For Internet marketing newbies starting their journey in Internet marketing, affiliate marketing is the fastest way to start making money online.

So what exactly is an affiliate marketing program?
An affiliate marketing program is a system where a creator of a product enlists other people or companies to help sell the product. Those other people (called affiliates) who helped sell the product get a percentage of the sale proceeds and gets paid automatically after the sale has been made.

Not all affiliate marketing programs are the same. But good affiliate marketing programs should not charge for affiliates to join. After all, affiliates help create sales and the vendor only pays the affiliates after a sale is made. In fact, owners of affiliate marketing programs will do their best to make it easy for their affiliates to market and sell their products.

Internet marketing newbies with no products of their own and no subscribers list (or opt-in list) to start with, affiliate marketing provides the means by way of products, website and payment system already set up and running.
All that needs to be done is driving traffic to these affiliate product websites by a variety of methods.

But that may not be the smartest way to go about doing it. Like all internet “gurus” who says, “The money is in the list”. What is this list they keep talking about? This list is actually a list of names and email addresses of people who signs up or subscribes for a free gift or newsletters.

So what a smart internet marketer would do is set up a website that describes the benefits of a particular product and at the end of the description to have a means of allowing an interested reader to fill in his or her name and email address to either, receive a free gift (report, eBook or software) and/or to sign up for a newsletter.
This single page website is known as a squeeze page or landing page. Sometimes it’s also known as opt-in page.

The function of a squeeze/landing page is to describe the benefits the product would bring to the reader and get them interested enough to fill in their names and email addresses in boxes (known as opt-in boxes) and then send them to the affiliate product website.

So the basic idea is to drive as much traffic (known as “suspects” at this stage) as possible to the squeeze/landing page and get as many “suspects” as possible to submit their names and email addresses (which would turn them into “prospects) and send them to the affiliate product website. And let the scintillating sales page on the affiliate product website convert as many “prospects” as possible into “buyers”. And if its done successfully, you’re on your way to financial freedom!

Depending on the method the traffic is driven or generated, the squeeze/landing page could take on a more complicated form. A reader searching on the internet for a solution for a problem or answer is initially looking for information. If your squeeze/landing page contains relevant information besides opt-in boxes, the reader would tend to stay longer. In between your pages of relevant information, there are simple links that contain your affiliate information (known as affiliate links) which the readers click for more information. This would bring them to the affiliate product website and this would increase your conversion rate of turning the “suspects” into “prospects” and then to “buyers”.

Yes, the internet marketing newbie still do need to build a simple website in the form of a squeeze/landing page. To enable this squeeze/landing page to be put up on the Internet, a domain name and a web-hosting account is required. These can be obtained from web-hosting companies like An Hosting, Netfirms or Hostgator.

A domain name is the web address or the URL (Universal Resource Locator) that you type in the box at the top to go to a website. A web-hosting account is an account you opened with a web-hosting company to store all your website information (design, layout, contents of your website). These web-hosting companies stores your website information (among many others) on computers commonly called servers, that runs 24/7 so that anyone on the Internet can access your website at any time.

To build a simple website, a software that can create and edit a webpage is used. Frontpage, Dreamweaver and NVU (free) are software that can be used for creating and editing a webpage.
However, if an affiliate marketer finds all this beyond his/her capability, website building can be out-sourced.

Therefore affiliate marketing is one of the easiest, fastest and low-cost way for an inexperienced internet marketer to start making money online.

In a nutshell, LeadsLeap (created by Kennth Koh) is a membership cum networking program where you can advertise for free in newsletters and set up joint ventures with fellow members.

Membership to LeadsLeap, is free. However there’s another level of membership called PRO Membership. The PRO Membership quantity is set at 5% of total membership and is currently closed due to the 5% quota being met.

Regular newsletters with contextual ads will be sent to members. As free members, they would have to check out ads in the newsletter at least once in 30 days. You, as members can earn points for clicking and checking out the ads. Points accumulated can be redeemed for products such as eBooks and videos related to Internet marketing.

You are also encouraged to recruit members which become your downlines. Downlines recruited by you can go to 10 levels deep.

You can put ads advertising your website in LeadsLeap newsletter for free. As a free member, only your downlines will be able to see your ads which you have to renew or update every 14 days. There’s a 30-day challenge starting from 13th January to 12 February 2008, that if you can recruit directly 100 members, your ads can be seen by all members for 6 months.
As a PRO member, your ads can be seen by all members.

Now, I’m not a big fan of MLM and words like “recruit” and “downlines” set off a bell in my head. But I guess, MLM is here to stay, like it or not. Membership is free, but there’s no free lunch, so have to do a bit of work.

Another attractive feature of LeadsLeap is the joint venture or JV Network. There are organisers who will post innovative JV proposals or campaigns in the membership site and all members will be able to review and decide whether to participate.

