When you venture into internet marketing or affiliate programs, I believe you already have something to sell or promote, be it a product or service. However, if you do not have one, this article will give you specifically two ideas how to go about selecting one. For a start, in general, it will be much easy to sell or promote information products such as, e-books, e-course, e-zine or e-newsletter, downloadable CD or audio program as you do not need to keep an inventory or have any up front capital outlay. This is the beauty of internet marketing or affiliate programs.

The first point to consider is the scope of the product. For a start, it is best to select a product that is applicable to most people, that is, a wider audience base. Take for example, if you select a product that has a small audience, such as an e-book on keeping a particular pet at home, may be rabbits, only those people already own rabbits would be interested or those that are considering to have one. As such, your target audience would be small in number. However, if your product touches on generating income online fast and with proven methods, this might greatly arouse the interest of a sizeable potential buyer. This gives you an idea on the effects of choosing a narrow or broad based audience product.

The second point to consider is your personal interest or expertise. If you have considered starting your own internet marketing or affiliate programs, one of the likely reasons is that, you do not really like your job. If not, you would have stayed on and happily work till retirement. You want a change, you want something new, you want something that you can talk about with enthusiasm, you want something that can make you feel alive and you want something that can motivate you. So, it only makes sense to chose something that interests you. Otherwise, you will face the same misery as your previous or current job. I do not think you would like to do things that you detest. By putting live and passion into what you do, your target audience can really sense that you believe and preach in what you are selling. Over time, you will be building trust and sales with your audience.

Thus far, we have briefly talked about two important points in choosing a topic. That is, a large target audience and your personal interest or expertise. But how to choose a topic that covers both these areas? Let us continue.

Firstly, we will discuss on the topic of your personal interests and areas of expertise. When you have knowledge in an area, you will be more confident and comfortable talking about it without difficulty. You will be able to response in a professional way to whatever comments or feedback. In addition, you will also most likely to receive unsolicited favourable feedback from buyers who are pleased with your product or service. Best of all, they will spread the word for you and advertise for you. Spreading words can be like a bush fire. It is fast and unstoppable. This is what we want to when we do internet marketing or participate in affiliate programs.

So how do you actually develop your personal interest? Experience is the key. Experience means that you have the knowledge about the product or services. To gain that knowledge, the only way is to actually use or try it yourself. By using it personally, you will be able to bring out the benefits of the product across to the audience in real terms and not in guessing terms. You can also show the real rewards to your audience as a result of using the product or services. For example, such as your web site or paypal account. Consider this, when you buy something from a sales person, you will be more convinced if the sales person is able to answer all your questions and able to demonstrate the product in front of you. Well, for information products, you can provide e-mail response when someone asked you a question. Only if you know the product well, you will then be able to response to the query effectively and not maybe, perhaps etc..

If you already have an area of expertise or skills, excellent, then use it to your advantage. When talking about expertise here, it does not really mean that you have to be an expert (a PhD holder in the area). It simply means that you are more comfortable with the product and services and can speak of it confidently. If you can do that, your potential buyer will be more comfortable with you as they know that they are buying from a knowledgeable and reliable source. It is only logical for buyers to do that.

You may think and convinced yourself that you do not have any area of expertise. But wait a minute, you will be surprised when you start to really think about it. There are many topics you are actually good at but did not really nature it. Think of your college time, what you like to do the most, what interests you, what games or subjects you like? These are all potential topics. If you miss college, what do you do at home everyday, cooking, cleaning, looking after kids, etc..? Again, these are all potential topics as well. If you work in a company before, what do you do and what are you good at? All these are equally good topics to start with. You just need to list them all in a paper and start writing a note about them. Take out a paper now and start to list all the things you know. If you have read this article thus far, do you know that you can at least turn on the computer and surf the web? This is an area to consider also.

When you have the list of things you have some knowledge, look them up in the internet and I believe that there are enough information and products for you to take the initial step. To have a head start, you can go to Click Bank and look at the products there that match your list. This is a good start as you do not need to register anything yet. With a huge database, you will be sure to find something that you can promote and have interest in.

Now that you have your product or services, you can do a search on the internet to see the popularity of your choice topic. Search you topic using the three major search engines, Yahoo, Google and MSN. By doing a search on the internet on your selected topics, you will be able to see the popularity of you topics. Go to the top 20 sites and look at what they are offering and see if their products or services match your interest. If yes, you can see if they have affiliate programs for you to join. If you like them, join them. If you take heart to complete these two suggestions, it is a good start for you to start your internet marketing or affiliate programs. You can fine tune along the way.

We have discussed on two aspects on how to select a topic of your choice for internet marketing and affiliate programs. Doing initial research takes time. But this is a crucial step that cannot be missed and taken likely. Hope that the information in this article gives you an idea of how to go about choosing a topic for your initial internet marketing and affiliate programs venture.