There are a lot of myths which are rampant in affiliate marketing; and these can attract people to the business holding a number of misconceptions. Chief among these is the idea that it will be a simple matter to run an online-based business and that people can make millions in online marketing overnight.
Not even 10% of people who have gotten into affiliate marketing have become wealthy in a short time frame, let alone overnight. There have been a lucky few who have managed to quickly make a fortune, but for the majority this is not the trajectory taken by their own affiliate marketing careers. Most of those who have become successful in the field would tell you that it took a lot of work to become a success – like any other business, affiliate marketing takes time and hard work, but the results are worth the trouble.
Before getting into an affiliate program, you should first start building a website; and make sure that it is well designed and looks professional. How can you build a website easily? You should decide on the topic of your site first. You should already have some idea what product or service you want to market; this can make a difference in the design of your website.
You’ll also need a domain name for your site. This is the name which will appear in the address bar of web browsers. Think about what your site will be about and choose a domain name wisely – having the right keywords in your domain name can help you to draw many more visitors to your site. Make sure to use a top level domain name (.com, .net) since these are more popular domains. You’ll need a web host too – try to find one who offers high uptime and security guarantees.
The next step will be to create the pages which will comprise your site. If you don’t know much about this – there are a large number of tools and quick launch aids available to you on the web. A quick search will turn these up and many of them can be helpful in putting together a website for your affiliate marketing venture.
If making your own site is something you simply can’t face or don’t have the time for, you can buy a ready made site or a template – though this will be more expensive. It can be educational to create your own affiliate marketing website. You can learn a lot in the process about software, how websites work and more. You will be increasing your edge on the other affiliate marketers out there by doing so. It is helpful to know the basics of web development. You can then give your site a much more professional appearance and more user friendly. The more you know about all of this, the more you can focus on the content instead of design.
The best way to bring visitors to your site is by having high quality, well written content. There are several other things which are important to your success; however, good content is the most important factor. Good content is why visitors will come to your site and stick around to read your content.
People turn to the web in search of information; create content which will give them what they are looking for and you will have no trouble building an audience. Try to get some reciprocal links with other sites in your field, the number of links you have will increase your search engine rankings. Make sure to create separate pages for your products, but make sure to make plenty of relevant content to keep users interested instead of just giving them a sales pitch. Good content means more visitors, sales and commissions.
Make your site simple, yet elegant to give it a professional look. This will be attractive and interesting for your visitors to read. You can get design ideas by looking at other websites. Don’t put too many banner ads up; this will distract and annoy visitors. Remember that there are many things other than banner ads to do your advertising with. With your site finished, submit the URL to search engines to make sure that your site will be easy for web users to find. Keep your site growing. Learn all you can about using keywords to optimize your site and make sure to use them in your site’s content. Update your site often and add pages.
Be sure to let all of your prospects know about new developments on your site. There is information about anything you could possibly need to know online, so avail yourself of this information. If you can keep your site growing and improving, you’ll find yourself a success in affiliate marketing soon enough.
51 Comments
John/Annette
September 13, 2008You have a helpful article to let people know in which order an affiliate has to go to start a web site. I have found that at times the order of things is not always right, although this could be just an oversight.
Thanks for the article
John/Annette
Davion | Make Real Money Online
September 13, 2008Hi Reed, how true that is!
For content management systems, blogging using WordPress or Blogger is the simplest and most SEO-optimized.
The best part is a blog is an interactive platform. I found out over time after building a network of blogs, 3 important ingredients to grow your website’s traffic and presence.
1. Create unique, quality content. This gets some good word of mouth for you. Plus, you get the benefits of having the search engines checking you out and ranking you.
2. Build links, growing your links over time using articles, social bookmarking, directories etc will get you some decent rankings and indirect traffic.
3. Target long tail, low competition keywords. Case in point is that with such words, it is much easier to rank, even without BACKLINKS! A great source of keywords are in the Product Names example, “Ewen Chia’s Working From Home”! Yes, these are not considered “common keywords” like “make money online” in Google’s records and hence, you really do not need to have too much information in order to rank.
Davion | Make Real Money Onlines last blog post..Commission Blueprint Review – Tim Godfrey And Steven Clayton’s New Blueprint For Clickbank Commissions
Zarine
September 13, 2008Read just ONE of your blogposts — and then went and read up all that you’ve posted this month. Wow! That’s a LOT of tips. Your easy-reading style and sharing attitude is much appreciated.
Bryan Hee
September 13, 2008Visitors always looking for information and solution to solve their problems.
Website content should emphasize on the benefit and not a feature. Always remember how your information or services helping them. Once you solve their problem or satisfy your customers,the money will automatically come to you.
