Taking a focused, step-by-step approach to any new venture - especially your new affiliate business - is absolutely vital.

And it's easy to get led astray and lose precious time when you're hopping from site to site looking for information about affiliate marketing.

It's also hard to know who's got 'the goods' and who is just trying to empty your wallet.

Never fear.

I've done all the research for you (not to mention that I've been in the affiliate marketing business since 1998 and wrote 'the bible' of affiliate marketing.

So, whether you're just getting into affiliate marketing as an affiliate, a merchant or an affiliate manager; listed below is an ordered approach that you can follow to make starting your business simpler.

Cheers,

Start Your Affiliate Business on the Right Foot...

1. Sign up for the [NPT] Newsletter - First things first, sign up to receive what more than 50,000 subscribers already enjoy - the free weekly Net Profits Today newsletter in which I cover all aspects related to Internet and affiliate marketing. You can sign up from any page on this site.

2. Read the NPT Blog to stay up-to-date. I post to the NPT Blog in between regular newsletters.

3. Ask questions in the NPT Forum. The NPT Forumites are a friendly HELPFUL bunch. Got a question? Get answers in our Forum!

4. Get the Super Affiliate Handbook. Originally published in 2003 and updated regularly, the Super Affiliate Handbook:How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online, has become the industry's standard training manual. Talk to any successful affiliate marketer and they'll tell you that the Super Affiliate Handbook was the first book they read on affiliate marketing - giving them a well-rounded education to go forward. Nowadays, it has become 'required reading' for both affiliates and affiliate managers.

5. Check out this list of my most highly recommended Affiliate Training and Tutorials - I've listed additional and advanced affiliate marketing tutorials in this section.

6. Check out reviews of the latest software which will make your life as an affiliate marketer easier. Some will help you research topics and keywords, while others will help you work with affiliate product data feeds to build your sites lightning fast!

7. Got a site? Ready to start making some money? Then check out this list of Affiliate Networks (where you'll find affiliate programs) and learn more about find out Contextual Advertising such as Google Adsense.

8. Last but not least, for online merchants that are thinking about starting an affiliate program, there's the 8-part article 'How to Start an Affiliate Program' that covers reasons for starting an affiliate program, and a wide variety of affiliate management solutions (including those for digital product merchants).