Think building websites is only for techies?... well not anymore! Building an affiliate marketing website of your very own is important.. And does not have to be distressful!
In this post, we'll outline the 3 simple steps for building an affiliate website, as well as several tips for creating a successful website.
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Why You Should Be Building An Affiliate Marketing Website Of Your Own
Truth be told, you can "survive" affiliate marketing without having your own website... you can simply post your affiliate links on other websites and send people straight to the merchant's website though your link.
But, we are about building a profitable business here... and having your own website has several advantages.
Sending traffic straight to the merchant site is one of the greatest mistakes made by affiliate marketers. By doing so, if the visitor doesn’t make a sale, you earn nothing.
Having your own website allows you to capture the visitors' email address and you are then able to follow up with the visitor, offer other products and services thereby earning additional cash.
Here are the 3 simple steps in building your website:
- Choose and register a domain name
- Get webhosting
- Install your website on the domain
Before we continue, please note that I'm not going walk you through the technical aspects of each each step... what I will do is outline the steps and guide you to some useful resources for the technical stuff.
Also... I encourage you to be resourceful - the internet is abound with information on how to do just about anything. So, if you want to figure out how to do something, just simply go to Google.com and do a search... You can of course also go to Youtube.com.
Choose and Register a Domain Name
The first thing you want to do is brainstorm some possible domain names for your website... here are 2 quick tips:
- It's preferable to go with a ".com" extension, rather than other extensions, such as ".net" or ".org".
- Choose a domain name that relates to the niche you’ve chosen and one that consumers can remember easily. Ideally, the domain should have the niche keywords in the name.
Here are a few templates to start brainstorming:
[niche name]Guide.com (e.g., dogtrainingguide.com)
[niche name]101.com
[niche name]Academy.com
[niche name]University.com
[niche name]forBeginners.com
[niche name]InnerCircle.com
[niche name]Experts.com
[niche name]Reviews.com
[niche name]Shop.com
[niche name]online.com
e[niche name].com
i[niche name].com
Master[niche name].com
All[niche name].com
Just[niche name].com
Best[niche name].com
Once you've brainstormed a few names, use the search tools at domain name registrars such as Namecheap to find out what domain names are available and to register your preferred name.
Get Webhosting
I use SiteGround to host my sites. When I first started, I used Hostgator, but then a couple of my sites got hacked... more than once... not cool! I've had no problems with SiteGround so far, and there customer service is quite responsive and effective.
Once you’ve created a hosting account at SiteGround, then your next step is to log into your account where you registered your domain name and change your domain name servers to point to your new hosting account. That way your website will show up when people type in your domain name (although it may take a few days for the domain to propagate all over the world).
If you chose SiteGround, they would have have sent you an email that includes your domain name server (DNS) information. If not, contact their support.
Install Your Website On The Domain
You will want to use WordPress to build your website… it’s free, very popular, easy to use and extremely versatile.
To go through the steps for installing WordPress on your website, follow Siteground's WordPress Guide.
And for the best content builder, themes and plug-ins, check out ThriveThemes... they get my highest recommendation.
Quick Tip - The Creative Process
As part of your research, visit the sites that come up in the first 10 to 20 results in Google and see what type of information they are offering their visitors. If you think that the information is useful, brainstorm ways in which you can improve on this information – both in regards to delivery and content.
Creating the Pages of Your Website
There are several types of affiliate websites that you can create, such a review site, a blog, a content website, etc.
However, no matter which type of site you create, its important to have some way to get the name and email addresses of the people that visit your website. This way, you can follow-up with them, build a relationship with them and make offers to affiliate products them.
6 Quick Tips for Building Your Affiliate Site
- 1Keep It Simple - Don’t use too many graphics (including banners), audios, videos, and other fancy tricks. They are considered by many to be irritating and distracting. Also, by eliminating these features, your website would load faster.
- 2Provide Interesting and Useful Content for Your Visitors - This is a sure way to increase the number of repeat visitors to your site.
- 3Don’t be a Perfectionist - Don’t wait until you think you’ve gotten everything perfect. It’s more important that you get your site up and running as soon as possible. You can always make changes to your site afterwards.
- 4Have a Professional Looking Site That is Easy on the Eyes - It preferable to use light colours for your background and dark colours for your texts. It’s much easier on the eyes.
- 5DON'T USE ALL CAPS TEXT - It makes it look like you're shouting to the reader... it also slows down the reader.
- 6Explain What Your Site is About - It’s important that you explain the purpose of your site. This should be done early (near the top of the home page) make it brief and use powerful words. Be welcoming, friendly, honest, down-to-earth and enthusiastic.
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* To gain access to the online courses, you will need to create a free account to the Thrive University.. so, if you haven't already go ahead and create your free account right away.
Now it's your turn... Get started building your affiliate website!
