Have you been lured into online business and internet marketing with promises of the gold you will find at the end of the rainbow? And ended up spending much more than you make each month, and wondering how these marketing gurus make money, if at all?

You aren't alone - there are thousands of people out there who buy various kinds of info products on how to become rich and say goodbye to their day jobs. The irony is that they are still stuck at their day jobs, working even harder to make up for what they have lost month after month in their quest for online profits. Their goal of firing their boss seems a dream more distant now, with their credit cards maxed out with all the online spending they did, searching for the elusive pot of gold.

Actually, it is not the marketing gurus who are at fault. Each one of these products are quite good, and do give some really worthwhile information. The problem really is the fact that there is a mass of information, and you, like others, get confused about which one to follow, and end up making a confused series of efforts.

For example, if you are into affiliate marketing, you try to jump in as an affiliate of various products which are unrelated to each other, and start promoting the affiliate programs haphazardly. End result? Lots of spending on various programs without focus, leading to little or no sales, with just the hole in your pocket to show for your efforts. The hole becomes bigger with every program you promote, jumping from one to another in the hope you will see the light at the end of the tunnel, one day.

What then is the right way?

There is a way. But it is not the get rich quick kind of way. We need to be clear on certain concepts first:

a. Whatever affiliate program you choose, choose one program which will also have some backend products which you can sell.

b. Think of your affiliate product as a product serving a niche market. The creator of the product has already researched the demand, judged if people spend money buying products in this niche, and created the product. You don't need to re-invent the wheel.

c. Create a content based website around this product, and dig into affiliate directories to find other products related to this product. The content of your site will be just promoting affiliate products you find, giving useful content and leading to your visitor clicking your affiliate links.

d. Be sure to go for products which supplement the main product, rather than compete with it. This would enable you to sell more backend products after your first sale.

e. More importantly, there are two classes of people interested in this particular niche. The ones who haven't bought this product will buy this first. The ones who have already bought this product earlier will get interested in the other supplementary products, and end up buying them. Result? More money streams for you.

It is clear that you really do need a website of your own before you can actually make worthwhile money selling other people's products as an affiliate. The website enables you to

a. funnel your target audience

b. give them products they are searching for, and want.

c. Capture their mail Ids so that you can continue your selling efforts to the ones who don't buy the first time.

d. Continue to sell your supplemental products to the ones who did buy, and

e. Makes visitors regard you an expert on the subject

f. Most importantly, gets you free targeted visitors from the search engines.

So, forget about other means of promoting your affiliate product, and focus on building a website around the niche represented by the product. Be sure you sign up as an affiliate only for products which give you a reasonably decent earning per sale, so you make money faster.

Your success in this will depend on how well you create your website, with the content flowing naturally into leading the reader to click through your affiliate link, and of course, the strength of the sales letter in the merchant's website.