The disappearance of the physical barriers of time and distance in today's business world coupled with the convergence of telecommunications and computing technologies, doing business and making extra income on the Internet is now easily within the reach of any individual regardless of location, age or social status.

One of the rapidly booming and expanding businesses is the online promotion of third-party merchant products and services. There are currently several thousands of brick and mortar companies and webmasters who offer affiliate programs to website owners to promote their businesses and products and refer clients for a fee. The choice of which product or service to promote and what market to penetrate covers an almost limitless spectrum making the affiliate marketing opportunity a wise choice for people seeking to generate an extra, or even a main, income stream.

Typically, signing up for an affiliate marketing program entitles you to receive a unique affiliate link with a unique affiliate ID that allows you to market the merchant's product or service. This includes the code of a banner link, text box or a button, which you display on your website; whenever a visitor to your website makes a purchase through your affiliate links, your affiliate account is automatically credited with a certain percentage of the sale.

Below are simple 1-2-3 Steps to get you started on an affiliate marketing business:

1. Join an Affiliate Program

Find an affiliate program that closely matches your interests. One of the best places to find an affiliate program is Clickbank.com; there are several thousands of merchants/sellers at ClickBank looking for people to promote their e-books and other related information products. However, before signing up for any affiliate programs, always do your own research to find out which products are most popular. Visit the seller's websites to determine if their sales letters are convincing enough to be able to generate sales and find out the product's hit to sales conversion rate. A product with a conversion rate of 5% is good enough since this translates to 5 sales per 100 visitors.

2. Create your own Website

The best way to promote an affiliate program's product or service is through your own website. Why? Websites are available 24/7! Nowadays, creating your own website to promote your affiliate programs is easy. With very little technical knowledge, almost anybody can create his or her own personal website using readily available website builder tools. Yahoo! Small Business solutions is one resource to visit to find out more on how to register and create your own website complete with all the necessary enhancements and tools to get you up and running in a few days at the most.

3. Fill your Website with Relevant Content

Whatever the type of affiliate marketing program you decide join, the website where you will promote the product or service must contain relevant and directly related content. Regardless if you are promoting e-books, services or conventional merchandise make sure your website content is related to what you are selling or promoting. No product or service dramatically generates sales overnight without promotion, it takes time and effort. If you have no interest in what you are doing, then it logically follows that you will soon neglect or forget all about it.

Simply following these basic steps will get you off and running to a good start on any affiliate marketing program.