To Your Success
Bryan Hee
Build your website within 5 minutes
http://webbuildesoftware.pinurl.com
William Beck
September 13, 2008Hi Reed,
Another good article about affiliate marketing but for most people
the different types of decisions a person needs make to attempt
to do it right is fantastic.
Willy B
http://www.my-family-money.com
TeasasTips
September 13, 2008Thx Reed for the info. Building content that readers can use is important. For instance I posted something yesterday on how to fix your site and make money from Adsense. People instantly started commenting. It was a rush.
TeasasTipss last blog post..Some Thoughts On Goals
Emmanuel Mba
September 13, 2008Hi Reed,
Another good article on affiliate marketing and the information required to build a good website.Thank you for your continued effort in helping us learn more about internet marketing
Emmanuel Mbas last blog post..New Breakthrough “Magic Code” Makes Your Site Money!
James
September 13, 2008Hi Reed
you’ve delivered another good article for anyone that wants to learn the right steps
to profit from Internet Marketing.
admin
September 13, 2008@John thanks yes at times we just don’t have things set up the right way.
@Davion thanks for that great post, I may be opening this blog up to guest bloggers soon shoot me an email reedfloren AT gmail.com
@Zarine thank you, glad to help
@Bryan yes benefits and solutions are always going to help sell over features, great point.
@William thanks
@TeasasTips yeah that is great to get commentary back and forth I love it, the internet can get so lonely sometimes…
@Emmanuel you are welcome
@James thanks
Fidelis Ugboma
September 13, 2008This is indeed an excellent article. Mr. Reed pointed out one eternal truth of affiliate marketing. And that is, it is not a get rich quick affair. One has to study the system, make a lot of commitments and sacrifices particularly in terms of studying and his time, before he can expect to make the mouth watering claims that are being made by the gurus.
He has also shown the sequence of progression that one must follow in on order to acjieve success in affiliate marketing. Simply put, own a website and fill it with rich and high quality contents.
The other articles on his site certainly point him out as a sound professional
Fidelis Ugboma
http://www.onlineglobalmarkets.com
admin
September 13, 2008@Fidelis thank you 🙂
Ron
September 13, 2008Another good article…this is definitely a site worth coming back to again and again
Joe Lindsey
September 14, 2008I was very disappointed in your blog entry. I need to know the actual mechanics of HOW to build an affiliate website, not what kind of verbiage to add to it. There are literally hundreds of people who are eager to tell you what to write but what do you write onto? Can you direct me to a person/site that can show me how to build the site itself?
admin
September 14, 2008@Ron thanks, glad you enjoy the site.
@Joe sorry you didn’t like it, if I were starting over I would create sites that look like this http://www.thetrafficsecret.com/ as they are by far the most profitable web pages for me.
Ari Lestariono
September 14, 2008Hi Reed,
It always a pleasure reading your article and giving the most fundamental to build and grow in this field of Internet Marketing.I read one of member comments and he has strong point that we should always be diligent to exchange links, writing articles and blogging around the corner.
Keep up the good work Reed.
Cheers
Ari Lestarionos last blog post..A Question Whether Home Remedies Comparative than Doctors?
raffimax
September 14, 2008Nice article, thanks Reed..
Joe Lindsey, visit:
http://www.top-web-templates.com/
and check the links at the bottom of the page..
raffimaxs last blog post..How to Create a Profitable Online Business?
admin
September 15, 2008@Ari thank you, yes those suggestions will help someone.
@raffimax thanks
sondaj
September 15, 2008You have excellent analysis. thanks for writting
Jussi Koiranen
September 16, 2008Another informative post! I just realised what I need to add to my own site 🙂 Thank you Reed!
admin
September 17, 2008@sondaj and @jussi thanks
David Braybrooke
September 18, 2008Website construction is a very specialized process in my opinion. It is important to build a site from the ground up being especially sure to target the design and layout in order to directly complement your affiliate products on sale!
You would be wise to stick with an overall theme to your site that looks homogeneous, tidy, with clean navigation and a user-friendly interface!
One big mistake that many site builders make is to put flashing banners and brightly lit ads in empty sidebars and other sections of the page. These ‘color-hungry’ ads not only look distracting but can actually make your websites appear ugly to the eye and definitely not aesthetically pleasing to visitors!
Sometimes it is wise to employ a professional website designer to construct your pages in order to give you a great headstart and a distinct advantage over your competition!
Employ clean lines, simple themes and attractive images and fonts and you can’t go too far wrong! And remember, when it comes to website designing, often, less is more; wise advice!
