Adapting Your Affiliate Blog to Fit Your Needs
There are dozens of different variations that you can use to customize your blog. But for now you only need to know a few key distinctions.
(If you want to learn more about the various Wordpress settings, please feel free to download the document below:)
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First, you need to change the permalinks so they reflect the title of your blog posts and not the date information, as they are set up to do.
Click on Settings followed by Permalinks. Click on the Custom setting and then enter the following: “/%postname%” without the quotes. This will make your post titles appear like this: http://www.mywebsitename.com/post-title instead of http://www.mywebsitename.com/11-09-09.
Don’t forget to build a list
You’ll also need to have room for an opt-in box for an e-mail marketing list. Building an e-mail marketing list is one of the most essential parts of building a long term relationship with the niche. If you end up building several different websites within the same niche, you can use the same e-mail marketing list.
E-mail marketing is a topic that deserves its own ebook, but the basics are you set up an account with an autoresponder program like Aweber (affiliate link – affiliate status disclosure).
Aweber has a flat fee per month and you can have as many e-mail marketing lists as you want, so it is a good option for affiliate marketers. Once you join Aweber, you login to your account, create a list and create a web form.
You copy and paste the web form into a blank text widget that is in the sidebar of your template (AWeber video: How to integrate my blog with AWeber)
Give something away for free
Now you just need to offer your website visitors something attractive so that they will sign up for your list. Typically, you’ll give away a free ebook or e-course, but it depends on your niche and how much writing you’d like to do.
Use Widgets
While you’re in the widgets section, you’ll also want to make sure that the most recent posts and categories are displayed in your side bars, as well as a few extra text widgets. These text widgets can be used to display block ads if your template doesn’t already have block ads in place.
Although you can use image affiliate ads on your affiliate blog, the bulk of your advertising is going to come through text weeks within your quality content.
The next section will show you how to make (or buy) content that will bring in your first $100. But first, you need to make sure that you are getting credit for the traffic you are sending to the host website.
Affliate guide
Articles in this section:
- How to build your first affiliate blog
- Installing Wordpress the easy way
- Tweaking your Affiliate blog
- Time to enter you affiliate links
Next Article: Inserting Your Affiliate Links
