There are two primary assets you need to have in place in other to start making money online as an affiliate. This article is going to show you how to go about setting up your blog. don’t worry if you are a not exactly a “techie”, this article will explain in a step by step manner how to setup an affiliate marketing Blog. Just in case you have no clue as to what a blog is, let me quickly offer you a quick working definition
DEFINITION: According to blogger.com, “A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world” . So in a nutshell what the above definition shows is that your blog is in fact anything you want it to be. There are millions of them and they come in all shapes and sizes and they are no real rules as to how they are to operated or run. In very simple terms we can say that a blog is a website where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. A blog is basically a website where you provide content and advertisement to an “audience”. For the purpose of this article, it is going to be devoted to making money for you as affiliate in a program you have selected.
Important Note: What makes a blog different from a “regular” website is this, Adding materials to your website is basically “push button” easy. instead of creating webpages, designing the layout, uploading the files, linking everything together, and so forth, with a blog this is all done seamlessly in a control panel, where all you have to do is click on the mouse a few times to get the job done. So let’s get your blog setup quickly, here’s a step-by-step strategy you can use to easily set up your blog :
1 Choose a platform (WordPress, Drupal, Blogger etc)
2 Customize your blog
3 Create your posts
Now let’s look at these three-step strategy in detail.
1) Choosing A Platform
In learning how to setup an affiliate marketing platform, you can research the best blog platforms(software’s) available, but let me save you some time: Use WordPress.
WordPress (WP) is probably one of the most powerful blogging software’s available, it has a large community of users and it’s developers are constantly updating it. And while WordPress is pretty ‘bare bones’ right out of the box (which is good-makes it easy to learn!), there are hundreds of available plugins which you can install to make WordPress function exactly the way you want it to in the long-term.
They are basically two ways through which you can utilize WordPress.
1 You can got to WordPress.com and register to have your blog hosted by them on their servers and this is for the most part free. But this is not the way to go if you want to make money from your website
OR
2 By installing WordPress on your own domain and having it privately hosted. To use this second option you will have to register a domain name (Namecheap offers domain names for under $10 with free WhoisGuard) and have it hosted (Bluehost best for WordPress hosting)
Well, going to WordPress.com is free, quick and easy-all you need to do is fill up the short registration form and you are ready to blog in minutes. BUT there is a downside to using this third-party “hosting” option: Namely, you’ll have to follow WordPress.com’s terms of service (TOS) and rules about the type of content you are allowed to place on your blog.
You can see where they’d frown if you decided to put up your affiliate links on your blog. And this frowning could easily lead to your account getting closed and your blog suspended, But since you are in this business exclusively to make money, then it will be better to set up and host your WordPress site on your own. So skip the headaches and heartaches by hosting your blog on your own domain and web-host. That way there is no need to worry since you have complete control over your blog and you don’t run the risk of getting shutdown just for posting a harmless affiliate link.
Fortunately, getting a WordPress blog up and running on your own domain name is super simple, and this is how….
Auto-installing WordPress Using Script Installers
Simply follow this steps:
1 Register a domain name @ http://www.namecheap.comor any-other reliable domain registrar. In choosing your domain name, do make sure it is a name that clearly what your blog is about.
2 Webhosting for your domain http://www.bluehost.com comes highly recommended you use because you can literally get started for as little as $3.95 per month. And they have an auto-install feature which can install wordpress on your domain with a few clicks.
3 Go back to your domain registrar and change the domain name servers (DNS) to those given to you by Bluehost in the welcome email. Once you are logged in at your domain registrar’s you should be able to locate the manage domain option and from here you should be able to change the name servers. (The name servers simply connects your domain to your hosting and lets the world find your site.)
Note: It usually takes anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days for this change to be propagated across the internet.
Immediately after changing the name-servers you can proceed to add your domain to the control panel of your web-hosting account if you did not already do this while registering the domain or if you already have a web-hosting account and you want to add a new site as an add-on domain.
4 When the DNS is properly propagated, you can now install WordPress . Simply log into your web hosting control panel(the url for this is contained in a welcome e-mail) scroll down and look for the auto-script installer, it could be Fantastico De Luxe, Softcalculous, Simplescripts etc, depending on your web host, once you have located the installer click on it, then click on WordPress under the blogs section… and follow the easy instructions to install your blog, starting with the “New Installation” link, in just a few clicks.
You can also opt to install your WordPress manually by downloading the latest version of WordPress directly from WordPress.org and then uploading the software to the root folder of your domain, see a detailed guide on how to do this here. (If you are overwhelmed by the steps and processes involved in setting up your blog you can outsource the entire process to a virtual assistant, you can find good VA’s on elance.com, or http:www.fiverr.com ) who know How to setup an affiliate marketing Blog and who can help you out.
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