Helping others about Affiliate Marketing..

[MzJme]

With the economy the way it's going. I have had several of my friends loose their jobs, houses, and cars..Some have been trying to find a job for over 18mo. I have helped a couple of them set up blogs and gave them links to help them get started with Affiliate Marketing(including this site), but find they keep asking questions, so I decided to type up a step by step guide that I could just send to them, but I want to make sure I can benefit from it also. Many of my friends know how to use a computer to check their email and surf the net, but no experience with blogging or affiliate marketing (most had never heard of either). I still consider myself a newbie as I am still learning, but want to help some of my friends so, If anyone has suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it..Thanks

[Niche]

First off, I Sympathize with your friends. The recession is taking a lot of casualties. I think they need to have reasonable expectations with their affiliate marketing campaigns. It as taken a lot of us a few years to get where we are now.
I'd advice them to make use of the free resources available online. To learn as much as they can and implement what they learn

[Linda Buquet]

I sympathize with them too. It would really be hard to learn if you had no Internet experience at all besides checking email. But people can learn and many here started from scratch knowing nothing. Like niche said they just need to have realistic expectations and know that this is not "get rich quick".

Good luck with your guide. You are probably going to have some valuable info to share since you are still learning and everything is fresh in your mind.

[Teli]

It's scary the turn out economy has taken and the people who were washed away with its tide. Your friends also have my sympathy and well-wishes.

As for your guide, I wouldn't necessarily re-invent the wheel. There are plenty of affiliate marketing guides roaming the internet, some are available at a cost and some are free (if you're willing to do the leg work), plus this forum is filled to the hilt with lots of wonderful information.

On the other hand, writing the guide can also be a great way for you to learn as well (something that it seems you understand). Basically, through a do then record what you've learned type of approach, you an impart your knowledge and teachings to others.

In the meanwhile, I wish you much luck and success. If you ever have any questions, you're definitely in the right place.

[Dan_Green]

Sorry to hear about your friends also, but if you ask me, taking a friend who lost his house / car, doesn't know much about building websites and doesn't have a job (and also has kids maybe?) and teaching him how to make money online is in my opinion not a very good solution because it takes many months to start earning the cash that he needs NOW. (Also, you don't start with earning 2K a month), Unless they find another job that generates money instantly (i.e. offline) I don't see how they can get out of this unfortunate situation.
Doing that is even crazier than dreaming about becoming a local rockstar in a few months...
In online marketing only the professionals make good money and becoming a professional in any field takes years.
Of course there are exceptions who somehow make it fast, but most of the people who get into this business are "regular people" who don't get rich fast.

About making this guide, you don't need to write everything from scratch, just make a beautiful organized collection of articles, ebooks, forum pages, videos etc. and put them in a logical order for the beginner friends you have.
Well, that's my advice...

[MzJme]

WOW, Thanks everybody for all the great feedback...

[Bob-InsightUK]

Use it as an opportunity; what you are doing is very good of you!

Set up a website and create your own guides, plus have links to favorite guides written by other people. Your website can then become 'the' place for newbies to go. You can of course monetise this with:
a. banners
b. affiliate links

and most importantly

c. 2nd tier affiliate marketing - some Networks provide you with a slice of comission for any affiliate that you recommend. PaidOnResults is one of them; you could earn your living just by recommending people to PaidOnResults and never get a single affiliate click yourself. I'm sure there are more Networks out there which offer such things; so don't forget to include your affiliate link to the networks otherwise you could lose out!