An affiliate marketing business may be one of the most profitable ways a person has to use the Internet as an income producing tool. This profit making approach to the Internet uses the power of advertising on many different websites to generate money and spread the awareness of one's business across the vast pages of the World Wide Web. An affiliate marketing business is built on the cooperation of other websites to host ads on their pages free of charge until a sale is made. Many affiliate or colleague type businesses are built on a network of sites that are related to each other. Common themes such as all things automobiles or all things travel are often a common bond between colleague sites. But many colleague type networks are built on just the willingness of other sites to host each other's ads without any commonality.

An affiliate marketing business that is started from the ground up takes a great deal of effort and time to assemble and monitor. Many colleague networks already exist that companies can join and the work has already been done. While there is the opportunity to make some income from those networks, the real money is made when a person compiles and runs his own affiliate marketing business. And because there are already thousands of networks at work, getting one's own network noticed or to stand out will take some real ingenuity. The key to success for this entrepreneurial effort is a lot of research before the actual construction of the colleague program is undertaken.

The first and most important step is to decide what idea is going to be promoted. A person has to have something to promote or sell on a website. Remember that the only one who could make anything about nothing was Seinfeld. A website may be about discount cruises, used computers, swimming wear or doll collections, but the site ought to encompass a passion that the entrepreneur has for a subject. That passion will come shining through in exciting copy writing. One of the real advantages about a colleague program is that a person doesn't have to have a warehouse full of products to be successful as a colleague marketer. One's own website can be about an idea or a destination or even a blog that covers trendy news stories.

To actually build one's own affiliate marketing business network, there must be one website that is the authority on the subject of the network. This website must gain high ranking in search engine results when keywords are entered into a search page. This website will be the flagship for the entire network's presence on the Internet. From this website a person can have many related affiliates who are posting ads to link to their own sites, as well as the flagship website. The more innovative the site, the more other colleague networks will want to be a part and the more profit making ability then becomes available.

The tough work is to get one's website really known. This might be done by first posting a blog on the subject of the main website. Post articles and comments every few weeks and place an invitation link to the website in the blog. Invite people to post comments and talk about the subject of the website often and ask for feedback and be looking for possible affiliate members through these conversations. In the race of life to make a living and keep our heads above water, we can forget the most important things. We are reminded of this from scripture that says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)

Whatever type of ads a person is using in their affiliate marketing business, they need to be unique and standout among all the other online advertisements. Catchy headlines and come hither copy writing to induce clicks is a key to profit making network. One might even consider using focus groups to help nail down the most catchy and eye-appealing ads and copy. Making one's own affiliate directory is also a great idea for promoting the network's colleague sites. In fact, including other directories is a grand strategy and ads can be alongside all of those listings.

Building an affiliate marketing business network, no matter what many of the get rich quick websites claim, takes extensive time and effort and one must constantly be looking for new affiliates and innovative ways to display the product at hand. One of the most engaging responsibilities of managing one's own affiliate marketing business network is staying in contact with the affiliates, encouraging them, asking questions, and together looking for new ideas to market the product or idea. The cold hard facts about colleague marketing are that most networks only make their members less than five hundred dollars a month. This happens because of poor copy writing, poor site construction that doesn't look professional, and perhaps hosted on a free website hosting service which can be an integrity question mark to other networks. A fact mentioned earlier cannot be emphasized enough. A business only started to make money will fail every time. For a successful business to get off the ground, a person has to engage in what drives his passion. Whatever it may be, traveling or cooking or old cars or copy writing or any other interest, chasing after something that does not interest someone will soon get very very old.