Step 05 - Build a useful, interesting web site on your niche

Create a content rich, keyword-rich site, designed to be found in search engines.

Show your personality. Have a bit of fun. Be memorable. You need to connect with your visitors. Remember that people like buying from people they like.

There's no space in this affiliate program tutorial to describe how to build a web site. For that, you'll need a good instruction manual.

If you're short of money, you can hunt for free information on sites such HTMLGoodies.

You'll save yourself an enormous amount of time and frustration if you take the plunge and buy a good instruction manual written specifically for affiliates.

Here are the two best options:

• • For keen do-it-your-selfers, I recommend Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook.
    
    Rosalind is a real been-there-done-that super affiliate.
    
    Her instruction manual shows you how she builds very successful sites using web authoring software.
    
    It starts right at the beginning, discussing topics such as myths about doing business online, mistakes to avoid, how to choose the best topic, how to choose the right domain name, etc.
    
    The book, updated in May 2006, takes you step-by-step through the whole process.
    
    One particularly useful feature is her explanation of how she achieves high conversion rates (visitor-to-sales ratios), achieving conversion rates of 4% or 6% while most affiliates are happy with 1%.
    
    Another of the strengths of the book is her descriptions of a wide variety of ways to get traffic to your site. This is important - too many affiliates rely on just one or two traffic-generating methods. The more traffic-gemerating methods you have, the safer your business is.
    
    Rosaland is genuinely successful, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now she's also a very successful author, with sales of more $1 million from her book, which is excellent value.
    
    When you learn from her, you're learning from a winner.
    
    Learn more about Rosalind's Super Affiliate Handbook here.
    
    
  • For affiliates who want to simplify things as much as possible and automate the tedious techie stuff, I recommend Ken Evoy's Site Build It (SBI).
    
    SBI is a site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools, all in one place.
    
    Once you have SBI, you don't have to go scurrying all over the Net adding more tools and software. You have almost all you need in one package, so you can concentrate on the fun part – creating useful, interesting content.
    
    (Once you have SBI, the only addition you need to buy occasionally is a cheap, one-day subscription to Wordtracker. It's useful to double check the SBI brainstorming results against Wordtracker results.)
    
    SBI comes with a newly updated, truly comprehensive instruction manual, a step-by-step Action Guide.
    
    SBI is the tool I give my assistants.
    
    Ken Evoy's instruction manual is doing my work for me. First it taught Rupert and now it's teaching Ros how to build a high quality, successful, revenue-generating site.
    
    You could build a site without SBI, but using it saves you time and effort by simplifying the process.
    
    SBI teaches you how to optimize your web pages so they'll be found in search engines. After building a page, you click the "Analyze It" button and it tells you what you need to do to improve it.
    
    The SBI technique really works. Two of the SBI sites that Rupert built are included in the case studies on the SBI site.
    
    See the proof in the SBI case studies