For anyone with dreams of being a top affiliate making money online, Internet-based affiliate programs seem to have everything going for them. They are usually free to join, they can offer very generous commissions, and you can start from scratch with virtually nothing. Here are my three easy steps on how to make money with the Internet.

1. Find a good affiliate program to promote. Yes, I know... This is really obvious, but you'd be surprised at how many people get this wrong. They blindly promote a program they just took a liking to, instead of doing some basic research to see if the program is suited to what they want to achieve.

You need to find a balance. Going for an affiliate program that pays out $100 a time is great, but it's likely to be in a very competitive market. On the other hand, choosing one that pays only $10 a time is likely to mean too much work for too little reward.

You must visit the sales page and decide whether or not you would be tempted by the offer. Does the page make a dozen different offers? Not good. The potential customer needs just one focussed offer. Is the sales page easy to understand, and easy to buy from? It had better be if you hope to get any commissions. Don't promote a sales page that confuses you -- it will just confuse other visitors too.

2. Decide which niche you want to concentrate on. You don't have to do this, but I prefer to focus on one broad niche, and find affiliate programs in smaller niches under this. For example, if you decide on "Internet marketing" as a broad niche, you might choose "online money-making guides" as a smaller niche within the broader niche.

3. Form a plan for promoting your chosen affiliate program. Don't work blindly. Decide on how you will promote the product. You can choose pay-per-click programs, such as Google AdWords to promote your program, but if you don't know what you are doing it may cost you more than you make, at least at first.

You can always put up a web site to promote your program, but it can take a while for a new site to get indexed and ranked in the search engines. However, one method does work, and it can get you going very fast too: write articles to promote your program.

Articles have power. Always write useful articles. Make them informative and interesting. If you do that, people will quietly thank you for the service you have provided. Your bio, or resource box, at the foot of the article can have a link back to your website. If you provide good enough information in your article, some readers will click through to get more information. Then it's up to your web page to do the rest. And that, my friend, is the fastest and best way I know to become an affiliate making money online!