Questions...

[Christina098red]

Questions:
Hi All! I am very new and have a few questions?thanks in advance for your replies!
First, let me explain my overall plan. I want to build a website that is sustainable, so to do this I plan on having a site that has loads of original content. I have picked a niche that is near-and-dear to my heart and know that I will enjoy updating the content.

So, I will have all the regular pages (home, about, contact, product reviews, links, etc), along with an active blog that I would like to be able to reference the product review links. Then from the product review page, my affiliate links would be able to be used.

Thus far, I have created my Home page, About Us page, and Contact Us page. I have a domain name (NOT free) and hosting service (Hostgator). I have also been actively preparing content for the product review page and blog. I have not published any of my pages yet because the content references other pages within the web site. Here are my questions:

1. How do I link pages together on my website. For example, be able to click the ?About Us? button on from Home and then from the About Us-Page to Home?
2. I am building a webpage that features a blog, do I create a page on the website specifically for the blog to install the software (WordPress)?
3. At what point should I apply for an affiliate program? Should I wait until the website is well-established or would it be okay to apply right away?

Any feedback is very much appreciated!! Thanks!!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Cristina, am swamped but will take a quick stab at a couple answers and hopefully others will weigh in too.

1) What program are you using to build the site? All those links should naturally be in the navigation structure if you are doing it right.

2) You can do it 2 diff ways. Either set up as yoursite.com/blog or better yet
yoursite.com/keyword-blog OR you can set it up as a subdomain like I do with my blog.
http://affiliate-blogs.5staraffiliateprograms.com/
That's the method I obviously prefer and my blog ranks really well.

3) Depends a little on the type of merchants/networks. If you are going for big name brand merchants, they can be picky and want to see some traffic and a good site. Many merchants/networks are on auto pilot and will take almost everyone.

My recommendation is get a GOOD BASIC site up at least, with maybe a couple good blog posts.

 

[Christina098red]

Linda,

Thank you so much for replying! I know you are probably very busy!

I am using FrontPage to build the site. I have taken a few tutorial on the MS website, but obviously there is A LOT to know/learn!

Thank you for the info on the blog, I will look into setting it up that way.

And I was looking to get some big name merchants, but I see that it would probably be best if I snagged some smaller ones first? Just curious how many affiliate companies I can work with at one time? Is there a restriction or will I be able to work with several from my one website? I would like to be able to market the best prices/deal possible for my website--obviously this would require several affiliate companies.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Promoting multiple merchants is no prob. Strategy somewhat depends on niche and how you set up your site. Possibilities are endless.