Building Affiliate Websites: The Easy Way

February 4, 2010

By Jon

Unless you are running a direct-linking affiliate campaign without utilizing a landing page, you need a website to make a substantial income. It doesn’t matter which rung of the ladder you’re on right now; if you refuse to get yourself an address on the World Wide Web, you will be left out of the race. Now, being in the race is one thing; it’s called survival. But finishing first is another different story altogether.

Anyone can crank out a couple of pages with a WYSIWIG editor and call it a day… but what makes you different from all those people? Why would I buy from YOUR website or follow YOUR recommendation instead of John Doe’s? Well that’s the reason this section was included in the first place: to show you how to build truly professional and trustworthy websites the easy way.

First, you must have already decided on the theme or niche that you will market your (affiliated) product to. This is very important because unless you know who you’re selling to and what pleases them most, you will NOT go very far. Once you’ve done all your market research, you should choose a domain name and get it hosted.

The Domain

When you’re deciding what domain name to register, look into the type of products you are endorsing and the theme of your site. Branding should be your major concern here but having appropriate keywords in your domain name will make your website look much more relevant to your prospects and reel them in faster. Also, you should never settle for non-TLDs (top level domains). Of these, you should always go for a .com if available; a .net or .org is permissible but not recommended.

The last thing to do is get your domain hosted, and you will have launched your website. But here’s a caveat when you choose a web host: don’t go with lesser-known or unbranded hosts just because they’re cheaper. You never know when they might disappear from the face of the web.

Now, you can start creating your webpages. But don’t be disheartened if you aren’t a great web designer; you don’t have to be. There are plenty of WYSIWIG tools and templates available online; all you have to do is look for them. This is one of the reasons why your website should be fitted to a niche market. Building your website for the first time can be a lot easier and more fun if you know where you’re going instead of flying around blind.

If the idea of using readymade templates doesn’t appeal to you, you can also head down to a place like elance.com or getafreelancer.com where you can hire someone to create a custom template for you, although this might come off as a tad too expensive for most.

A great source of ready made Niche Templates can be found here….