If you are going to start your own business you may want a free Employer Identification Number (EIN). Some people prefer getting a free EIN so they can give their EIN to affiliate programs instead of their Social Security Number (SSN).
One of the above are needed for when you start signing up for affiliate programs. Remember this is not needed but some people do like it. I have used both. Some affiliate programs use my SSN, other affiliate programs use my EIN. I just used my SSN when I first started affiliate marketing because I thought you had to pay for an EIN as a ton of websites on the internet make you think. Then I discovered EIN’s are 100% free right on the IRS website.
After discovering that an EIN was free I went ahead and got one, but some of the affiliate programs I signed up for previously still have my SSN and I didn’t want to delete affiliate accounts and start them up again.
So if you want an EIN you can get an EIN free on the IRS website. To get an EIN you fill out a pretty simple form on IRS website. The EIN form will ask you what type of business structure you are starting, which you would probably want sole proprietor. EIN form will ask you for your company name, make this whatever you want. Your company name does not have to have anything to do with your affiliate website niche. Your affiliate website could be about golfing and your company name can be Carnival Fun. You don’t even have to have your company name on any of your affiliate websites pages if you don’t want to.
The EIN form will also ask you bunch of other little questions like how many employees, will you be using any trucks over X tons, and so on. They are very simple to answer. After you are done signing up for your EIN, one of the last questions is how do you want to obtain your new EIN? You can either have it mailed to you, which takes about a month, or you can have your new EIN displayed on the screen and save it as a file on your computer, which takes about 10 seconds. So you decide how long you want to wait for your EIN. I just displayed my new EIN on the screen, wrote it down, continued my affiliate journey.