Creating multiple streams of income is extremely important when considering any type of home based business. Affiliate marketing is no exception. By creating multiple streams of income, not only does it provide more income it also insures that if one stream fails or doesn't produce as expected, the others will make up for the short fall.

As an affiliate it's fairly easy to setup multiple streams of income because there is usually an abundance of different programs with decent products available. Within most niches you'll probably even be able to find products that complement each other instead of competing with each other. This is an excellent way to bolster your affiliate earnings.

The first order of business is to get your own web site. Something basic will do as you won't need too much web space. There are very inexpensive hosting plans available today, some as cheap as $3.95 a month. You'll need a domain name. These are also very inexpensive and can be purchased for under $10 for a whole year. Most host providers also have domain name registration available.

Your domain name is very important. You'll want to try to include the name of the niche you're targeting in the domain name itself if you can and if it's not too long. If you're looking at the dog grooming niche for example you may want a name like "doggroomingtips.com" or"doggroomingsecrets.com" or something similar.

The next project on your agenda when attempting to achieve multiple streams of affiliate income should be to create your email capture page. Your capture page should be your top priority. Consider this your sales page even though you won't be selling anything in the true sense of the word. By capturing the name and email address of your prospects before sending them to the merchants site you'll build a list that you can send other offers to whether they purchase from the original merchant or not.

It's been said many times by the internet's top marketers, "The money's in the list"! This rings true for affiliate marketers as well as product creators. You can build a list by writing a special report pertaining to the niche you're targeting. Perhaps you can write a review of the product you're promoting or a "top ten" list of reasons to use the product. Offer the report for free so long as your visitor leaves their name and email address. Use a double opt-in autoresponder to protect yourself from unethical folks.

After the prospect has confirmed their address send them to the download page of your special report. And a word of advice, don't just send a download link. By sending them to an HTML web page you can sprinkle in links to different affiliate products.

Also, write up 7-10 emails to go out at 2-3 day intervals, each highlighting a different aspect of the main product you're promoting. Then you can add more emails to go out at 7-10 day intervals exposing your readers to different products in the same niche. Explain how these products complement your main product and why your reader would benefit from the purchase.

By setting up a few of these simple sites offering an array of special reports in one niche you'll be promoting several different affiliate products within that niche.

Find a variety of other profitable niches to target, repeat the above process and soon you'll have a whole network of sites funneling prospects into your sales process. The result -You'll soon have multiple streams of affiliate income in several different niches producing substantial income.