Credit: ba1969 at sxc.hu

So you work hard to earn as much money as possible from your affiliate accounts? When you have only 24 hours in each day with so much to do, it is easy to forget about those small things you need to do to take your business to the next level. Many affiliates assume that if they earn some money in an affiliate program, they are going to get paid. There have been many instances in which affiliates have not gotten paid for the work they have delivered. If you are not tracking your payments, you may miss the commissions that should have been paid to you. Here are 5 reasons you want to keep track of your payments:

• not every affiliate program is reliable: the large affiliate networks are in general more reliable than smaller ones. If you happen to work with small affiliate partners, you want to make sure you keep track of your payments each and every month. Not everyone actually sends out payments. Some forget to do so. Then there are some charlatans who use your efforts to make money and keep it all.
  
• know your partner: by tracking your payments each and every month, you can get a better sense for what your affiliate partner is all about. Knowing which affiliate programs pay early and often can help you choose the best partner for your business.
• find out about delays: sometimes, your affiliate partner could be going through a rough month. That does not mean they would pay you for your efforts. If you are not tracking your payments, you will never find out either way.
• issues with your account: a few months ago, we did not receive a bit of money from one of the well respected networks. It turns out our account was flagged for offers being ranked in the search engines organically. We would have never known that rule had we not looked for our payment. Apparently, the partner had changed its search engine policy without notifying affiliates by email.
• compare affiliate programs: by tracking your commission checks, you can compare comparable affiliate programs to find out which one works the best for your business.

Everybody loves making a lot of money from their affiliate business. Focusing only on getting your large commissions in not a smart way to run your business.

Starting an affiliate business is very easy. Obviously, you want to make a lot of money or you wouldn’t be in this business in the first place. But at some point in your affiliate career, you are going to have to make a decision: whether you want to incorporate or stay as a sole proprietor.

I don’t know about you, but I got started in affiliate marketing as a one man show. I did everything from web design to logo design to writing content. It wasn’t the most efficient way to do it, and knowing what I know now, I would probably outsource a bunch of those tasks to get more done. But from day one, I made the conscious decision to incorporate an LLC in my state to make sure I treated my affiliate business as a real business.

Based on my experience, it is always better to incorporate. Incorporation helps you:

• realize tax benefits: in some cases, you can get tax benefits by forming the right business entity. Who wouldn’t want to have more money at hand?
• protect your assets: wouldn’t be tough to have everything you have worked for get taken away by a lawsuit? That’s why you should incorporate a business and protect yourself.
• protect your name: a corporation is a real business, and you can reserve and protect your business name by forming a formal entity.
• gain more credibility: before I incorporated my affiliate business, everybody kept talking about how noble my “hobby” was. Only after I formed my LLC that folks realized I was in a serious business.

Obviously, there are lots of other benefits to incorporating your business (try Surprisingly Simple if you are in a hurry). But you really don’t have to be a legal expert to register your business. Thankfully, there are many incorporation services such as Company Corporation that allow you to outsource this process. So, don’t let the fear of being overwhelmed by all the legal stuff stop you from protecting your assets and business.

That’s the question many new affiliates ask themselves at some point in their career. In fact, a lot of affiliates start out promoting products that are related to their passions/hobbies. A lot of gurus talks about how you should pursue things that you love and promote products in niches that you are passionate about. I am not sure I agree with that. Being passionate about something can often take your unbiased perspective away. 

People are often too attached to their passions. You love baseball, and you want to get into that market. Of course, since you are passionate about it, you believe you have what it takes to beat people who have been in that market for years. Now only someone who’s biased about that niche would make rash decisions and enter the market without proper research. In reality, if you are neutral about baseball, you have a better chance of doing your math to figure out if the niche is a viable option for you and your business. 

Doing what you love is an absolute gift that not many of us get to do. If you love affiliate marketing and you are not spending your day time pulling your hairs out, then you understand the business side of it. Affiliate marketing is a business, not a hobby or a walk in the park. If you don’t make money, it’s rat race time. In my case, I was willing to sacrificing all TV shows, PS3 games, and late night parties to make it in my niche. Not many people are willing to do that. And some people believe they can do all that and make a living in the affiliate marketing world. You may! But that never worked for me, and I doubt it works for a lot people. At the end of the day, you should think about EPC, market size, and things like that before jumping in a niche that you love but could be potentially worthless for affiliates. Good luck!

Affiliate marketing is real business, and like any real business, you need to account for business expenses in order to be prepared to run your business more effectively. Some expenses are straightforward, but it is surprising how affiliate marketers fail to account for some the most obvious expenses in advance. Here are the expenses that I think you should take into account for your business in order to avoid a major surprise:

• Necessities: I highly recommend using a separate computer for your affiliate business. You may even need to get a laptop if you plan to run a mobile business (on the go!). Necessities include computers, compter peripherals, phone lines, and even notebooks.
• Hosting and Domain Registration: you should also account for monthly and annual costs associated with hosting services and domain registration services. While these may not sink your ship if you don’t account for them, they are still a big part of your business.
• Tools: as a part of affiliate marketing, you should tools such as WordTracker, Wordze, SpyFu, and other tools to get a competitive edge in your niche. These tools can be very costly, so you will definitely notice the money deducted from your balance at the end of each months.
• Office Space: I know a lot of people work from home when they go full time with affiliate marketing. But I do recommend you getting an office space to get out of your house once in a while and have a feeling of going to a real job. While that is certainly not a pleasant feeling when you work for somebody else, but if you work for yourself then you shouldn’t have any problem with that.
• Advertising Costs: whether you are planning to only use pay per click advertising or you want to try media advertising, you should have a good estimate for how much you are prepared to spend on advertising.
• Training Seminars, Conferences, and Products: this is pretty self-explanatory. If you want to stay at the top of your market, you may want to try going to different conferences or try top products in your market. It will be expensive, but the networking that you get in some of these events is priceless.
• Group Subscription Fees: one of my favorite subscription services is SEOmoz. It is simply a must have for any SEO professional. Depending on your market, you will have similar subscription services in your market. I recommend you sign up for them to get a sense where your market is heading to and get the latest information about your market.

There are many other expenses to name here, but you should definitely run a comprehensive forecast to see which ones you can afford, and which ones can wait. It’s simply not possible to have everything when you start, but as you make money you can buy more things for your business. Good luck!

Have you ever thought about why in the corporate environment, people with offices are in general more happy than others. In my opinion, having the flexibility to design your own work environment (which you don’t get to do when you are in a cubicle) can go a long way to setting the tone for your everyday. When I was in the corporate environment, I hate the whole cubicle experience. There was never enough light, and you felt as if you were in prison for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. Very painful.

But the good thing about having your affiliate business is that you have much more flexibility. You can start when you want and design your office how you want. I do recommend that you take time to figure out the right conditions for you (lighting, colors, and …). I also recommend having a separate room for your office. I have tried the whole running a business from a bedroom thing, and I can tell you it doesn’t work well for most people. If you can’t rent a place for your business, you can just try a different room. But make sure you don’t spend too much time behind the computer. I know some super-affiliates who run their businesses from their beach houses. Not everyone has that option, but it is certainly something to aim for, isn’t it?