Start your own work at home business, by building your own
Affiliate Website. Here is a free 10 step program that will guide
you through the steps to build and publish your own website.
Follow these easy 10 steps, and grab your part of the $54 million
dollar internet boom. You can own an incredible affiliate
website of your own, and take advantage of the many outstanding
money making opportunities on the internet.
What is an Affiliate?
An affiliate promotes products and services on their website for
a commission. They choose merchants that fit within the context
of their site's offerings. If you have a website devoted to
Automobiles, for example, you would select merchants that sell
automotive products. You can build websites that specialize in
anything you prefer, such as travel, shopping, automotive,
sports, gifts, food, gambling, casinos, and just about anything
you are interested in. Affiliates enter into an agreement to
place links on their websites that lead to the merchant, for the
purpose of promoting goods and services. In return, affiliates
can earn commissions on click-through leads, or purchases made
through their sites.
10 Steps To Becoming A Successful Affiliate
Affiliate websites are both challenging, and profitable. If you
are willing to devote some time and energy into creating, and
promoting your own website, it can be very rewarding. It takes
time, and a lot of hard work to develop a successful affiliate
website, but the rewards are phenomenal. Thousands of Merchants
have realized the tremendous value of having affiliates sell
their products, and are actively seeking new ones. It does not
cost anything to become an affiliate, but some merchant programs
are better than others. Can you trust them to track your
commissions correctly, and pay on time? Do they offer dynamic,
current, and proven sales aids to help you make sales? If you
are going through all the work to create a dynamic and appealing
website, to attract customers and make sales, than you need to
know that you can trust them to hold up their end of the bargain.
This is after all, a partnership between you and the merchant,
and you need to work well together. It's not enough however,
just to sign up as an affiliate with a merchant. You need to
build a website that will create sales, and know how to promote
your website so customers will visit it. I have created a 10-
step program for the novice that will take you from the beginning
research phase, to optimizing your finished site for maximum
exposure. I cannot guarantee you will be successful, only you
can determine that. I can assure you however, that if you follow
this 10 step program, you can build (without any previous
experience), an affiliate website that will make you a lot of
money.
#1 - Website Marketing
Before you do anything else, get yourself some good books on Web
Site Marketing. There are a lot of good ones available on the
Internet. Most are not very expensive, and many are free. You
can find a list of free and inexpensive eBooks you can download
(here). You can find more if you like, by searching on one
of the search engines like Google, or Alta Vista. It's important
that you do this first, because you will save yourself a lot of
time and aggravation if you learn from the experts what you
should be doing, before you build your website.
#2 - Build Your Website
It is best to build your own website. Most hosting sites have
a built in website builder that you can use free. Read step #3
(Web Hosting Companies), to learn more about these options. If
you prefer to purchase your own website building program,
Dreamweaver and Front Page are probably the most popular
programs available. They both offer free 30 day trials, and
can be downloaded at Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 and
Microsoft Front Page 2003. This Site Building Tools
page, will help you find a variety of tools and software to help
you build and customize your website. You will soon find out
that building your own website can be interesting, exciting, and
challenging. It really is not all that difficult, and if you
apply yourself, before long you can become an accomplished
Webmaster. There are many prebuilt sites available, but you are
somewhat limited in what you can do with them. They are not
very expensive, so if you tried one to get your feet wet, and
practiced promoting it, the experience can't hurt you. The
problem with most of the prebuilt sites is that, what is on
them, is what you’re stuck with. A good website should always
be improving. Click on Prebuilt Websites for a list
of sites you can purchase.
#3 - Web Hosting Companies
Find a good web hosting company. There are an awful lot of web
hosting companies competing for your business, and you should
spend a little time researching some of them. Print a list of
each sites feature, and compare them. Web site statistics are a
must. It enables you to see where your traffic is coming from,
and which ads are drawing in customers. Technical support that
is open 24/7 is also very important. If you plan on using your
hosting companies website builder, you will want to check it out
to see if you feel comfortable with it. I use ixwebhosting.com,
and have always been satisfied with them. Site Build 1.6
software, which is easy to use, and produces a very professional
looking site, is included in their package. You can find a
complete list of Web Hosting Companies at:
www.affiliate.budsbestuys.com.
#4 - Get Your Own Domain Name
You will need your own domain name. There are hundreds of
companies that will help you select a domain name, and register
it, for a nominal fee. Check with your web host first. Most
offer to register your domain name for you with their package.
You should always own your own domain name. Do not use a free
domain name. Many sites such as Geocities, or Yahoo will offer
you a free domain name, but it does not belong to you. It just
doesn't make any sense to spend months or even years building
name recognition for your site, only to lose the domain name if
the company who owns it changes policy, or goes out of business.
