When you have made the decision to start making money online, often you will find that a great place to start is as an affiliate. Once you have your product which you wish to sell, it becomes your job to drive traffic to that product.

It sounds simple, but there are definitely techniques that can enhance your experience - and results! When you have a product, learn as much as you can about it, because you never know what kind of questions you may have to answer.

As you learn more, you'll find yourself becoming passionate about the product. This is perfectly natural to expect – and it's a good thing! What you'll want to do is write yourself a list of people who will buy the product. Be as specific as possible. If the product is geared towards women, it's great that you recognize this, but if you can narrow it to "women who are suburban stay-at-home moms who just had another child", that would be ideal.

If you are having trouble, describe yourself. What categories do YOU fall into? Which of those categories do you see other people possibly being interested in the same product, even for the same reasons?

This micro targeting is a niche. That niche is where you make the money. Once you have a few categories which you can identify with, it becomes easier to market to them. If you haven't already, start looking through interest groups and blogs which appeal to you and your interest, but also your product!

Find topics which you are knowledgeable about and post on them. Every time you do so, leave a link back to your page. As you do so, you'll gain a few people who come by to check you out. A certain percentage of them will move through the purchasing process, eventually earning you money.

Your passion, your niche, is like a plant. It may start out small, but with attention and nurturing, you may find yourself in many more niches than you ever thought possible.

It's best to start small, evaluating a few niches. You'll come across one that responds well, then another. Once you've started to see results, you'll know where to direct your attentions.

As you're doing this, you may even start seeing other people doing the exact same thing as you. Don't be discouraged - as a matter of fact, write their information down. I personally recommend keeping your own list of such individuals. They may know of other places which interest you or that you can post. Sometimes, they'll even promote your products!

No matter what, every time you post, make sure you leave relevant information. Otherwise, you might as well be sending spam!

Later on, we'll explain how to harness their information into an email list and the fine points, but for now, what you need to do is find your passion. The reason why I recommend locating a niche close to your passion is simple - enthusiasm. Think about it - when you bought your last car, or stereo, what was the salesman's attitude like? The more enthusiasm they give off, the more passion they have for the product, the less it seemed like they were trying to sell it, right?

This is exactly why we seize on the enthusiasm, or passion. When you are conveying excitement, rather than "you should buy this", it no longer seems like you're trying to be a salesman. Now we could spend time teaching you to be a salesman, but that's not what this lesson is about. Besides, the most important thing you could hope to learn is to be sincere - which won't be a problem, because you're passionate already, right?

The last major reason why we focus on passion in locating a niche has nothing to do with your potential customers. It has everything to do with you. If you are talking to people with common interests as yourself, about a product which you are passionate about, it will be a natural conversation, not a sales pitch. I want you to think about that.

We don't want to change who we are, we don't want to be seen as slick salesmen. That's ok! Just be natural, be yourself! Finding your passion, your niche may take a little bit of work, but in the end it allows you to talk about things that excite you and generally just be yourself.

After all, we decided to make money online in part because it's easy. What's easier than being yourself?

E. Alan Cowgill