When looking at affiliate marketing from a business perspective, you should be focusing on a few, very important factors. You need to figure out your own strengths and weaknesses, find out how to compensate for those very weaknesses, or better yet ? learn something new and overcome them yourself. All information you need to learn how to become a successful affiliate marketer is, that's right, online ? Free of charge. The only thing you need to do is find out what you need ? and where to find it.

Whether or not you succeed depends just as much on your ability to research and evaluate, as your skills in web design, SEO and other, traditional affiliate marketing skills. Most of these services can be bought, but you are the only one capable of the research and the evaluation ? You know yourself better than anyone; what suits you? How can you use your strengths? What do you need to buy, what can be found for free ? There are many, many things to figure out, in order to make it right from the start.

The first thing you need is an idea of what the site should be about. At the very least a good hunch on the topics you expect to cover. When deciding on a topic, you need to take a look at the competition. If you choose the wrong keywords, you will have a very hard time to get a high listing on any of the major search engine. It's better the be number one in an smaller niche, than a 7:th page placement for a popular keyword.

Figure out what keywords you will be targeting to find out your chances of making a profitable website.

You should then do some light research to find out two things;

?Is there a market and good affiliate programs for your search terms?

?How is the competition? Are you likely to reach a high enough SE placement?

Pinpointing these things is of highest importance before you start your work.

If you can't seem to find any affiliate programs searching for your site's keywords, you might face a problem when trying to generate a profit. You will probably be forced to choose between only a smaller number of programs, making the chances of finding a good one smaller.

If the competition is tough - That's a whole other story. That usually means it is a profitable topic, since many others are trying to get into that area as well.

If you find it hard to reach a high placement on the search term you intended, it might be easier to focus on a different search term, making it more likely to be on top.

If you are new to affiliate programs and/or building a web site, starting out with a topic with a light or medium competition is better. Then, after learning from your mistakes, you will stand a much better chance to succeed when building your second or third site, perhaps in a more competitive, but lucrative niche.