Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

So you want to quickly knock up an affiliate website? Here’s how I managed to create one within 15 minutes… that’s less time than it took to write this post!

1. BUY A DOMAIN
You could spend hours searching for a generic domain that’s either free or due to expire in the next few days like Cufflink.org.uk by using the facility over at Caught.co.uk. Alternatively you could settle for a domain name that describes what you plan to offer such as Quirky-Gifts.co.uk.

2. INSTALL AFFILISTORE
I first mentioned Affilistore back in 2007 when I wrote a piece on making use of old domain names. Affilistore is a very simple tool that will create a website based on a merchants datafeed and it’s completely free of charge if you agree to leave the footer links in place. Affilistore also has a great (if somewhat small) set of forums, that means obtaining help is a breeze.

3. ADD A DATAFEED
OK STOP RIGHT THERE!
As we all know, merchants datafeeds differ greatly in size and quality and this is the main thing you need to consider when choosing a merchant to work with. For Quirky Gifts I chose Totally Funky on Affiliate Window has they had one of the cleanest datafeeds I think I’ve ever seen. This meant integration was as simple as can be, something Totally Funky should be proud of!

4. GRAB A LOGO
Either knock one up yourself quickly, create a Web2.0 logo online, or pop along to Logo Instant and tweek one of their free logo’s along and grab one of their free ones.

5. TWEAK
Once everything is in place, over the next few weeks you will need to tweak Affilistore, changing settings here and there, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Their forums are a great starting point!

WHY DID I CHOOSE THIS PARTICULAR NICHE AND MERCHANT?
After the A4U Awards in London, Jane and myself shot across to Paris for a wee break and whilst there visited a quirky store called Pylones. On our return, I saw Totally Funky had joined Affiliate Window and after browsing their website, noticed they stocked a lot of similar products.

I found their site enjoyable to browse due to it’s clean, uncluttered, crisp feel and easy navigation system – and also fell in love with (almost) everything they had especially the Crayon mugs!

After having a look at their datafeed I found it to be like their website – clean and uncluttered – meaning integration would be a doddle. I know Totally Funky have a sister site (Strawberry Fool) which I would expect to have a datafeed of the same quality and are due to introduce a third site dedicated to VeeDub followers :) On top of this, with Existem-AM managing the affiliate programme, any requests you may have for specific graphics, content, links etc is you can be sure Mark and others will help you out quickly.

Remember… when starting off in affiliate marketing it’s often best to focus on an area you have particular interest in, something you enjoy, or an area you have partiuclar skills in. It just makes creating an affiliate site that little bit more enjoyable and less of a chore!

Over the past few weeks, I have fun (albeit expensive fun) playing around with Aquanakes domain cathcing service over at Caught.co.uk. I’ve caught a few domains, some of which are questionable, others however I believe have potentional if I get the time to develop.

One domain I caught should be great as an Eco Friendly niche website that I hope will grow inline with consumers opinions and shopping habits over the next 12 to 18 months. It’s based on WordPress (surprise surprise) but the design was taken from a CSS template, and cut and pasted back together with all of wordpress tags by yours truely – my first attempt :)

I’ve already implemented a newsletter (although don’t expect the first one to be sent until 2009) which is seeing a trickle of people subscribe. I’ve also implemented Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan’s WP-Email pluggin which allows people to send articles to friends and family, hopefully spreading the word further.

All the pretty green eco friendly images were bought from iStockPhoto which is fantastic resource for affiliates, offering images for website developement and very reasonable prices.

BuyEco will also be my very first attempt at swapping links with similar websites, but this time with a twist. I’ve been following John Lamerton’s blog with interest recently, as he’s written a fair amount about link building, website content and most recently links within content.

No more building a simple links page, adding a whole load of websites in a uniformed list! Its time to link a handful of website in who load of eco friendly articles that will be added over the next few days. Now I just need to make contact with similarly themed websites and get the links in place.

If you’re interested in swapping links or have any suggestions of how to improve the look, feel or functionality of the site, then please get in touch.