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The idea of making money online is an attractive one, even more so now that the recession is causing many peoples finances to tighten even more. “Affiliate marketing” is usually one of the first things you will hear about when you begin searching. There is heaps of information out there about this that may be confusing at first, but the process is basically quite simple.

Market research is the first step in the process.

First, you must research markets you are interested in. This is your most important starting point, and you can do this by finding out what your potential customers are looking for. This is the essence of “keyword research” – finding the actual words or phrases people type into search engines to find answers to their problems, and you can be sure that if you do not do your research, you will regret it later.

In order to get a nonstop flood of organic targeted traffic/visitors to your website or landing page. And to raise the ranking of your pages to be found more easily, you need to find the keywords that people are actively entering into the search engines.

While keyword research may sound difficult, it doesn’t have to be. Google provides a free keyword tool (just search for “google keyword tool external” to find it) to search for the keyword or phrase that you enter to describe the product or niche you would like to promote as an affiliate.

When you click on “get keyword ideas” a list of keywords will be generated. This list will show you the number of times people have searched for your main keywords per month and give you an indication of the competition for those keywords.

What you want to do is find a market with existing demand that also has existing competition and products readily available, but not so competitive that ranking highly is next to impossible.

What’s important here is that you remember there must be an audience for whatever you choose to market. Since you are an affiliate, your costs for entering a market are not very high, but it’s still a good idea to take the time to do niche research in order to avoid wasting your time