Where to start?

[Shaded]

I am new to affiliate marketing but I have been learning about it and I am currently wondering where I should start...
I am mildly good at photoshop so I could get a cafepress shop, but I could also start a blog and work off of that... Or I could go off in another direction. I am just wondering what way do you think is best for me to do...

[scottm]

Being here is a good start... Learning, Doing, Evaluating, and Repeat....

You know what your good at. And what you like to do. Do what you like to do and are good at while learning new things and tracking the results. Then repeat that cycle over and over.

Now, if that involves a CP store, go for it. A Blog, go for it, combo or multiple sites, go for it. Only you know what you like to do and what your good at doing. Just do that and keep reading, learning, and evaluating your performance so you know what to do/learn/repeat and over time... you'll do just fine.

[Aunesty]

The very first thing you need to do - find your niche, what are your hobbies? what do you know the most about? what interests you? Develop your site off of something that you will enjoy spending time working on. Once you have your niche, research, research, research....What is the competition? What can you offer that is different or better than what is out there? Then sit down and write out your plan, site name, design ideas, I personally think a blog is the best way to start, with a content management system in place and plenty of plugins for you to customize your site to your needs. Make your site, put unique content in it, join affiliate programs that are relevant to your site, and start adding links and ads.

Now your site is built, what now? How will you drive traffic to it? Have you properly SEOed it? Linking structure? This is again where you will need to research SEO and online marketing. Trial and Error as well.

Ask questions, there are many here who are willing to help, I am one of them.

Oh and welcome to AffSpot!

[Pixie]

I found my way into affiliate marketing purely on accident. I was researching online a few years ago and fell into a whole mess of online marketing and make money online sites. Through trial and error I learned a few lessons. One never pay someone to let you make sales for them, two focus on one thing at a time and three you fail more than you will succeed at first. I remember buying a bunch of domains and then creating these terrible websites and wondering why no one was coming to them, then I started to pay attention to one of my sites only, and grew it. As I did that I learned some SEO techniques along the way and now I stick with two niches and I am not taking nearly as many advil as I used to.