Making an Affiliate Website That Sells

Making an Affiliate Website- What you Need to Know

By now, you must be so caught up thinking how are you going to get millions by becoming an affiliate marketer. You must be thinking which merchants pay the highest commissions and which company or product is the easiest to promote. You must be floating in the dream of booming sales and thousands of customers…

Making an Affiliate Website

The quest for a successful online business venture begins on a website. To become an affiliate, the first question you need to ask yourself is ‘Do I have a website?’ If you don’t have any, then you literally have to begin from the scratch. With the advent of different web hosting sites, registrars, and providers, it became so much easier to create a website. You really don’t have to be a web geek or hire some web developers to do it for you. By simply going to sites like AOL, Site Build It, Wordpress, or GeoCities, you can come up with your personal webpage. These web makers do the messy tasks for you. Most online marketers and bloggers make use of www.Wordpress.com because it’s very easy to navigate and it has great features. All you need to do is choose from the hundreds of web designs and templates available and enter the required information. In just a few hours, your website is up and running. If you’re the type of person who doesn’t have patience learning the basics of web development, then you can make use of web providers.

The main steps involved in creating and publishing an affiliate website are the following:

	Domain name- this is your web address. You may want to use a domain that’s easy to read and easy to remember. For example, if you plan to promote shoes or anything about shoes, you may want to come up with a short domain which average internet users will readily know. If you can insert the keyword of your niche, much better. You may want to use domain that goes like ‘shoes.com’, ‘hershoes.com’, etc. Now, where do you get a domain? There are web-builders that will give you a free domain if not, affordable domain which may cost about $10 annually. Some of the most popular web registrars where you can avail of a domain are eNom, Network Solutions Site, GoDaddy and 1. You also need to check your server. If you’re in US, ‘.com’ or ‘.net’ would be good. If you are from Australia or UK, you might want to readily inform users that you’re from there by making use of ‘.co.au’ or ‘.co.uk/.org.uk’ respectively.
	Building the site- Never stress yourself in building a website. Find a program that will teach you how to build a site and will give you something to start from like free templates, graphics, web hosting, and some tips on marketing.
	Hosting your website- Domain registrars also offer hosting. Until you get a hosting account, you website only exists on your computer. If you want to make it available to the internet and accessible to online users, a web host is necessary. There are web host providers that offer free customer support for newbies. You may want to take advantage of them.
	Upload the site- once you have all of the above requirements, uploading your site becomes as easy as uploading some video or photos. Your web host provider will take charge of making your site viewable and accessible.

Tell the world about your Site!

But then, making a website is NOT enough. To become an effective affiliate marketer, you want to take your website to the next level. Your goal is to attract merchants. If you will put yourself in the merchant’s shoes, you would opt for an affiliate that has an established website and has a good ranking position on Google and other search engines. You want an affiliate that will help you find more customers by sending you more traffic and helping you promote your products. If you think your website has all these qualities, go ahead and look for a merchant. But if not, it would be a waste of time. After making an affiliate website, the next thing you want to do is to tell the world that your website exists. This is the marketing part. You don’t want to contact each and every user saying ‘hey! I have a website, go and check it out! To attract visitors, you may need to optimize it.

Failed Sites- Your Lessons

Do you know why there are so many affiliate websites that fail? It’s not because of competition. Competition is natural and it even pushes web owners to do better. One reason why many affiliates do not succeed in this business is because they create a website that’s only meant for marketing, and money-making. This should not always have to be the case. Money comes after a reputable, well-established, and credible website.  

	Stale contents, vague site. Websites that have uninspiring contents never make it on top. Paraphrasing what was already out there in the web, using anonymous identity, posting no picture or even name will not ever help marketers build trust with the people.
	Creating interactive affiliate websites without existing traffic. Another mistake that so many affiliate marketers do is to create interactive websites when they don’t even have significant traffic flow. They get too caught up on the fact that making a site interactive can draw more popularity and attract merchants. This is a big waste of time and money. If you’re thinking of coming up with a social networking site, you need to have so many users and starting from one or two members would be a great challenge. Maybe you can do this once you’ve already established a good site and people are starting to notice it. Remember the old cliché- big things start small.
	Promoting the product affiliates don’t really use. A lot of affiliates tend to endorse products which they never used. Some would talk about Mac Pro when all they use is windows computer. There are marketers on travel niche that endorse plane tickets for an airline company when they never experience flying on the same airplane. Online marketers will tell people about great things, convincing stories about a particular product when they haven’t used or seen it! Never ever do this.

