There are a couple of choices you need to make if you want to earn money from article marketing. The first choice is whether to use a free blog or other free webpage as your landing page or whether you should buy a domain name and set up your own website. My advice would be to get your own domain name right from the start.

Many people are drawn to affiliate article marketing because they have heard that it can be done using all free resources. That is absolutely true but, if you are prepared to spend a small amount of cash (and by small I mean under $10 a month) you can increase your chances of long-term success with article marketing.

Here are three very good reasons why you should have a website of your own.

1. Control. Owning your own website will give you control over your work. You can keep your own website online without having to worry that it might disappear overnight. If Google decides to delete your free blog or Squidoo decides it no longer wants any content in your niche topic, your work will be down the drain and there is nothing you can do to save it.

2. Niche Name. Another reason for opting for owning a domain is that you can choose a name that suits your niche topic (ie a name that includes a strong keyword relating to your niche), and that will help with your ranking in the search engines.

3. Choice of Tactics. When you own a domain you can choose whether to build your own landing page or to use the domain to redirect visitors straight to your affiliate sales page.

Looking to the future: if you are successful and create a lot of traffic to your website, owning your own domain name means you will have created something saleable. When you decide to give up internet marketing, you can sell the domain name; if you had put all your work into free blogs or Squidoo lenses, all you can do is walk away because you don't actually own any of it.

Domain names are very cheap to purchase, and reliable hosting can be obtained for a few dollars a month. Anyone who has a spare $10 a month to invest in a business can buy a domain name, pay for hosting and still come away with change.