Campaigns could be events like mega giveaways, where Internet marketers could each contribute an item to give away to subscribers. For example, if 40 participants were interested in a “Christmas Giveaway” and each of these Internet marketers have a subscribers list of roughly 200, there would be 40 gifts. These 40 gifts or products should preferably be something that they are currently selling and would be offered to the combined subscribers base of roughly 8000 (40×200).

This is a win-win situation for all participating Internet marketers, as their subscribers list has increased exponentially and subscribers has many more gifts than if each marketer were to offer only their product to their own list.

Such JV opportunities were previously available only to Internet marketing “gurus” with their clout for proposing such JVs. But through LeadsLeap, even those relatively new Internet marketers could participate in such JVs and leverage on fellow Internet marketers subscribers list.

Here’s a view of the membership site:

 There is also a Free Bonus link where free members can download products such as:

1.  How to Create Paypal BuyNow Button
2.  How to Generate Leads through Co-Registration
3.  7 Photoshop Tutorials
4.  How To Convert Cragslist Into Your Personal ATM
5.  How To Generate Cash From Your Blog With Or Without Clicks
6.  Website Conversion Mastery
7.  How To Get A Lot More Google Traffic For Free
8.  Skype Product Secrets
9.  5 Easy Ways To Maximize Your Adsense Commissions
10. 10 Easy Steps To A Google Friendly Page
11. Instant Audio Mastery
12. Instant Blog Traffic
13. 10 Easy & Instant Programming Tricks For Your Website
14. How To Master Web Graphics In 10 Easy steps
15. How To Create Profit Pulling Toolbars For Free

and many, many more…
I’ve stopped here because I’m getting bored typing the freebies list. For freebie-junkies, the free stuff is already worth signing up for, which is also FREE anyway!

For the rest of us (shush! I’m a freebie-junkie too!), the free ads and JV Network is worth signing up for. I’m sure there’ll be more features and stuff added later on.
LeadsLeap was just launched on 17th January 2008 and it definitely pays to be early-movers to be a member.

The fruits of a successful Internet marketer are very tempting to a newbie in Internet marketing.
The dream of making money while sleeping or relaxing by the pool and beach sure conjure up a tempting picture!
And the image of cash pouring in at the push of a few buttons cooked up by some Internet marketers just increases the excitement felt by Internet marketing newbies.

The statistics on sales made online sure makes that a definite possibility. According to figures given by PC Magazine, in UK alone, web sales in 2007 rose 29% to a staggering £130 billion! Now, who wouldn’t want a slice of that online pie? Even if its a teeny weeny slice!

At Internet marketing seminars like World Internet Summit, you can commonly hear the Internet marketing experts say, “As long as you know how to send email, you can be Internet marketer!”

But is it really possible to make your fortune from the Internet?
Sure, its certainly possible to make piles of cash from the Internet. It’s been proven before.

But then again, is it really that simple?
Certainly…for some people. People with the right aptitude and mindset do make fortunes online. But for the majority, a huge, overwhelming majority I suspect, making enough money online to quit their day-time job remains a pipe dream.

Many new Internet marketers want to make it big but don’t have a clear idea how to go about it. So they buy coaching programs from “gurus”, hopefully to short cut the learning curve. But many “gurus’” coaching programs are not of the quality they claimed to be. Even if they are, newbies are not guaranteed success.

Even as the coaching programs’ quality is important in contributing to a newbie’s success, just as important if not more so, is each individual’s mindset and aptitude. Even with the best Internet marketing coaching program, if the newbie is not prepared mentally and physically to take action to implement it, he or she will not succeed. If he or she is not prepared to put in the hours to go through the program, he or she is better off saving the expensive fees, steering clear of such coaching programs. Some people buy such programs after being shown how good they are, hoping that the programs will somehow transform their lives.

The successful Internet marketers are some of the most hardworking people despite what some claimed. If the newbie is not mentally prepared to dig in the trenches and do the required work or wants success bad enough to do whatever it takes, its best to stick to their day jobs. Sure, they can outsource the tedious work but not everything can be outsourced. So what does it take to be a successful Internet marketer?

7 traits of a successful Internet marketer, in no particular order:
1. An entrepreneurial spirit
2. A can-do, never-quit attitude and does whatever it takes to make things happen
3. A marketing expert and be innovative in marketing techniques
4. Internet & technically savvy (not an absolute must but it sure cuts your learning curve)
5. Ability to focus on what’s important, one at a time in terms of priority
6. Integrity as a good business person. Building trust relationships successfully is huge, huge factor in Internet marketing
7. Be well-informed about the current and effective marketing techniques and ability to apply them quickly. This also means willingness and ability to learn and apply new stuff (techniques and technology)

If you have all 7 traits, GREAT! If not, you can still succeed if you have some of them.

If you are unwilling or unable to find time to take action to learn the ropes of internet marketing AND implement the knowledge you’ve acquired, don’t sign up for the “guru’s” coaching program! Don’t fool yourself into thinking that just by purchasing the program, you will somehow succeed in creating a passive income stream.