Building A Website

Once you have worked out the topic of your website and what sort of pages you want on it and what you are going to sell you then have to decide what sort of website you want. There are many different ways of building a website - using many different tools. If you are starting out in affiliate marketing to keep costs down you are going to want to build the website yourself. You will find below the most straight forward way of builiding a website for a beginner.

Step1. Domain Name.

You need to buy a domain name - www.yourbusinessname.com. This is like your street address telling people the location of your website. You can use this name on promoting your business - in your email signatures, on your business card, in phamplets or in adds in newspapers.

Domain Names www.GoDaddy.com - If you are going to buy a .com domain name this is the place to buy it. They are very competively priced and have a great user panel that is easy to use - particularly if you buy multiple domains. Important Print out and keep your domain name details in a safe place.

Step 2. Hosting

There are many different hosting companies to choose from. Generally you are looking for price, reliability, space and customer service. While we have used many different hosting companies in the past we have found that the best by far is a company called Hostgator.

They really have everything you will need and we have found their customer service excellent. They have a "live chat" which you can access whenever you want and get the answers to any of your problems quickly and easily.

Hosting Hostgator - by far the best hosting company in the world. They have fantastic customer service, great prices and lots of goodies in their basic hosting packages that you cant get anywhere else. When you buy your package let them know about your domain name. Unlimited Domain Hosting Only $9.95 a Month Important Print out and keep your hosting details in a safe place.

Step 3. Building your Website

Wherever you buy your domain name from you will need to "point" it to where your web hosting is set up. If you follow the steps above and let hostgator know your domain name you can go ahead and build your website. Otherwise you will need to follow any instructions in your welcoming emails. ( please print these off and keep in a safe place)

One of the quickest and easiest ways of building your own website is by using the tools you will find within your hostgator account.

There are two options available - you can install "wordpress" or they have a sitebuilder option available.

wordpress - you will find this with a whole lot of other goodies if you click on the button labelled "fantastico". It really is a few clicks and you have installed your first website. Hostgator has plenty of documentation and a forum if you get stuck.
Wordpress comes free with a Hostgator web hosting account

Once you have successfully installed your wordpress you will want to change the look and you will need to apply whats called a "theme" . We have found one of the best wordpress themes for affiliate marketers.

Watch this brief video for an overview of how Socrates Theme is the answer you have been looking for!

Sitebuilder - while there are limitations in changing design elements and structure of these websites they are an ideal way to start out. You can choose a look to suit your business.

In both of these cases you will need to make sure that you backup your website after doing any amount of work. If you get into a regular habit of backing up your website you will save a lot of heartache if you happen to come accross any problems.

Step 4. Content for your Website

Text
You will hear it over and over again ! Unique content is the only way you are going to get any sort of following or respect from visitors to your website. The search engines love fresh unique content and if you regularly update your website it will help your positioning in the search engine rankings results.

When you are writing content for your website remember that the majority of people scan text and are looking for a quick fix . Keep the most important headlines and content at the top of your website and make sure you keep it simple.

Photos

Photos enhance websites and can be used to tell visual stories about the text placed near it. You can use your own photos or buy some stock images from places like istock. You can search through their millions of images and for a few dollars turn your website into a professional looking website.

To buy .com or .com.au?

If you want to appeal and be found in search engines by an Australian market you should buy a .com.au domain name. If you want to appeal to a world wide audience you should buy a .com domain name.

Can I buy both .com and .com.au?

If you want to. You can do whats called "parking". You dont ever want to put the identical website up on .com as you do .com.au as this is considered duplicate content by search engines and you will never get a high ranking.

Depending on your primary market you pick one as the one where the website will be hosted and then the other domain name will be "parked". The resulting effect of this is that you can use either domain name in promotions and your website will show up. You also prevent someone else using the same business name.

Should I buy my domain name and hosting from the same company?

How is this website made?
This is a HTML website is made using Dreamweaver . Dreamweaver is a great piece of software for building all types of websites but requires a huge learning curve. If you are interested in learning how to make a website using dreamweaver there are plenty of tutorials and videos on the internet for you to learn from.

If you are a complete beginner the easiest way to start is to go for something like wordpress or a sitebuilder option found with some hosting packages.