There are many ways you can temporarily get an edge on your affiliate competition. At least one internet marketing "guru" invents a new trend every day to help you do this (his/her goal is to sell products). The problem is that these strategies usually don't work, and even if they do, they're only temporary. Eventually, these strategies will hurt your business.

If you're serious about starting a business on the internet, the easiest way to this do is to market affiliate programs. You don't have to be an expert on anything, you don't have to handle customer service, and you don't have to spend a lot of money to get started.

Although there's a lot information about marketing affiliate programs, there are some simple tweaks you can do that will jumpstart your business, and anyone can do them.

Your first step should be to build a website. There is plenty of free software available to help you build a website without knowing HTML, and you don't have to be a genius to learn how to FTP. (This is uploading your site to the internet.)

Most affiliates never succeed in a program because they'll market the program for only 30 days, use only the sales materials the merchant provided, and then they wonder why they aren't rich.

If you want to succeed in any business, affiliate or not, you have to be different. Presell the merchant's products; you can only do that if you have a website.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy either. You can take care of two business tasks at one time by simply building a lead capture page and promoting your list. Include several emails in your series discussing the merchant's program. Explain why it works. Give your reader real information about your topic and not just an endorsement of the merchant's product.

If you're a customer of the program, even better because then you know things about the product most affiliates won't.

You can also use your website as a way of showcasing different merchant programs.

Although you need to avoid using javascript as much as possible because it isn't search engine friendly, many merchant programs, especially on the larger sites like Commission Junction and Linkshare, have additional resources on their own sites you can use. This includes datafeeds and RSS, both search engine friendly types of code you can easily use to add self updating content to your website. This code keeps your website fresh, and the search engines will visit more often.

You'll also find store generators you can use to generate pages for your site, and many of these only require you to add your affiliate ID, some keywords for the types of products you want to offer, and then you just copy and paste the code onto your site. Many of these store generators are now search engine friendly, making your site super search engine food, as well as unique.

You can find store generators by typing in the merchant name and adding the search term "store generator". You can also visit the merchant's site first to find out what tools are offered.

Finally, once you've developed a little technical expertise, and you understand the basics of site building and script installation, you can try your hand at some of the more basic scripts for site building. You can create anything from a full fledged Amazon store, to your own niche friendly Net Shop.

You can search for these scripts by simply typing the store you want into the the search engines, and then add the word "scripts". For example, if you want an Amazon script, type in "free Amazon store script". You'll find plenty of results, and some don't even require a database to run.

Regardless of what type of site you choose to build, whether it's a simple list page, or a full fledged content site, make sure you build a list so you can recycle your traffic. Automation is a key ingredient in a successful business because it allows you to focus on the tasks that will make you money.

Find a few good affiliate programs you like, that pay well, do your keyword research and find an untapped market, and you'll be well on your way to succeeding as an affiliate.