Many companies spend thousands of dollars on business plans. They employ consultants, do extensive market research, etc. There is no need for you to go to these extremes. Chances are you are the only one that will ever see your business plan and you remain the best person to prepare your own business plan.

Having a business plan will remove many of the reasons people fail to make money online and limit comments such as "Oops, didn't think about that..." or "Wish I new this beforehand..."

You want to make money with affiliate marketing. Where do you start?

I always recommend that new marketers start promoting a product they know or are passionate about. It simply makes it so much easier when you are doing something you enjoy! Assume you love animals and would like to promote a product that can benefit dog owners. This is a very wide field and your first step is to narrow down your niche as far as possible while checking that there is indeed a demand for this type of information.

Although you can promote both physical as well as information products I suggest you start with information products. Most information products are available via instant download (instant gratification!) and you can generally earn very high affiliate commissions on information products as they do not actually cost the seller any money once they have been produced.

What are people searching for? Establishing Demand

Having the best product in the world will not feed your family if there is no demand for it. Secondly, search engines rank websites based on RELEVANCY and choosing the right keyword(s) plays a very important role.

For example, when you search for "solutions for dog fleas" you don't want to see websites that cover dog food, dog training or dog breeds. No. Your dog has fleas and you are looking for information on solving this problem.

You need RELEVANT sites that will give you specific information and advice.

It is crucial to know what keywords or key phrases people use when searching for information as well as the average number of searches per keyword.

The latter is obviously required to establish demand. Do people search for "dog fleas", "dogs with fleas" or "getting rid of fleas"? There are many keyword research tools available on the internet, some free and some paid. I consider keyword research a vital part of internet marketing. Not a "nice to have" but a "must have" and suggest you get the best keyword research tool you can afford.

I recommend Wordtracker. It is, in my opinion, the best keyword research tool available on the market. Wordtracker offers a free trial option and also has a free keyword suggestion tool.

Typing in DOG FLEAS into Wordtracker's keyword research tool I notice that the top keyword DOG FLEAS get an estimated 250 searches per day while a phrase such as FLEAS ON A DOG only get an estimated 7 searches a day. That is a huge difference!

But hey, don't ignore "unpopular" keywords! Low volume keywords often mean fewer competitors! I would rather be on the 1st page of Google for a keyword that only get 10 searches a day than on the 100th page of Google for keyword that gets 300 searches a day...

Tip: Do not make any assumptions. A low volume keyword does not necessarily have fewer competitors than a high volume keyword! Even if it has fewer competitors this does not mean it is a "better" keyword. You need to take both the daily search volume AND the number of competing sites into consideration.

Once you have established demand it is time to have a look at how many sites are competing for the same keyword(s). Once again, Wordtracker offers a tool that is quick and easy to use. Wordtracker has a very useful measurement tool called "KEI" that rates keywords based on search volume and the number of competing sites. You can also do a manual search on Google by typing in your keyword or key phrase between quotation marks ("keyword") and note the number of competing sites.

Tip: Do not be dismayed at a large number of competitors. Even if you have 25,000 competing sites you should still be able to rank very well in Google for your keyword(s). However, if you have 100 million web pages competing for the same keyword you should rather focus on using another keyword!

By the way, by referring to websites and search engines such as Google I am not saying you have to build a website or blog that has to rank well in the search engines for your keyword(s) if you want to succeed with affiliate marketing. No. In fact, you don't even need to have a website or blog for affiliate marketing!

However, having a website that ranks well in the search engines can bring you a lot of free organic traffic. Traffic that is normally very targeted to your niche. Even if you have no interest in ranking well in the search engines it is still very advisable to have a blog or website where you can send people to for more information, collect their details, etc.

The point is that you have to establish that there is a demand for your niche and, depending on the number of competitors you have, consider narrowing your niche as far as possible while making sure that demand remains reasonable.

Solving problems

It really helps to offer people solutions to problems. People that are searching for solutions to specific problems make better potential customers than people simply browsing the internet because they are bored.

Do some research into your niche to find out exactly what questions and problems people have that they need solutions for. There are many ways to do this type of research. I recommend you visit blogs and forums where you can find your target market.

Make a note of some typical questions, the number of views a question gets as well as the number of replies and what replies are given. It can be worthwhile to do some research into a topic that many people are enquiring about and build up some content of your own.

The better you understand a problem the better the solution you can offer!

Finding affiliate programs to promote

You have found a niche, established that there is a demand for it (people looking to find solutions to a specific problem) and have determined that the niche is not flooded with competitors. In order words, you know that you can reasonably expect to get your share of the pie. The next step in your business plan is to find a suitable affiliate program to promote that you can present to your niche as the solution to a problem.

I highly recommend searching Clickbank's database for suitable affiliate products. It is probably the easiest way for a new marketer to find and promote an affiliate product.

Francois du Toit is a full-time internet marketer and the author of "Digging For Gold Nuggets -- Lessons Learned In Internet Marketing" .