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. Click on (Web Hosting) for my list
of recommended Web Hosting Companies #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.
Click on Content Sources, for a list of 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. Just click on my Affiliate
Programs, and 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.Click on (Website Optimizers) for
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.
About the author:
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 Business Opportunities Affiliate
Website at http://www.affiliate.budsbestbuys.com
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