Best to you all!
David I. Braybrooke.
David Braybrookes last blog post..Join Trafficera.com for FREE Today!!
cheap home insurance
September 22, 2008Good Layout and Design. I like your blog. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. . 🙂 🙂 🙂
admin
September 23, 2008@david good advice again thanks
@cheap thank you
Jorge EZ Affiliate
October 2, 2008Hi Reed,
Thank you for the great post. I think affiliate websites are a MUST have and great way of complementing your online income.
The more quality websites you own, the more diversified you will be 😉
This will help you stomach the ups and downs of affiliate marketing.
Jorge
Jorge EZ Affiliates last blog post..3 Great Strategies for Finding New Niches for Your Affiliate Websites
admin
October 3, 2008@Jorge that’s a good point, however for me it’s been hard to make money in multiple markets at the same time, if you have any tips let me know.
Chris Imamshah
October 4, 2008Reed,
I enjoy reading your posts and your reader’s replies.
Just as an FYI Iclicked on the http://www.thetrafficsecret.com/ link and got to a website that usually shows up when the link is dysfuntional. You may want to check that one.
Thanks,
Chris
http://www.fastinternetmarketingtips.com
Jorge EZ Affiliate
October 4, 2008@admin
Reed,
I have a couple of tips 🙂
First, discipline is key…
I recommend you start with a niche that you are knowledgeable about, create good content for it and then build your affiliate website.
…You have the software to do it with already. I strongly suggest you start using it 😉
Once you have a few incoming links to that site by link building, leave it alone and move to another market and build it with the same quality control you did the first one.
You can see what markets are hot by going to Google Trends and Google Insights.
In time, you will have a portfolio of websites in different markets that are constantly making you money. And hopefully you will be diversified enough to make a good average per month.
If you approach your affiliate websites with the same dedication you have for this blog, I promise you, you will be doing very well.
Check my blog and my videos, there is a TON of information there about affiliate websites.
Of course, if you EVER need help over the phone, I am more than happy to talk to you.
Call me so we can get your first affiliate site built the “EZ” way 🙂
Take care and I hope this helped.
Jorge
Jorge EZ Affiliates last blog post..Affiliate Marketing in a Recession? ABSOLUTELY YES!
admin
October 4, 2008@Chris thanks for the heads up looks like I let it expire, I’ll see what I can do.
@Jorge great tips my friend.
Eric Alexander
October 22, 2008Hi Reed
This is the best advice so far for a beginner.Hats off to you for providing information that is really helpful. Hope to see more such excellent stuff in future. I also see that you take care to give only good
referrals.
Keep up the good work.
Eric
Dale Kydd
October 31, 2008Hi Reed & All,
Once again helpful advice and a big thank you.
As to the comments from Joe Lindsey 14-9-08 above. I have been in this same position and the more I asked for help the less I got. Reed would not do that to you Joe so do not worry.
By now you probably have your web site up but if you do not then remember this one BIG point.
I have not seen a hosting company that does not have web site templates for people that purchase their domain name and hosting account with them; there are others that you can get also by search.
Remember though when you are purchasing your hosting that you need one that is 99% up time, also one that is cheep as you can go from Free to thousands of dollars. Just starting out you do not want to get caught paying big money.
The free web site designer that comes with most sites give you 5 pages and that is usually enough for the start of your affiliate company.
You can download the template that you have chosen and work on it with ought being on the net. When you feel happy with it then you either up load it back to the hosting company or send a copy to someone you know that understand web sites to take a look at it and give you their opinion on it so you can correct anything that needs to be altered. Make sure your links are correct this is most important. You will not be able to click on them though until you upload it to the web host. Most cPanels have a test area where you can upload your site to, to check it out first. This is a must as sometimes thing do not upload correctly and need to be fixed.
Spelling is also of great importance.
I trust this will help those that are not quite to the level that Reed’s article has been written for but to these people follow Reed’s recommendations as you put my above to work as they all go together.
Thanks Reed
Take care all.
Dale
Dale Kydd
October 31, 2008just to point the above blog from me.
chosen and work on it with ought being on the net. WITH OUGHT with out
Thanks all
Luis
November 8, 2008It is very easy to make a website your self there are a number of places that offer free web hosting.and most places have website builders with the services.you should know some html. you do you do not need really any fancy software like dream weaver.you can use note pad witch you already have on your computer.your website contains 3 things a head/body/footer. if you use a free website builder you can change most every thing without much work.I use nvu it is free and works well for me.i usually start with by inserting 3 tables table 1 head/this is your header such as images next table 2/ this is the body will you will put your main text and all the contents that make up your web page/ and finally your footer/ this is where you will put your copyright info. that’s it you have a web page. now all you have to do is choose your page properties like background color.or image link colors,etc.
