Wordpress for Affiliate Marketing Newbies

I’ve been blogging for a few years now and have grown to love Wordpress blogs. It’s what my sis and I have chosen to use for our affiliate websites. If the first thought that comes to you is “what’s Wordpress” or “what’s a blog” – then this video is just what you need to come up to speed. It’s about 50 minutes long so put your feet up and listen up.

Hosting For Your Affiliate Website

If you’re getting into affiliate marketing, you’ll end up with a website at some point and want to find a home for it. That’s what “hosting” is in the online world – that place called a server where your website lives. There are a number of website hosting companies with even more features and benefits. How do you select one?

Well here’s a review site to visit, one of many that give you the skinny on hosting sites.  Remember any review site is bound to be someone else’s affiliate site – just so you know. But that’s OK, it’s where you get to see one of the more popular kinds of affiliate websites, something you can have after you pick a niche.

Just a few things you might want to look for:

1. Does the hosting company have a cpanel? That’s what you need for Wordpress which is the platform we are using for our affiliate websites. Look for our post on Wordpress here on Extreme Newbies.
2. What’s the monthly fee – and do you get a break if you pay annually?
3. Something new – is the hosting company eco-friendly? If this is important to you (and shouldn’t it be for all of us), look for green hosting. It’s out there.
4. Do they have 24/7 easily-accessible support? There’s nothing worse than having a problem at 1am and no one’s home at your hosting company.

Affiliate Marketing Newbies – First Month Lessons

We’re at our first month anniversary as newbie affiliate marketers and whew – lots of lessons learned! Here’s a few:

• Pick a niche – something you’re interested in, something lots of other people are interested in and something where there are products to sell. Examples of some of the ones these newbies picked are weight loss, weight training, credit repair and a new favorite life topic – going green.
• Do a keyword search before you do buy a domain or do anything else. Check out the Google Keyword Tool – easy to use and free. Or try out our favorite keyword tool, Market Samurai that has lots of other features to help in any kind of Internet marketing.
• Focus, focus, focus. Create a roadmap for your affiliate marketing journey. This is not a business that you want to meander along in and miss the opportunity to make the mean green.
• Ignore “bright, shiny objects”. As you get involved in affiliate marketing, you will see wonderful things on the learning curve, things I call – bright, shiny objects, the “accessories” of the trade – courses, programs, tools, resources and my favorite – ready-made affiliate websites. Unless you have a trust fund, you can’t get them all so this is where having a business plan comes in real handy to keep you focused.
• Pass on most of the freebies you run into on the Internet – teleseminars, webinars, ebook, special reports. They are there to get you to buy a paid product. Freebies usually tell you the “what” on a topic but never the “how”. And they can really be a time suck. If something really speaks to you though, follow your intuition, go for it and sign up.
• Ask questions – there are any dumb ones or I would have asked all of them already! One thing I’ve found is that experienced affiliate marketers are always ready to share some advice with a newbie.
• Take your mistakes – like the ones I’ve made this month – as absolutely necessary affiliate marketing lessons learned.

Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you somebody who has never achieved much. ~ Joan Collins