How To Create A Website The Easy Way For Affiliate Marketing

Deciding to sell affiliate products can be a very profitable business, but most merchants require affiliates to have a website. If you don’t know how to build a website, therein lies your first hurdle.

Not that long ago, if you wanted to create your own website, there were several skills you needed to get the job done like learning HTML and how to use web design and graphic editing software. Most of them came with a steep learning curve and that left you with some hard choices. Here are a few of them.

1) Take the time to learn it on your own

If you have a need to build a website, but don’t know how to use the tools to get the job done, it’s not impossible to teach yourself if you’ve a savvy student with the desire to learn. But, we live in a world of instant gratification and for that reason, everything around us revolves non-stop. Either you keep up with that merry-go-round or you’ll get left behind still trying to figure out how to use website development software while the other affiliates are banging out websites and making money. You’ll always need to have some basic understanding of how to insert the affiliate HTML code into your website, but if you don’t have the desire or time to learn how to actually build a site from the bottom up, you can always…

2) Hire an expensive web developer

A small straightforward site to promote an affiliate product can easily cost several hundred dollars. It also leaves you at the mercy of the developer’s schedule to build it and to maintain it. If you can make simple content changes yourself, you’ll still need a website editor and that involves that leaning curve thing again. Hopefully you’ll be a successful affiliate marketer and recover your programming expenses, but what if the commissions don’t come in as planned and you’d like another site to promote something else? Are you willing to spend more money to repeat that cycle for every new niche marketing idea you think of?

3) Use an online site builder

Most web hosting accounts come with free online site builders, but you’re stuck with the limited template selection in their gaudy greens, purples, and yellows. How can you promote bass fishing products when the closest outdoor template is one of kids playing on a swing set? Some of those templates make it impossible to modify header graphics, colors, and layout, and with good reason; they want you to pay for a professional web designer to build your site.

4) Free blogs

Free blogs are a great way to learn how to easily build a site, but some free blogs don’t allow affiliates to promote products. Some even go further and prohibit you from using the blog as a jumping off point to direct traffic to another site that contains your affiliate offer. Free blogs also don’t allow you to upload any plug-ins. There are so many wonderful free plug-ins that can turn a plain Jane looking blog into a stunning content management system.

So what’s an affiliate to do?

1) Start out with your own web hosting account that allows you to build unlimited websites and blogs. Better yet, sign up for a hosting plan from a green web hosting provider.

2) Buy your domain names cheap and take advantage of the unlimited add on domains feature on your hosting account. You’ll only need one web hosting account to host as many domains as you like.

3) Instead of building a website from scratch, install WordPress from your account’s control panel onto your new domains. You’ll be able to sell anything you like from your own site and not be at the mercy of some free blogging website.

Niche Marketing with WordPress

One of the most powerful features of WordPress is the ability to change the look and feel simply by installing one of the many free WordPress themes available for download, if you can find one with a header, color, and layout for your niche market. One caveat though, developers give them away for free for a reason. They usually contain a sponsor’s backlink in the footer and it must remain there.

The Ultimate Solution – Make Your Own WordPress Themes

So we come to the conclusion of this article with what I believe is the ultimate must-have tool in an affiliate’s arsenal; the ability to create your own WordPress themes without having to do any coding or pay someone to build a theme for you. If you can click a mouse, you can build your own theme.

You’ll be able to place the sidebars and navigation bars where you want and import your own header graphics to create laser targeted niche themes. Change colors, fonts, and layouts with the click of a button. Easily create a new theme for each product you promote, or create a master theme exactly how you like it, then only change the colors and header graphics. Download a fully functional free copy of Artisteer to see just how easy it is to create your own WordPress themes. I’ll give you fair warning, though. Artisteer is addictive.

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