A Work at Home Business Opportunity- Build Your Own Affiliate
Website !!!
by Ken Asselin
Published on this site: September 30th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
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.
- 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 http://www.affiliate.budsbestbuys.com/eBooks.htm.
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.
- 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. Download Macromedia Dreamweaver
MX 2004 at http://www.microsoft.com/office/frontpage/prodinfo/trial.mspx
and you can download Microsoft Front Page 2003 at: http://www.microsoft.com/office/frontpage/prodinfo/trial.mspx
.This Site Building Tools page, will help you find a variety
of tools and software to help you build and customize your
website:http://affiliate.budsbestbuys.com/website%20building%20tools.htm
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. To find Prebuilt
Websites you can purchase, please click this link:http://www.affiliate.budsbestbuys.com/website%20building%20tools.htm
- 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 IX Web Hosting at https://www.ixwebhosting.com/cgi-bin/../clickthru.cgi?id=kitsolutions
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:http://www.affiliate.budsbestuys.com.
- 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.
- 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 http://www.affiliate.budsbestbuys.com/content%20sources.htm
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.
- 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 http://www.affiliate.budsbestbuys.com/Affiliate%20Programs.htm
you can select the merchants you would like to sign up with.
The merchant sites will guide you through the signup process.
- 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 http://www.adlandpro.com/partner.asp?ref=247637&pg=ls,
and I would check them out when your looking.
- 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 http://www.affiliate.budsbestbuys.com/website%20optimizers.htm
Website Optimizers) you will find the latest list of the
best and easiest to use software available.
- 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 - http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/kitsolutions
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 - http://www.cyber-robotics.com/[email protected]
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."
- 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 - https://www.paypal.com/us/mrb/pal=E5WPK5QSYNXGS
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
Ken Asselin, Waterford, MI, USA Visit Buds Best Work
at Home Business at: http://www.affiliate.budsbestbuys.com
Ken Asselin is webmaster for the "Buds Best" series
of online shopping websites. His 40 plus years experience
in retail marketing, bring a fresh outlook to website development
and promotion. You can visit his Buds Best "Shopping
Sites" at: http://www.shopping.budsbestbuys.com
mailto:[email protected]
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