Affordable Website Promotion

18 May

If you want to develop your own business at home, then you need a product to sell. But what? If you are skilled in an area, then maybe you can make something or provide a service. But what could the rest of us do?


For a start, unless you desperately want to, the product or products that you will sell through your work from home scheme do not actually need to be delivered to you for repackaging and sending to another place. There are masses of other options!

You can try drop-shipping, where you accept the orders and then pass them on to a wholesaler who sends the products out for you. But, this still leaves you handling payments and orders. Not merely does your business grind to a halt when you go on holiday, you are exposed to chargebacks and fraud.

So, for me, the best products to sell for a homeworking system are affiliate items. Here you are only matching budding customers and available sellers. Let someone else deal with packaging, chargebacks and customer complaints whilst you move on to the next customer, earning commissions along the way.

But, where do you start? Well look to your interests and hobbies. Not just does this make you more authoritative in generating your adverts, it makes the selling more interesting and later steps as for instance article writing much easier.

Once you have decided on a niche, let's say golf, scuba diving or soccer, pay a visit to affiliate forums and affiliate sites. Also, visit some of the better known, and probably not so well known, retailers in the industry and see which ones advertise their own affiliate schemes.

Now that you know what retailers you could work with, see if any offer up stats as for instance Earning Per Click (EPC), which will show you for every affiliate click to their site, what the average order is. Be aware that some may offer stats for Earnings Per Hundred Clicks and still call this EPC, or EPM, which is per thousand clicks.

This can give you a good idea as to which stores to sign up with and maybe start working with. All you need to do now is to maybe decide which of their product range you are going to work with at first.

But keep your mind open to change. You might like to pick a few products from several retailers and see which retailers work best for you, rather than relying on general trends.

Of course, lots will also depend on how you will be selling. If you are just promoting within your own country then this works well, but if your promotion will work outside of your country, but your merchant can't handle foreign orders, then you have a problem.

In this case, someone like ClickBank who provide electronic goods that could be sold around the world may just have an edge. Maybe, instead of trying to promote highly expensive drivers, which each pay good commissions, lower cost ebooks that sell about the world would be a better choice.

Find a product you are happy to work with, but be ready to change if the merchant is not serving you well.

Comments Off

13 May

If you want to start work at home, then it is impending that you will need some kind of site. But you may want to stay away from the high costs of a professional designer. Might you still get a web site?

Yes, you could get yourself a site for your own work at home scheme. There are loads of DIY site tools, but I do not really rate heaps of these. For those wanting to get an internet presence quickly and straightforwardly, then blogging is the answer?

Not convinced? Well, the best website tools have everything that you need, including:

  • straightforward to update via content management systems

  • professional templates for the design of your site, free to download and straightforward to activate

  • masses of added features to include, via plugins, for a load of extra functions



But isn't a blog just for blogging?
But, surely a website merely means that you could then just keep blogging about your products? Well actually no, with the best blogging software you might add a range of pages to your site, with a hierarchy of pages if you want to add stacks. Then, you could add site posts on top of these, which is another amazing benefit.

What is the best blogging software?
So, which is the best blogging software to use? Which should you be using? Well, my recommendation is WordPress. If you are slightly technical, then you will be able to sort yourself a domain name and suitable PHP hosting with a MySQL database and upload the latest version of WordPress.

Does all of that sound foreign to you? Do not worry - just look round for a host that offers easy WordPress installation. You may pay a touch more, but with a press of a button or two, the entire site will be created for you in WordPress.

Customise WordPress
Then, start working on your site! Select a suitable theme that matches what you want to sell and has a good navigation structure.

If you are promoting only a small handful of products then you merely need to create a page for each and link to every page from the main navigation area. This should happen automatically if you are careful selecting your theme. If you need lots of pages, then create high level category pages and then create the product pages as sub pages for these. Again, with a decent theme, all of this will be managed for you, or you could only talk around the products in the category pages and link to them manually.

Wordpress is the best
WordPress is tremendous for quickly and easily building your own web site. I do not know of an simpler to use tool available on the market, it beats all of the DIY site tools that I have ever tried. Plus, because it is a blogging tool, it has all of the essential website tools built in, which means that you site could also include a blog. This is important for the ultimate success of your website.

So, find yourself a domain name, buy some hosting, activate WordPress and customise it and you have your own easy to build web site!

Comments Off

12 May

Making a coupon code with WordPress is one of the quickest and easiest ways of getting started with coupon codes. It is very simple, here is what to do!

WordPress.com or WordPress.org?
First, WordPress are no longer allowing users to use the hosted version of WordPress if they are advertising sponsored posts. How far they take this - if it gets as far as disallowing affiliate marketing - I do not know and whether the state changes in the future we can not know. But for security, I would recommend avoiding the hosted version if you want to make sure your website will always thrive.

Hosting WordPress.org
So we are looking at the self hosted version of WordPress. There are two options here, depending on your technical abilities. If you are happy with FTP and buying a MySQL database, then you can use any host you like. But if this sounds too complicated, then look only for hosts that will install WordPress at the click of a few buttons.

Once you have your host, then you could also buy you domain name. Along with setting up WordPress, your website is now up and running!

Finding Some Vouchers
There is no point in merely displaying random voucher codes if the purpose of the web site is to make an income. You will only want to display discount codes that relate to web-sites running affiliate schemes and you will only be allowed to display approved codes. So sign up to a handful of the biggest affiliate schemes you could find and then apply to all of their relevant merchants.

