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Building Affiliate Websites
Affiliate marketers need niche specific websites to succeed.
by Alyice Edrich
All materials copyrighted
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Ad Disclaimer
Most new affiliates take an existing website and plug in a bunch of banners, text ads, and images hoping to gain a few extra bucks to
pay for their web hosting fees and domain name. Intermediate affiliate marketers go a step further by building a website related to a
specific theme with affiliate links and text they’ve written themselves. And it works—to an extent. Then there are the advanced
affiliate marketers who make a living by referring others to companies who pay them by the click or by the order. And it’s those
affiliates you want to imitate.
Pick A Theme
When developing your very first affiliate website, it’s best to pick a subject
you are passionate about because writing the content is easier and faster when you don’t have to do research or interview others to get
a better understanding of the products and/or services you are offering your readers. But picking a subject you are passionate about
isn’t enough, you also need to find an area that others not only want, but need—in other words, you want to offer products and/or
services your readers area already searching for.
Design Your Website
Once you find the theme of your website, it’s time to come up with a professional design that is easy to navigate. It’s important to keep
your navigation simple. If you use cute words to describe the different areas of your website, you’ll confuse your visitors and confused
visitors leave.
Your color scheme is also important. Stick to no more than four colors and make sure the colors you choose reflect the theme of your
website. For instance, green means money so it’s the perfect color for financial websites.
Maintain your design throughout the entire website. By keeping the same look on every page of your website, you build trust and assure
your visitors that they’re still on your website.
Write The Content
After the design of your website is finished, it’s time to add the content. The content is very important because it pre-sells the
products and/or services you are referring. But content has another purpose, too. Good content gets linked to, and links help you rank
higher in the search engines and increases natural (free) visitation.
New affiliate marketers simply copy and paste the material given to them by the companies they signed up with. That’s a very bad move
because staying original gives you an edge over the competition. The idea is to think outside the box and give your visitors a reason to
buy from you, instead of the competition.
If you’re not a good writer, hire someone to ghostwrite the content for you. A ghostwriter is better than a freelance writer because you
aren’t obligated to give the ghostwriter a byline or a link to his/her website; a link that could steal your traffic and lose you a sale.
Ghostwriters demand higher fees because they cannot resell the articles they’ve written for you. While they can take the information
they’ve researched and write a completely different article for another publication, they cannot resell the exact content they’ve written
for you to anyone else—you own the content. You can use that content in marketing materials, brochures, newsletters, and more than one
website—without further compensation to the ghostwriter.
And remember, you get what you pay for. If your copywriter is cheap, there’s a good chance the material isn’t as good as it could be.
Writers devote a lot of time to writing: research, interviews, preliminary write-ups, edits, and final tweaks. If you offer little
compensation for their time and talent, you’ll receive a piece that is good, but not great.
Include Affiliate Links
Writing good content isn’t enough. You need to make sure the content written includes keyword phrases your visitors are already searching
for and you need to include a call to action that causes your visitors to click and buy.
That’s where the tricky part comes in. Some affiliate programs do not allow you to point directly to a specific product and/or service.
When you cannot direct your visitors to the exact item you referred them to, you’ll lose the sale 90% of the time. That’s because your
visitors get confused. They’ve clicked on a buy button thinking they are going to order a product only to find out they’ve been taken to
another website they know nothing about. If you want a higher conversion, you need to pick affiliate programs that allow you to make an
affiliate code that takes your visitor directly to the item you pre-sold them on. It’s that simple.
Not only can you include a call to action with your affiliate link, you can also include your affiliate link within the article itself
by linking to important keyword phrases.
Include A Subscription Button
Every website should have a newsletter. It often takes visitors seven times of seeing your product and/or service before they actually
buy. Having a newsletter allows you to capture their email address and keep your products and/or services in front of their eyes. Your
newsletter could be as simple as informing your subscribers of website updates, to offering insider tips and tricks, to a full scale
newsletter filled with topic relevant articles.
Include A Contact Page
Most affiliate marketers don’t offer a contact page because they believe their job is done the moment the visitor orders through the
referring company. While it may be true that you can’t do anything about the order, you can build trust by letting your visitors know
who you are and what you’re about.
Include A Disclaimer Page
A disclaimer page is very important because it lets your visitors know that while you recommend the products and/or services found on
your website, you are not responsible for what happens once they place the order. In other words, you are not to be held liable for any
transactions and by agreeing to use your website, your visitors are agreeing to hold you harmless.
Stay Honorable
Never recommend a product or service you don’t believe in. Your affiliate website should be more about helping your visitors make an
informed decision, and less about making a fast buck. If the product and/or services aren’t reliable, word of mouth will spread like
wildfire and all your hard work will have been in vain. But give your visitors a reason to return and trust you, and word of mouth
advertising could be your ticket to a nice, comfortable lifestyle.
In Closing
All profitable affiliate marketers know that in order to succeed they must never steal someone else’s work and call it their own. The
fastest way to lose credibility, trust, and the advantages of networking with other affiliate marketers is to steal (or copy) their
content.
Staying true to yourself, building a website based on your personality, and including products and/or services you can
be proud of are sure-fire ways to stay ahead of the competition.
About The Author:
Alyice Edrich is the author of several highly praised e-books designed to help you work from home. To discover how you can
earn $50 in two hours or up to $10K in your spare time visit her store:
http://thedabblingmum.com/ebookstore
* This article is available for your publication, for a F-E-E.
This article may NOT be reprinted without monetary compensation and written permission from the author.
For reprint rights or comments/questions about this article, please contact the author.
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