Building your Affiliate website
Posted by Administrator (admin) on Thursday, 17th April, 2008 at 7:17 PM
Affiliate Business Basics >>

This brings us to the subject of building your web site. Whether beginner or seasoned Affiliate marketing guru, you can benefit from some of the many approaches that are now available. If you are ready to get your feet wet building your own Affiliate Business website there are very sophisticated programs available. Dreamweaver and Frontpage are the two most well known web development platforms. However, if you are on a strict budget, there is a nice program developed by the Open Source community called NVU. I have found this website software quite adequate for most of my needs. I use these tools mostly to make changes in already existing templates, the subject of our next paragraph.

If you have no experience or very little experience building web sites, you might want to consider pre-designed website templates. Basically, these are templates that have been designed for the sole purpose of helping people get their affiliate business or adsense programs up an running. These templates usually have the navigation menus already laid out, and often they will have sections of the pages set up just for affiliate and adsense ads. However, you should be aware that oftentimes these templates will have been used throughout the Internet by several other people, which can take away the uniqueness of your web site. This can be remedied somewhat by changing colors and replacing, or changing the header graphics. Once this is done the site can be made to look fairly original. If you decide to go this route, there is an Open Source graphics program called the GIMP that rivals Photoshop in power and flexibility. Use the GIMP for making graphics changes, and NVU for setting up the layout of your pages and you can do quite well on a shoestring budget.

There are also some very powerful website development tools that have been designed specifically for Affiliate Businesses and Adsense Marketing programs. In many cases these offerings are carefully optimized for search engines and have many features that help you promote your products. One such tool is called PLR article Pro, which is optimized for both affiliate marketing and adsense programs. Out of all the products on the scene, this one is probably the easiest to use, and provides the biggest bang for a very small investment. This software does a surprisingly good job at building a quality looking website and does so very quickly. In fact the author boasts that a web site can be built in 2 minutes or less using this software. The developer is confident enough that he provides a video tutorial and live website examples before you commit to a purchase. It also comes with several templates and a variety of graphics to help you achieve a particular look. Of course the sites are clean in appearance, which is a necessity for an Affiliate Business or adsense ad program. Keep in mind that this software is tuned mostly for Adsense and Amazon affiliates, but it does allow autoimatically embedded links for your affiliate offerings, which is a big plus for this software. If you make use of some of the free software we mentioned earlier, the software also allows you to design your own templates. All in all, for such a low price tag at 29.99, its pretty hard to knock this software.

A second piece of software is very similar to the first, but deserves mention since there is a free version available with limited features. The free version is a good way to get your feet wet, but don't plan on doing any really powerful work - In fact, the free version is branded with other affiliate links that don't belong to you, which more or less defeats the purpose. But, it still gives you an unlimited time test drive to get a feel for it.  The program is known as HyperVRE. This software also helps to develop websites quickly, and like PLR Article Pro, the paid version has a variety of templates, fill in the blank questions to generate various color schemes, etc. It is unique in that it also takes advantage of live updating through the use of RSS feed links, stripping the first few lines off the first paragraphs. In other words, the pages update continuously with fresh RSS links for whatever keywords you choose. Many SEO gurus feel that this is helpful from a Search Engine point of view, but others in the SEO Community aren't so optimistic. What sets HyperVre apart is the fact that the links created are from the news articles themselves, and not just headlines. Every website you build will still need search engine optimization, and using HyperVRE is no exception. However, that said – it has many useful features.

Another nifty tool that comes with the paid version is the Affiliate Keyword research tool. This is probably the highlight of the product, and is where it differentiates itself from others, such as PLR Article Pro. Of course Keyword research is free and fairly robust on the web at places such as TelePro, which is sufficient if you use PLR Article Pro.

If you are already part of an affiliate network, you can do a search on your keywords from within the HyperVre and it will literally take a look at your affiliate membership websites, such as ClickBank, Paydotcom, Commmission Junction or any other affiliate network – and find products for your “niche”, or chosen keywords, as will PLR Article Pro. Then, it gives you an option to choose the affiliate program you like. After you have chosen your favorite promotions from a list, it automatically takes that information and builds links within the generated web pages with your affiliate links already tied in! I have to admit, this is a pretty nifty feature.

The free version is quite limited in template offerings and the paid for version isn't a whole lot better – but there are a few vendors offering a pretty broad variety of 3 ^rd party templates that really spruce up the software. Furthermore, using some of the free open source software mentioned earlier, you can modify templates to your hearts content.

These tools are helpful for creating orderly looking websites, where the pages are neat and tidy. However, remember that the public is becoming more and more savvy to the efforts of web site owners trying to push visitors to click on ads. In other words, it is pretty obvious when sites are strictly for revenue.

Both products allow for modifications of the templates in fairly simple steps, aloowing for some changes for uniqueness prior to a website launch.

In my opinion, Google ads are brilliantly placed - and according to all research, they are where they should be for optimal click through rates. They also are toned down nicely - enough where the articles themselves appear to be the focal point. If you are helping your readership, you'll gain much more respect with this method, since too many ads can cause a loss of trust, and that is where first impressions really count.

The price tag is pretty stiff for some people, making PLR Article Pro a very attractive offer, but overall, a nice piece of software and well worth considering.