After you have decided on which affiliate marketing business that you would like to join, the first step is to sign-up as an affiliate. The information requested from you on the affiliate marketing business program sign-up forms differ from each program.

You will be asked to give your name and email address on the affiliate sign-up form. You will also be asked to choose a username and password. The username is a name that you would like to be known as while being an affiliate of the program.

You must enter your email address correctly because the first thing that will happen is the affiliate marketing program will send an email to you requesting you to confirm that your email address is correct and that you did in fact request to be signed-up and agree to receive information from them.

You will want to white list their email address as suggested by the affiliate program. This will ensure that you do in fact receive the email they are going to send you.

The email you receive from the affiliate program may request that you click on a confirmation link. Then you will receive an introductory email.

Click on the link to access the affiliate section of your home based business, once it is open in your browser bookmark it in your favorites so that you have easy access to it in the future.

Once you have accessed your affiliate back office it is a good idea to go to your Profile or Personal Information page just to check that the information you inserted on the sign-up page is correct.

Most important is the information they require in order to pay you. Be sure that your postal address is 100% correct if they are to pay you by check. They will request a valid e-mail address if you use PayPal or some other payment processor service.

You will receive regular emails from the affiliate marketing business programs that you join, so it is also a good idea to open a folder in your email account with the name of the affiliate program.

Explore your back office and spend time going through all the links so that you get a good understanding of the program and go through the training program that they provide. Some affiliate marketing business programs will provide you with the name and contact details of your sponsor, so don't be afraid to contact them if you need assistance.

Also you may well find that the affiliate marketing program has a forum. If it does you should spend some time there so you can ask questions and seek advice from other home based business owners.

If you are considering joining a number of affiliate marketing programs in order to earn multiple streams of income, it would be a good idea to get your own domain and market them altogether on your own website. You can expect to generate a strong residual income with this type of affiliate promotion on your website.

Copyright (c) 2008 Jim Suzak