While it is always your best bet to have a personal website to sell your affiliate marketing links through, it is not needed in order to succeed. There are several very common methods of marketing that will still put your message in front of a world of customers.

The most common form of affiliate marketing is through commercial email. There are many ways to develop double-optin email lists as you will not want to "spam" potential customers with unsolicited advertising emails. You can, for example, enter an ebook or software product to an online Giveaway event to build a mailing list without needing your own website. Coupled with an account with a professional autoresponder company, you will have a powerful advertising tool. Remember to keep your email messages brief and friendly with the hyperlink to your affiliate product's webpage included.

You should take every legitimate opportunity to build onto your mailing list. Some standard venues for finding new people to invite to join your list are social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. Forums dedicated to your specific niche allow you to make direct contact with like-minded people. Proving your knowledge of your topic on these websites helps build your credibility as a source for your affiliate products. It also allows you to ask questions of your own if you need extra knowledge. Again, all this is done without having a personal website.

Writing articles for the article directories is another of the most profitable and popular methods of advertising your affiliate marketing products links. The secret to using articles is to put together good information for potential readers. You will add the hyperlink to your affiliate product page in the resource box at the end of the article. Many directories allow other websites to republish these articles which adds to the links leading in to your product. This is why you should write interesting and helpful product descriptions and reviews. You can submit the same article to many article directories. Even if you are not a good writer, you can find ghostwriters on the webmaster forums who can do the article for you for a very affordable rate.

You can also add to your reputation and expertise in your niche by putting together an informational ebook. The Portable Document File (PDF) format is the most effective for ebooks. The free program Open Office creates excellent PDF ebooks. Again, you will do a search for ebook directories. Any interested potential customer can then download your ebook. Your affiliate products page links will be built into the copy in your free ebook.

Most companies that run affiliate marketing for their products also provide premade promotional material. These are usually the HTML code for banners, text links, or landing pages. All that is required is to post the HTML code for the advertisement to your product's webpage included. These can be used on classified advertising sites and traffic exchanges. Once more you have a wide range of locations for your product's advertising to be shown to prospective buyers and you still have not had to bother with learning to build and maintain a personal website.

Building your own website does have advantages in how you can customize and display your affiliate products but it is by no means necessary. By studying and focusing on these methods of affiliate marketing without a website you can build every bit as successful an online business as anyone. You can spend a greater amount of time increasing your business through links without having to learn how to build and operate a website of your own.