs are low, so you won't be risking much capital, but even so, you don't want to waste your time going up blind alleys.
So make sure you do your initial keyword research.