There are quite a few affiliate marketers who seem to manage just fine without setting up their own website, but the benefits of having your own site will be instantly noticeable once you build it. Not only does having your own website establish your credibility on the subject of your site, but it also lends authority to products you promote.
While you can choose to use Adwords and other contextual advertising methods exclusively, you will also have the option to add other income streams when you have your own website. It also enables you to organize and consolidate your affiliate product offerings, as well as add other types of advertising and monitization schemes to your site.
Setting up a website is not that difficult, nor is it very expensive any more. So if you feel like you’re ready to take the plunge and get to work on your own site, here are a few things you need to have a little bit of knowledge on before you get started.
To begine with, you will need to get your own domain name. A domain name is a unique name that identifies your website. It transforms an IP address (212.21.212.21) to something more memorable – www.yourdomain.com.
Having your own domain name adds to the authority of what you’re writing, should be easy to remember and gives you a platform from which to write. Registering a domain name nowadays costs only about $8 to $10. Some of the best registrars include:
- Godaddy.com
- Namecheap.com
- Internic.com
Next, you will want to get webhosting, which is also very inexpensive. A full featured webhosting plan will cost you only about $5.00 to $10.00 per month.
Get an easy to use website platform. The platform of choice these days is WordPress, which is very simple to install and setup through the Cpanel of your host. Gone are the days when you had to be an HTML or Dreamweaver expert to set up a great looking site. You’ll even be able to choose from tons of really nice looking ‘free’ themes for your site, or you can purchase premium themes if you prefer.
Two other content systems that many people find to be easy to use are Drupal and Joomla. Whichever platform you choose to use, any of these will build out a full site for you that has an admin interface that is simple to learn and use.
