How the heck do I start this??

[kylabarton]

Hi,
I just got all setup with wordpress and ipage and have my domain and everything but I dont know what to do next. I would like to promote fitness workouts, supplements, program, etc. Where do I sign up to become an affiliate for programs like vince delmonte, p90x, and so on and how do I start promoting them? Thank you so much for any help

 

[djbaxter]

Start by reading all the sticky threads here: Newbie Affiliate Forum - 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums

 

[Sweet Tooth No. 3]

Sorry to hear you're with iPage. And I hate to tell you this, but iPage is not a good host. They are cheap, and their interface is great. But I had to switch from them because pages load so slow.

Slow page loads irritate readers and will reduce conversions. It can also hurt your rankings in Google.

Check your pages in the Pingdom Tool. If you see page load times in excess of 3 seconds, then run. This is assuming that you don't have any other problems with your pages, or heavy pages.

Also, you can get an idea about your page load times in GWMT under "labs."

With iPage, I had basic pages in WP that were taking 10 seconds + to load, without any images or other media. With my current host, those same pages load in under 1 second. And yes, I know, iPage is cheap. But you would probably be better going with a quality host like Hostgator.

Hopefully, you didn't sign up for the iPage yearly plan. But if you did, just use the tools I gave you to keep tabs on it. You may have a better result than I did.

I don't mean to be a bummer, but good web hosting is important.

 

[kylabarton]

thank you, that's a total bummer. I could probably get a refund if I wanted to...I hope

 

[Sweet Tooth No. 3]

thank you, that's a total bummer. I could probably get a refund if I wanted to...I hope

It's not as bad as it sounds Kyla. Maybe they've improved. Did you check the page load times in the Pingdom tool? It's a pretty good tool. Just take into account the fact that sometimes it tests from a US location, and sometimes from a European location. A 3 second load time is slow from a US location, but not necessarily from the Netherlands. If you want to check them just by clicking through your pages, be sure to clear your browser cache. That is why it took me so long to figure it out, because I never cleared my cache.

I found out about the problem when I checked in Webmaster Tools and saw this assessment "Your pages load slower than 78% of pages on the internet." And a scary looking graph too. Yikes!

Just check the load times. All shared hosting accounts have fluctuations. This is because the loads on these shared servers will certainly experience highs and lows.

So check frequently. With iPage, a 2 second page load 1 day, may be 8 seconds the next. With a good host, the highs and lows are much less dramatic.

I'm pretty sure they have a 30 day money back gaurantee. But even if you get hosed for the whole year, that's only what....like 40 bucks?

And switching hosts is easy. Most hosts will transfer all your sites over for you for free, and the cpanel interface that most use is very similar to the iPage interface (but I do like iPage's better).

So don't feel too bad. Like me, you probably wondered how a web host could offer unlimited hosting, with live phone support, for $4 a month. Well, here's the answer...they overload their servers.

The good news is that you can get excellent hosting for around $7 per month. Still cheap IMHO. Much cheaper than a brick and morter business, and you can make the same; if not more money.

And I don't think it will hurt rankings much if at all. This only becomes a factor once you start getting traffic.

So all is well...

I'm just curious though. How long did your pages take to load in the Pingdom tool? And what do you have on the pages...just text, videos, if images; are they properly formatted?

Trust me, this is just a small setback; if one at all.

Good luck

 

[Sweet Tooth No. 3]

Just wanted to add this. iPage does offer a caching service. It's from a legit 3rd party provider, and I think it costs about $2.50 per month.

This should greatly improve the page load times. But there is a limit on how many cached page loads you can sign up for. And their lack of detail to basic service really scared me away.

 

[Vendzilla]

I've been lucky, been with webair for maybe 7 years with a dedicated box running several platforms, scripts and websites all at the same time, with very little downtime. I got hacked once because of a script I was running, but got past that, the script company is no longer in business. Webair helped me out a lot on that, with back ups and fixing the sercurity issue.

As far as what to push, I wouldn't limit yourself, I would promote several things and using a little math, figure out whats working best for you and the traffic you're getting, from that, you can change your traffic, your layout, your programs. Learn from it and grow

 

[kylabarton]

Thanks everyone for all the help! My website is currently under construction and am hoping to get it up by monday! Ive decided to do fitness, as it is a huge passion of mine. Right now I am looking into some good affiliate programs to get started on. Im getting really excited