If you’re new to online affiliate marketing, you may be looking at all the discussions on affiliate forums wondering, “Wow, these guys are making so much money – but it’s easy for them because they have a lot of sites promoting their products, and how can I achieve anything if I don’t even know HTML nor have ever done anything online more complicated than simply browsing! And it probably costs a lot of money to buy domain names, host them and build sites on them!”

In reality, getting started in affiliate marketing is much easier than you think – and it’s possible to do it without even having a site of your own. You do not really have to spend the money on domains and hosting to get started and achieve your first sales. If your funds are limited, or you are unsure about the outcome of your new affiliate activity, investing money into it can wait until you see you are making money off it.

You see, there are two types of affiliates. First type relies on paid advertising (PPC) such as Google AdWords, second type relies on organic traffic – that is, the search engine visitors searching for the corresponding products. The PPC affiliates often drive the visitors directly to their affiliate URL as opposed to a standalone site (although Google has made it more difficult recently). But doing PPC requires an initial investment. The second type of affiliates rely on organic traffic from the search engines – and here’s where the opportunity lies for you. Just like for PPC affiliates, it is not absolutely necessary for an affiliate working with organic traffic to get a site of their own right away.

Here’s where the opportunity lies for you. Instead of registering a domain and buying a hosting account, go to Squidoo.com and register an account there. Then create a page about the product you want to promote. You do not need to know HTML, or anything else about building sites. Just fill out the forms you see there, add your banners, product pictures and – most important – your affiliate link, and you’re done!

Is it really that easy, you may ask? Well, you might want to research the topic you’re writing about, as creating a really good and interesting page (or lens, as Squidoo calls them) pays off – the better your lens is the more traffic it gets. Also, an added benefit of Squidoo is in it being an authority site – the one that Google likes. It makes ranking your page easier.

Of course, you still have to put some effort into promoting your page. Unlike with your own site on your own domain, you are a bit limited in ways you can use for promoting your page: you cannot submit it into directories, for example. But you can still bookmark it, place a link to it into your forum signatures, submit articles to article directories with links to your page, and so on.

Squidoo is not the only place that can get you started – you can also try Tripod, or Yahoo! Geocities, or Hubpages, or WetPaint. All these places give you a free account and web space, and do not require any HTML knowledge. Or maybe you fancy a blog over a static page? OK! Head over to Blogger.com and register yourself an account – setting up a blog there as easy as setting up a page in all the places I’ve mentioned previously.

OK, as an added bonus to this article, here comes my favorite technique: suppose you have created pages at all of the places referred to above. Now, to get the most benefit from setting them all up, link them all to each other. This way, promoting each one of them will benefit them all.

In the beginning, this may seem like a lot of work and a lot of time. But once you start seeing the traffic coming in through your affiliate links, it will be really rewarding! And when the sales start happening, you can invest into your own domain and host. Back when I was just starting out making money online, I did the same way – and now I have a bunch of my own sites making me money.

And don’t worry if things appear difficult or beyond your knowledge about the web – MoreNiche has many guides for people just like you in which you can find answers to all your questions, from putting up your affiliate links to promoting your sites.

About the author

IrishWonder is well known internet marketer within SEO circles.
He is also an author of the brand new Directory Marketing guide.