OPTIMIZING an Affiliate Website

Finding a profitable Niche

So you know now what your website should have in order to make it suitable for affiliate marketing. One of the hardest things that you will encounter in this industry is to select a profitable niche. You start your search by jotting down the things you are passionate about. This can be your hobby or something that is in line with your profession. They say the best affiliate website is the one that teaches people how to do something. If you love cars, you may talk about anything about them. You can create a site that gives people tips on how to purchase the best car for them, how to save more when buying a car, why car insurance is needed, what to do when shopping for a used car. Things like that. Remember, customers search on the web in search of an answer to their query. Majority of online shoppers go to the web not knowing which product and which brand to buy. This is your chance to build up the image of the company you’re promoting. If you are inclined to what you’re promoting, you will be able to produce contents that the people will follow and will bring great traffic into your affiliate website. And when you love what you’re doing, you’ll never find it hard building reliable and moving contents.  

When selecting a niche, you also need to answer the following questions:

What is the demand for this niche?

What is the supply of my niche? What are the top brands that provide products on my niche? 

What do people like on this niche?

After determining the niche you’re passionate about, you also need to figure out if it is marketable. You don’t market typewriters even if you are passionate about them when everyone’s using computers nowadays. Never spend for a product that has no commercial value. To find out how marketable the niche is, you may need to do some research. If you’re inclined to fashion, find the specific area in this industry that has a market value. Is it the designer’s clothes? How about accessories? How about men’s wear? By joining live forums and browsing on different sites and networks, you will find out what exactly on your niche people are talking about. You can go to Google or Yahoo and type in ‘forum + niche’ to access real forum sites.

You need to go for the niche that is high in demand. Electronic gadgets are very popular today. If you are techie and you love collecting latest computer models or cell phones, you might want to try making an affiliate website about this niche.

Determining the Keywords

As an affiliate marketer, your keywords will be the butter on your bread, the straw on your berry and the apple to your pie (so goes a popular song)! The keyword is one of the most important aspects of your affiliate website. It’s indispensable. Keywords comprise the main theme of your website. It basically speaks of your niche. When a customer goes to Google to shop for clothes, unless she already knows what website to go to, she types the keyword on the search tab. A highly optimized keyword will help your affiliate website reach the top rank on major search engines. The more keywords your site has, the better. Of course, the keywords should be related to your niche. So if you’re website talks about cars in general, sample keywords are: ‘how to buy a car’, ‘cheap cars’, ‘car insurance’, etc. The keywords that you need to use are those that:

Are most searched for 

Do not have too much competition

Are used by users who have more tendency to buy

Niche and keywords go hand in hand ALWAYS. So that means if your niche is about cell phones, all keywords and key phrases should revolve around cell phones. 

Using Effective Online Marketing Strategies

So everything’s settled. You got a website, you know your niche, and you have keywords. Now what? The next part of making an affiliate website, which is also a bit difficult, is marketing your site. With the onset of so many internet marketing schemes, it becomes harder to look for the right strategy that will give you the most benefits. Actually, there are no inferior marketing solutions. It’s up to you how to make use of them. Be sure you know what you’re doing. If you think social media marketing works for you best, then go for it. If you find email listing just the right method, then make use of it. Knowing your target market is the best way to find out the right marketing scheme. If your target visitors are teenagers, then where do you usually find them? Are they involved in social networking sites like Facebook, Multiply, and Twitter? How about on forums and chat rooms? Do they also love going to game sites? If you’re targeting professionals, how are you going to get in touch with them and promote your site? Will sending emails and newsletters be a good idea? Knowing the behavior of your target market is essential in employing any promotional scheme.