They will then email you as voucher codes go live. You then merely write a new post and type in the code and all of the details. Do not bother with click to reveal - it only annoys people. Merely give the full details on your post. The affiliate scheme will provide you with banners or text links for the merchant. Just copy and paste one of these into the post.

Attracting Traffic To Your Coupon Website
Search engine optimisation techniques are budding, but will take ample of effort! At best, possibly optimising for merchant names and the word coupon code may help for people looking for that merchant's banners, but you need to build on the powers of the blogging tool.

Instead you need to build a following and this is where sites excel! If you could attract some visitors to your new WordPress site, then people will start signing up for you RSS feed. So make sure that your posts round new vouchers clearly name the merchant and the voucher, so followers can pop by when there is a discount that appeals. But, where do you get these traffic from to begin with?

Well start taking part in other coupon code web-sites and forums. Be the first person to post round outstanding codes that you know round, giving the full details on the forum or in the comment so that it does not become blatant self promotion. Merely rely on the avatar linking back to your site, or adding a link in your signature.

Comments Off

10 May

What is blog flipping and how can you earn money through it? Are there any alternatives and drawbacks?

Weblog flipping is straightforwardly the creation of a new website with the intention of selling it, hopefully for a profit!

There are lots of reasons for doing this and equally plenty of reasons why people might want to buy a website. So how is it done?

Well, to start with, it helps if you might find not merely a good website name but an exceptional website name. A name that really stands out and probably includes your favourite keywords is a good idea. This adds value to the site straight from the start.

And then you need to start building your weblog. You can either flip a website very quickly, once it is established, or hold onto it and sell it when it is a really respected blog. It depends on your interests and why you are flipping. So people are merely interested in the creative, getting it going process. They enjoy setting up the website, building the initial reputation and so on, but possibly cannot be bothered running it permanently. Match these up with those that do not know how to get a website started and are merely interested in running a website and you have a match to flip a blog between!

To build your weblog you need to start writing original content and posting it often. You are preparing a product for sale and that product is not just a domain name with WordPress installed, it is a blog with content and a readership. So write quality content, buying in freelance writers to help you build your content if you need to.

You must also look at gaining visitors to the weblog. There are a huge variety of tricks to use, from article writing to commenting on other websites. Or you might like to guest post to other sites or you may merely write some outstanding posts that other bloggers really like and want to link to and show to their readers.

You also need to plan to get the best price, so install Google Analytics, which is a good system that is widely accepted. This will track your visitors and you could use this as a evidence of your volumes of traffic. It is this that will really add value to your work.

So, when you are ready to sell, how much is your site worth? The answer is, as much as someone is willing to pay for it. With ample of visitors, a good Page Rank and quality content, this could be a good amount. Look at sites let's say websiteoutlook.com to get a valuation on your website and blogflippingtips.com if you want to find out more about the process and how to get the best value from your website.

Then, where do you sell it? Well, you can use services let's say Sedo to just sell the domain name, and you might consider it worth while listing the domain name there once it is up and running, even before it is ready for a sale. But sites such as flippa.com will allow you to create an auction for your weblog once you are ready to sell it. There are small charges involved, but if you have worked hard with your website then a good reward should await you.

So, get flipping that website then create some more!

1 Comment

9 May

Lots of people want to know how to develop a voucher code website to earn a bit of an affiliate income. Well, it might be an easy way to a bit of commission. Here's how!

Setting up a discount code site is simple. You merely need four things:


1. An straightforward way of building your web site
2. A name for your web site and somewhere to host it
3. Some voucher codes to display
4. People to visit your web site and buy from your merchants

Let's look at each of these in turn.

An easy way of building your site
You might use a DIY web site building tool, but why make life hard work for yourself? It is much simpler, and often done, that instead you use blogging software to set up a discount code website. You could either use hosted tools let's say Blogger or WordPress.com, or download the software from WordPress.org and install that to your hosting space.

With most blogging software you will be able to find suitable templates, or themes, which you might use for your website, which are free of charge. These give you the professional look that you need, without the expensive bills that can otherwise be attached.

A name and a host
To me, these go hand in hand. Even though you are using a free site hosting service, it is better to use your own website name. It merely looks and flows better.

Choosing a name should be simple to arrange. Only think of a suitable name, check it is free to register and you can buy it. But before you buy it, work out where you are going to host it, unless you are using a hosted site. If you are hosting the web site, then consider how involved you want to get and could get. For instance, some hosting services can automatically install WordPress for you whilst for others will have you using FTP. Or, you may want to approach a webdesigner to help you get started.

Some voucher codes
You cannot develop a voucher code site without some codes to display! So, where will you get them from? Well any respectable affiliate scheme will provide you with a list of coupon codes for their merchants. So to get started, find an affiliate forum that serves your country and see what large schemes they are recommending. Sign up, join a few suitable merchants and download and display the new coupon codes. The scheme will provide for you the required code to link to the merchant. You may only need some way of removing the coupon codes when they expire.

Some site traffic
This is easier said than done and the subject of plenty of more articles, not only a straight forward paragraph or two. But, in summary, you need to increase the search engine appeal of your web site by techniques such as article writing.

Also, join a few cash saving forums, web-sites and websites. Leave comments round new discount codes that you have been notified around. In your signature you could possibly leave your website address, or you could sometimes link to your site via the avatar. If you want to be very clever, make sure that the username that you sign up with includes your web site address, if it is short and simple.

That's it - that is how to start a coupon code web site for yourself.

Comments Off