I am a total Internet marketing newbie and I feel extremely overwhelmed. I quit my job after I had my son 5 months ago and my husband just got his hours cut back at work, so we need the extra money. I have read in some forums that affiliate marketing can be a great work at home job that I can do part-time and make good money. So, can someone help this newbie out?

I am also a work at home mom, but I have to tell you that affiliate marketing is just not a job. A telemarketer is a job. Internet marketing is a business and you must work hard at your business to make it successful. A lot of people have the misconception that they can, through up a website, add some affiliate links to it and make some good income.

On the contrary, you have to work hard at promoting your site and getting traffic and sales. This is why it is called marketing. You have to market it and market it some more. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about affiliate marketing and get discouraged after a month or two by not seeing any income come in (which will most likely happen).

When I first starting affiliate marketing from home 3 years ago, I was putting in about 9-10 hour days to get my sites started, do my research, and market my sites to death. I only started to see regular traffic and money come in after about 3-4 months and even then it was only a couple hundred dollars and I had about 5 sites up.

But, after about a year, I was making over $4500 a month and I was only working about 20 hours a week. In the beginning, you really have to work and then as you get your sites more established, you can set things to autopilot and work much less. Now I have 2 kids and make almost 6 figures a year and work about 20-25 hours a week when my kids are sleeping.

I have about 60 niche websites and I am in the process of making 5 more. The sites that are the oldest are the ones that make the most money, with a few exceptions. You will have sites that no matter what you do may just not see conversions or make you the money that you want no matter how much you put into them. On the other hand, you may have sites that do a lot better than you ever thought they would and you only put in a minimal amount of time on them.

For an Internet Marketing newbie like yourself, I recommend that you check out www.mattbacak.com. Even though I have been doing this for 3 years I still subscribe to his Internet Marketing Dirt newsletter and learn new things from it. The Internet is always changing and you must adapt your strategies if you want to really succeed. I wish you all the luck with your endeavor and don’t give up!