Delivering educational blogs is one way to attract traffic. Most affiliate marketers make use of blogging and back-linking as means of promoting their websites. By giving people helpful news and stories and publishing them on popular websites, you get a higher chance of drawing traffic to your affiliate website. The whole marketing plan will take so much of your time and effort. It necessitates patience as well as ‘trials and errors’.

Choosing Merchants- Who Makes the Sales for You?

You can feel it. Google’s showing your link on the first page. You’re getting good responses from people and you’re site’s obtaining so much popularity. You’re almost near the cash! It’s time to look for merchants. Now, what do you consider when finding merchants? First, you make a list of all possible merchants that have something to do with your niche. Say for example you’re niche is about teenage fashion, specifically on clothing. You want to write down the names of brands that sell or manufacture teenage clothes and apparels. You can always opt for merchants that have established names and reputation like Nike, Adidas, Dickies, etc. However, the problem here is that you might find it hard to gain their approval. Most established retailers and manufacturers tend to ignore novice affiliates. They’re too popular to even get one. You might find it a bit intricate to become one of their affiliates. So you want to start with average merchants. You search the web for different companies. You’ll find one thing in common about them- they all claim to be the best company. This comes the tough part. To guide you, here are some things you need to look at:

	Credibility.You choose the brand that you trust. You don’t want to promote something that you don’t believe in. A lot of retailers and online merchants only have features to tell their consumers but in truth, there are very few benefits. Credible merchants are those who can be easily researched online, who have accessible websites, can freely admit their good and bad points, who know what their limitations are, and who receive good feedback from customers. If you find all these qualities on a merchant, then you’re probably dealing with the right person. You don’t want to put all the hardships of building and marketing your affiliate website by choosing the wrong merchants.
	The Merchant’s website. Take time to look on the website of your target merchant. Do you feel glad to buy even just one product from them? If you’re not convinced of the merchant and you don’t think it’s worthy to shop from them, don’t expect to be able to convince other people to shop there either! Look for someone you can trust.
	Watch out for the Leaks! You may also need to check on some ‘leaks’. The leak is the shady part of some merchant websites. There are leaks when you directed a customer to shop from their site but the merchant does not give you any commission for it. How do they do that? Basically, the merchant traces your sales from the internet cookies. When a customer goes to your website and clicks on the advertisement posted by the merchant, a cookie is recorded which is attached to the affiliate’s id. Now, what most ‘leaky’ merchant websites do is to conduct transactions over the phone! And you don’t expect to get cookies over the phone right? Other merchants direct the customer to some ads to detach your cookie. BEWARE of these things. You don’t want to be working for a merchant who doesn’t know the sense of ‘fairness’.
	Merchant’s Ads. Look at the kinds of advertisement that merchants offer. Make sure the size of the ad or banner fits to your website and doesn’t cause any technical inconvenience for your site visitors. There are merchants who use cool widgets and applications. One example is www.amazon.com. Their website has a lot of fun banners and adverts and you have a lot of choices. If a merchant cannot satisfy you with their ads, look for others.
	Pass the branded sites. Just like what was mentioned earlier, highly-established merchants are very hard to convince. Besides, customers already know their websites so there’s a little chance that people would still visit your site to get redirected to branded products. Moreover, these merchants do have their local store outlets and customers would choose to buy from them than wait for a week or two to get their items shipped.
	Location of merchants (shipping issues). If your merchant’s store location is within the country you’re at, there’s no problem. But if you’re based in Asia and your merchant is in the US, you might find it extremely hard to become their affiliates. Your target customers should find it convenient to shop from your merchant.

Get Started Now!

Once you have found the right merchant/merchants, you can expect that you will start creating good sales. You can have as many merchants as you can but you need to make sure you can handle them. Do take care of your merchants and continue upgrading your site. You’ll never know when a particular merchant will go and you don’t want to see the affiliate website you’ve worked so hard to build topples down. Continue providing good information to your valued site visitors. Never settle on your ranking. There are a lot of competitors on the web and the only way to stay up is continue doing better.   

 Making Money From Affiliate Programs Successfully