You can register a domain name for as little as $8.88 per year.
Domain names need to be reregistered every year.
#5 - Content for your Website
Content is King. Remember this when building your site. People
browse the net for information, and you must have good content
to attract and keep the attention of people visiting your site.
Fill your pages with interesting content about your websites
subject. If your website is about shopping, than write about
things that pertain to shopping. You can get free articles to
paste on your site from a variety of places. This Content
Source page lists free articles that you can use on your
site. You can also get much of the content you need from your
merchants, or you can write your own. Use link text and
articles to link to your merchants, as much as possible. Banner
ads are very good, but you should try to limit the number on
each page. A page full of mostly banners can be annoying, and
will chase potential customers away.
#6 - Sign Up For Affiliate Programs
Once you have your website built, its easy to get merchants that
will pay you a commission on sales referred to them through your
website. Affiliate programs are available from individual
merchants, and from Affiliate Program Companies, that offer a
variety of merchant affiliate programs on one site. They supply
you with, banners, text, and advertising information that you
can use on your site. Many of them offer tutorials, website
building tips, and marketing advise to help make you successful.
From this list of Affiliate Programs, you can select
the merchants you would like to sign up with. They will guide
you through the signup process.
#7 - Site Promotions
Promoting your site is the one of the most important parts of
owning a website. A website without any visitors is useless.
Once you've built and published your site, you need to promote
it properly to attract a steady flow of traffic. There are a
lot of Enzines (internet Magazines) and inexpensive or free
classified Internet ads that work very well. Most Affiliate
programs will offer advise on promoting your site, and they can
be a great source for information and advise. Take all the
advice you can get. The best I have found, and the one I use
the most is Adland Pro, and I would check them out when your
looking.
#8 - Optimize and Submit Your Site
Next, but by far the most important, you need to optimize your
website and submit it to the search engines. There are a lot of
services available that you can purchase, that will optimize
your site, and offer to get you rated on the search engines. Be
careful when looking at one of these services, and remember, if
it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. There are also
software programs you can buy for a lot less money, and do it
yourself. I definitely recommend buying your own software. It
will cost you a lot less money in the long run, especially if
you start building more websites, which most of us do. Here at
(Website Optimizers) you will find the latest list of
the best and easiest to use software available.
#9 - Link to Other Sites
There are a lot of ways to get good ratings on search engines,
and you should read everything you can find to get advise, but
the most important thing to remember is you need to link to
other websites. I can't stress this point enough. The search
engine robots place a lot of importance on how many links you
have coming into your website. You can make your own link
directory, but it is difficult, and you’re a lot better off with
a professionally made one. One of the best on the market is
Zeus. It’s the one I use, so you can look at my link
directory at http://www.budsbestbuys.com to check it out. You
can get the basic one free, and it may be all you will need.
I recommend you get the free one first. You can always upgrade
later if you think you will need the extra features of the pro
model.
ARELIS.COM
ARELIS is a top rated software program that helps you to build a
powerful business network quickly and easily. Reciprocal links
add value to your web site, and you'll get targeted traffic from
clicks on your links at other web sites.
ZEUS.COM
Zeus creates traffic to your web site in numbers beyond your
wildest dreams and will give you TOP positions in all the Search
Engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and AltaVista. "Trading Links
with other web sites brings you qualified traffic, period! The
more links you have, the more successful your web site. The more
you use Zeus, the more successful your web site."
#10 - Shopping Carts and Accepting Credit Cards
All of your merchants will have their own shopping carts, accept
most major credit cards, and they handle all sales. They keep
track of your sales activity, and send your commission checks to
you.If however you want to sell your own merchandise or e-books,
on your web site, you will need to set up a shopping cart
program, and accept credit cards. There are a lot of shopping
cart programs you can purchase, and if you have a very large
store you are setting up, they may be worth looking into. If you
were just planning on selling a few items of your own on your
affiliate site however, it probably wouldn't be worth the money.
PAYPAL
Use PayPal to receive payments easily and safely. Start
accepting credit card payments in minutes. PayPal offer an
outstanding shopping cart program that is free, and hard to
beat. You can place items on your own shopping cart, and if
your customers belong to PayPal, it doesn't cost you anything.
If they buy through a credit card, there is a small percentage
fee they charge you, to handle the transaction.
PayPal handles all of the transactions for eBay, and most people
know the name and are comfortable with them. Usually your web
host will offer a shopping cart program you can use, but most of
them charge extra for this service. You can also find dozens of
shopping cart companies competing for your business on the
Internet. We highly recommend PayPal. Free is always good.
Good Luck
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