Earn Extra Income Online

Having your own professional looking website is a must if you are intending to get into affiliate marketing. Many new affiliate marketers just promote the link that the affiliate program gives them. They may be making some money, but the truth is that customers rarely puchase the first time that they see a product. Now, ask yourself what happens if they decide to buy that product later. You lose your commission! If you have your own website, you can capture those prospective customers' name and email address and "remind" them about the product that they were interested in.

Many of the successful affiliate marketers only have what is called a "squeeze" page or a landing page. They give out a free report or ebook to get people to subscribe to their list. My approach is a bit different. I feel that people are visiting my websites because they want information. So, I do my best to give them that information. Sure, I have a newsletter subscription box on my site, but I am having more success with providing the information that people are looking for.

You don't absolutely HAVE to have a content site to have an affiliate website. There are different types of sites that can direct traffic to your affiliate merchant.

1. Price comparison sites. These sites are mostly dominated by the big corporations like Shopzilla so it is more difficult for an affiliate marketer to make any money with comparison sites. It is possible to have a product feed to take care of some of the technical aspects, but it's still difficult.
2. Product review sites. Product review sites are becoming more and more popular. Pick products that match your content topic.
3. "Mini" sites. These sites (as I mentioned before) that normally just have an optin page to gather the names and emails of prospects. Then, you create an autoresponder series to introduce these people to your affiliate products. Your messages are NOT sales letters. They are based on the good, quality information that they are looking for.
4. And, of course, the plain old content site. Although, these days, content sites don't have to be all that plain. Content can be defined as words, videos, audio and multimedia. The possibilities are endless.

Now that you know that you need a website, how do you go about getting one? Let's take a look:

1. Hiring an Outside Developer. While creating your own website may be ideal, it is not always possible. If you plan to utilize advanced features such as Web databases, content management systems, online forums, or Flash animation, hiring a professional is usually the best option. Rather than risk losing customers due to technical problems or poorly designed features, professional designers can ensure that your website looks great and functions properly.
2. Blogging. I love blog sites because the search engines love them AND because they are "easy peasy." The two top choices for creating a blog are WordPress and Blogger.com. WordPress is free from http://wordpress.org. It can be installed with just a few clicks from your web hosting control panel (provided you have cpanel type hosting.)
3. Design Dashboard, Point and click your way to a beautifully designed website. Step-by-step, "point 'n click" web page design system turns creating web sites, landing pages, affiliate pre-sell pages, mini-sites, sales pages and blog headers into a virtual no-brainer.
4. XSite Pro. I use this for the majority of my websites. XSite Pro is extremely easy for the newbie to use so that they don't have to have a website designer create a site for them. Just point, click and type. It has a built in template system plus third-party templates are available everywhere these days.
5. Microsoft FrontPage or Dreamweaver. This software is a little more difficult to learn, but I did it - so you can do it if you want!
6. SiteBuildIt is the only all-in-one site-building, site-hosting, AND site-marketing system of software tools for affiliate marketers.
7. Squidoo. You can create a squidoo lens with articles that will promote your affiliate product. I would still recommend that you have your own domain name and website.

You can educate yourself in the internet, software and the information technology, by creating your own website. Thus giving yourself an advantage over other affiliates marketers. Of course if you already know most of this side of things, it will leave you more time to concentrate on the content of your website.

To entice visitors to your affiliate marketing website supply them with good content, after all that is what they are looking for. It is your job to keep them interested, if you dont' they will leave never to return. Good content is top of the heap for attracting visitors. They are wanting information, all you have to do is supply it. This will also, in their eyes make you an authority figure on the subject matter in question. How do you get good content? Research, that is it just research. What you are doing basically, is giving them information they could have found themselves on the internet. What you do is find it and re-package it in such a way they find interesting and informative. They can then read it at their leisure on your affiliate website, hoping to entice them to click the link to the merchants website and earn a commission.

Use your keywords for search engine optimization and utilize them in your content. Keep it simple and relevant, and they will keep coming back. Update your webpages' on a regular basis and inform your prospects with a newsletter. Keep educating yourself, learn how to enhance your affiliate website with all that you learn. The internet is bursting with information, just go grab some and make it into an informative, relevant webpage that you can entice visitors to purchase the products or services you are promoting.