If you’ve spent any amount of time online pursuing opportunities to make money online, you know that affiliate marketing associate programs are very popular.

Affiliate online opportunity programs are very appealing to those looking to make money while they learn Internet marketing. Affiliate programs are free to join and easy to sign up for. This makes them especially attractive to moms looking to work at home and others looking to work at home part time.

In fact, it’s so easy to set up an affiliate Internet marketing web site, that you’ll find plenty of them online promoting everything from kitchen appliances to online dating.

There’s nothing wrong with this, except the illusion of making easy money with an affiliate marketing mlm network or any affiliate marketing opportunity is more myth than reality. Most affiliate web sites make very little money – if any.

Why is this?

I think it’s because it’s so easy to sign up for a bunch of affiliate programs and throw them on a web site, BEFORE you learn how to really build and promote a proper affiliate site that’s capable of producing an actual profit. So, unless there is a real effort to use target marketing and promotion, these sites usually flounder and fail to attract much attention.

The simple truth is that the Internet is the ultimate information super highway and most people won’t take the time to stop by your little shop of affiliate wonders to look at all your affiliate links.

Aw, don’t be so disappointed.

The truth is that no one wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves “I’m going to visit that little obscure site promoting xyz products today and buy a few of those interesting products they’re advertising.”

The reality is that most people could care less about your site and your dreams of making money online with your affiliate programs. No, Most folks are looking for specific “information” about a product or service and they won’t waste much time surfing around to find it.

So, the web sites that smartly use keywords to write appealing copy for their affiliate sites, that gives visitors the information they’re looking for, will have a much better chance of attracting visitors. Of course, this also depends on how nice your site is to look at, and whether it’s a virtual affiliate farm or a legitimate site that promotes a particular niche product.

The best affiliate programs are ones where the vendor (affiliate) also has an attractive, easy-to-navigate, give-the-customer-what-they-want, and easy to order type of web site. Also, these vendors are very helpful and supportive to their affiliates.

Another important truth is that you should resist the temptation to promote lots of affiliates on your web site. This is the dreaded “affiliate overkill” syndrome. You should especially stay away from affiliate programs that have absolutely nothing to do with the theme of your web site – these will not attract any interest from your visitors.

So, the bottom line truth about affiliate programs is that, although they are easy to set up, it’s really not very easy at all to make money with them. This is true even if you’ve done everything right. It takes a lot of patience, tweaking, and testing to nurture your affiliate site into an income generating profit machine.

But, don’t let this discourage you from jumping into the affiliate marketing waters and getting your feet wet. The more you do, the more you learn.

And that’s the truth.