Luiss last blog post..Useful Links
BIG Darren
November 10, 2008Hello to all, first time user on this blog so i just wanted a nice entrance, and a “keep it up” to Reed with a healthy and well kept blog.
Ok, i have two points which i feel the need to air, and hope that people find it interesting enough to comment about.
1) I have only been involved with Aff/IM for a couple of months, and have just written my first guide ready for clickbank. My first issue is very much with what this post is about, and that is “site templates.”
Is there a website where you can design the single page look that you need for hosting an affiliate product, very much like the ones you get offered by IM’s when they launch products.
2) The product i have written has completely “NO COMPETITION” within clickbank, has an extremely positive market that is active daily 365, yet i am now at the point where i need the two vital ingredients, which are the sales page etc, and the people to market it with who are the PPC specialists.
I would love to receive comments back from anyone regarding the above, and look forward to some mutually rewarding content.
Regards
“BIG Darren”
BIG Darren
November 10, 2008Hi Again,
Lst night i wrote a small post about “Is there any good sites for sales/web templates that would suit a product launch?” Well, close to good news and a bit of searching, i found a site called ecovergeeks and they do just this, complete minisites and also one off pages for product launch. The one slight problem is, i sent them a couple of emails, and they havent replied just yet, so a little more waiting till i get this product on clickbank. I feel like a kid with a new toy, and im waiting for my father to bring the batteries!
Anyone know of any other sites that doo the same thing?
Much appreiate any comments by return.
BIG Darren
Lena Khalid
November 24, 2008Reed – Great article !! I just can’t wait to read the next article…
Lena Khalid
Earning Online – My Way
Surf and Work from HOME – The Portal
Lena Khalids last blog post..You need a blog !!
Linkmagic
December 9, 2008I prefer starting a site with WordPress. WordPress is great for getting the search engines attention and getting ranked quickly. If you structure your permalinks properly, you can later move to a regular website format without losing any of your SE ranks.
WordPress is perfect for the beginner too as it is highly customizable without too much trouble!
Georjina
December 19, 2008Hi Reed,
This is a great post and even some of us ‘old timers’ need a reminder to not put the cart before the horse:)
For a new person, I think starting with a blog is the more easier of the options when it comes to building a website.
Blogger is my favorite but I also like WordPress. For site building Weebly is a very good choice because you can build a blog or a static website on the same account.
Keep ’em coming Reed – you’ll have us on the road to massive income gurus yet!:)
Happy Christmas and Merry New Year to Everyone!
Georjinas last blog post..Solo Entrepreneurs: Do We Mean Business?
Cheree
January 4, 2009Great tips, Reed,
The only thing I would add is to choose a niche that you can be passionate about. Trying to chase the money rarely works in the long run. But, if you build a site around something you are passionate about, the money will follow.
Cheree
http://blog.WealthBuildersSite.com
Cherees last blog post..WebProsperity Freedom Compensation Plan
eurosaros
January 7, 2009Yes indeed! A well designed website will insure costumer loyalty…why would I put my trust on a marketer who cannot even afford to have a professional looking website.
Affiliatesites Directory
http://www.affiliatesuccess101.wordpress.com
Jeff Paul Scam
January 24, 2009It has been amazing to grow any business on the Internet, I need to market strategically to my customers, using a range for tools from content sharing to email marketing, search engine optimization, co-branding, ad buys, and more, to reach your target audience.
Kakayla
March 5, 2009Wow! what an idea ! What a concept ! Beautiful .. Amazing ? 🙂
bestslots 4 online
March 10, 2009Great information in this blog!!It is harder part for a beginner only but if the experienced one learn some tips regarding this like the little bit of HTML and where to find a free HTML editor to use,it ‘ll become easy for them.
Felix Makmur
April 10, 2009Great and informative post. I agree with you that the most important thing in building a successful affiliate websites is having a good and relevant content.
Felix Makmurs last blog post..6 Easy Ways to Make Money Online on Autopilot
virtual worlds online for kids
May 11, 2009WordPress is great for building a site. The look of the website should depend on the target audience.
Gary
May 29, 2009You are right, building a website is not easy and does take a ton of work but in the end is much more rewarding to make yourself. Thanks for the tips!
-G
sevensupersales.com
Cliff Posey
June 27, 2009Thanks for the info I found you post motivating and inspiring.
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helene
June 30, 2009Nice post! GA is also my biggest earning. However, it?s not a much.:)
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