An affiliate program is one in which you promote another's product and receive a commission if that product sells through your promotional activities. These products can be anything and everything under the sun and the associated affiliate programs run the gamut from excellent to something that is little more than a downright scam.

So, needless to say, it is imperitive to do your homework here. What kinds of payment programs(monthly, biweekly, etc.) are available to you, the affiliate? Does a monetary threshhold have to be reached before you are sent your commission? Does this program have a history of on time payments and how good(or bad) is the ranking of this affiliate program? These and many other questions need to be answered before you commit your time and efforts to selling or promoting someone's product.

All right, what resource do I recommend that will teach you all you need to know about affiliate programs? In this case, there is only one. The Super Affiliate Handbook, by Rosalind Gardiner, is, in my opinion, the best affiliate marketing ebook on the market, hands down. The subtitle of the book says it all: "How I Made $436,797 In One Year Selling Other People's Stuff". Affiliate marketing is one of the three methods I use to drive income in each of my four income streams and is something everyone in this business needs to know about. This is an all encompassing ebook and covers an enormous amount of detail. Her focus is on the basics, finding the right affiliate programs, building quality websites and earning the visitor's trust. As a newbie, I appreciated Rosalind's down to earth style and found myself highlighting nearly every page. I give this one my highest recommendation.

Now we have 2 methods of income in place(AdWords/AdSense and affiliate marketing). But what about our website? You guessed it, next time I will discuss site creator software and what programs are the best in a very crowded field.

The Teacher