Throughout the previous sections, we’ve covered the basics of affiliate marketing and choosing an affiliate product. In this series of tutorials, we’ll show you exactly how to to build your own website(s) to market your affiliate products.

Why a Website?

Websites are a critical ingredient to building a successful affiliate marketing business because they allow you to create your own “real estate” on the web. Instead of just forwarding prospects directly to the vendor via your affiliate link, you bring them to your own site first.   This is a HUGE advantage.  Depending on the type of site you’ve created, it allows you to do one or more of the following:

(a) provide useful content and information to the prospect, thereby establishing a level of trust and perhaps even an ongoing relationship;

(b) collect the prospect’s name and email address,  allowing you to do follow up marketing with them through your autoresponder (another vital component of a successful online business);

(c) tell the prospect all about the benefits of your affiliate product thereby “pre-selling” them before they visit the vendor’s web site.

All of these things will significantly increase your conversion rates and profits which, of course, is the name of the game with affiliate marketing.

And creating a website it not as hard as it may sound.  In fact, we’ll show you exactly how to do it completely on your own in a matter of a couple days, even if you have absolutely zero prior skills.

“Authority” Sites vs. “Squeeze Pages”

There are two basic types of websites which you will use as an affiliate marketer:

a.  “authority”  or “content” websites – this type of site can be anything from a single page affiliate product review  (a specific fat loss ebook for example) to a multi page site on a particular topic (such as fat loss generally);

b. “squeeze page” or “opt-in”  websites which are usually only one or two pages and are designed solely to capture email addresses of prospects and then “pre-sell” them on the product.

For an example of an “authority” style site, check out the following:

http://www.beekeep.com/

Note that the site provides helpful articles and information on beekeeping as a vehicle for marketing various beekeeping products including a beekeeping ebook for sale through Clickbank.

For an example of a “squeeze page” type of site, check out the following:

http://cbpirate.com/fatloss/

Note that this site doesn’t provide any information. Instead, it is designed to arouse your curiosity and compel you to give your name and email address to receive more information. Once you have entered your name and email, you are taken to a page which “pre-sells” you on the affiliate product and provides a link to the ClickBank vendor of the product.   You then receive further information through the affiliate’s series of autoresponder emails.

To start out with, we will have you focus on creating a authority style web site and leave squeeze pages until later on when you have a little more experience.

And don’t be alarmed by the term “authority”.  There is nothing complicated about creating these types of sites and you don’t need much content to start out.

In fact, what you will be doing to start out with is creating a simple blog style website on a particular topic or affiliate product which is a very powerful way to market affiliate products.  The blog can be as short as a single page to start with (such as a product review) and you can add to it over time if you wish.

Over the next few tutorials, we will go step-by-step through the creation of your first website.  We’ll cover:

1. Registering a Domain Name.
2. Choosing a Web Host.
3.  Building an affiliate marketing site in no time using the awesome power of the  “Wordpress” platform.
4.  Incorporating an “autoresponder” into your affiliate marketing site.

Up Next: Registering Your Domain Name

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