How to Design Your Website for Marketing Affiliate Programs

If you want to start making money online with affiliate marketing then you need to have a website. This is the main marketing tool you must have to start your affiliate marketing business. You don't have to add a lot of eye-catching graphics to your website, but it must contain useful content; look simple and professional.

There are three things you need to do to build an affiliate marketing website. Buy a domain name for your site, choose a hosting service and design your website to upload to your hosting server. You can choose any domain name you like but it will be better if you can get a easy-to-remember domain name and the name is relevant to your website topic or your affiliate products.

While choosing a hosting service or company to publish your website, look for reliability. Hosting companies will store all your files and to keep your website online every moment. One of the well known and reliable hosting company you can try is Godaddy.com.

How should your money making website be designed and built?

Hire a Web Designer
You can go to a freelance marketplace website like RentACoder.com or guru.com to find a freelance web designer to build a site for you. Tell the designer what you need and how you want your site look like (for affiliate marketing, you will want your site look professional and clean) and the designer will create a website according to your preference. Simply list your web design project/work with a clear description about your project on a freelance marketplace and you will see quit a lot of designers enter their bids to obtain your web design project. Check the portfolio, experience, rating and service charge of each web designer. Select the one which you think he/she is best for your work. Once your website is ready, you may pay the web designer using the payment method agreed earlier.

Use a Free Website Template
If you want to keep your web building cost down, you can download some free web templates from websites that are offering free templates. Select the template that you like, add in your own content to the template and upload it on your server to publish your website on the Internet. This way, you don't need to pay for a design service.

Use Web Building Tools
Another option is to use site builder tools like “dreamweaver” and “frontpage” to design a website yourself.

Characteristics of a good website:

Professional, Simple and Clean
Your website is created for affiliate marketing business, so it must have a professional looking. It should not be loaded with too many colorful graphics and lots of flashy banners. Simplicity is best. Try to use light colors and your website will look clean. Make a nice header to display your website name and theme. The site navigation must be simple to avoid confusion. Visitors should have no problem when searching for a specific page or information; otherwise they will not come back to your website.

Provide Search Facility
Add a search box on every page of your website. This will be a great help for the people who want to find a specific sub-topic or information on your website.

Add a Signup Form to Build Your Mailing List
You should add a simple signup form on your website to get your visitors contact information. To entice your visitors join your email list, you may offer free e-books, reports and gifts. Building a mailing list is very beneficial for marketing your affiliate business.

Your own website is the key requirement for making money online with affiliate marketing. The overall look and feel of your website should be interactive and the site should has useful content and information that your targeted visitors are searching for.