What is WordPress Update Services

WordPress update services is for notifying other websites that you have updated your website. When you add a new post and publish it WordPress will automatically send an XML-RPC ping to all the sites you have listed in your update services. The update services you have listed will usually place your website at the top of their list of sites saying yours was recently updated. Some update services may have all sites listed and just place an icon or something similar next to your website notifying people that are browsing those sites know that your’s has been updated.

Why Use WordPress Update Services

You can get free traffic from sites like Technorati. People browsing Technorati will see your affiliate website as recently updated and may go to your affiliate site to check it out. We all can use more traffic, so increase your traffic free by using WordPress update services.

How to Setup WordPress Update Services

Setting up WordPress update services is simple and easy. First you need to make sure your affiliate website’s provacy settings are set correctly, then add some websites to submit to in your WordPress update services, and you’re done! Below there is a list of WordPress update services you can add to your list, just copy and paste them.

Steps to Setup WordPress Update Services

1. Login to your WordPress affiliate site by going to http://your-domain-name.com/wp-admin
2. Click on Settings then click on Privacy
3. Select Allow search engines to index this site. and click Save Changes
4. Click Settings then click on Writing
5. Scroll down to the bottom to the Update Services section
6. Copy the list of WordPress update services below and paste them in your WordPress update services box.
7. Make sure there is only 1 per line
8. Click Save Changes

That’s it! Now every time you add a new post to your affiliate website WordPress will automatically notify these websites that you have updated your website!

If you have any other WordPress update services I can add to this list please let me know by leaving a comment. If any of these update services stop working please notify me as well! Enjoy!

List of WordPress Update Services

• http://rpc.pingomatic.com
• http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
• http://ping.feedburner.com
• http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
• http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
• http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
• http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger
• http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080
• http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
• http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
• http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
• http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2
• http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
• http://www.wasalive.com/ping
• http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
• http://www.zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php
• http://www.newsisfree.com/RPC2
• http://api.moreover.com/ping
• http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
• http://ping.bitacoras.com
• http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
• http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
• http://bblog.com/ping.php
• http://blog.yodao.com/ping/RPC2
• http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
• http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
• http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
• http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
• http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
• http://ping.myblog.jp
• http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

Remember you want your Site Title to be a keyword phrase directly related to your website. Most of you will use your domain name but with spaces and no .com at the end. For example my site’s Site Title is set to Affiliate Marketing Niche Site. You can see this at the top of the site in the header.

Your site’s Tagline will be a tagline, moto, or slogan that is directly related to your website. You may even have a short 1 sentence description or even your website’s purpose. For example I have my site’s Tagline set to Step by step guide to start an affiliate marketing niche site. If you can work in a keyword phrase that would be great. This will most likely display at the top of your website just below the Site Title. Depending on your WordPress theme you choose, your Tagline may be in a different area.

How to Set Site Title and Tagline in WordPress Settings

1. Login to your WordPress affiliate site by pointing your web browser to http://your-domain-name.com/wp-admin
2. Now on the left hand side you will see a menu, at the bottom of this menu click on Settings, you should be taken to the WordPress General Settings section and see the first to settings you can change are the Site Title and Tagline.
3. Enter your Site Title and Tagline
4. You may also want to uncheck Anyone Can Register if you don’t want others to create accounts on your website.
5. The rest of the settings are just personal preferences, set you timezone and how you want the time and dates formated on your website.
6. Click Save Changes

That was very easy! Now you can view your affiliate website and see how your new Site Title and Tagline look on your website. If you don’t like it you may come back to the WordPress General Settings and change it until you like it. After you start writing information on your website and getting a decent amount of traffic from the search engines you will not want to change this as it may have a negative effect on your search engine rankings. Hope this guide to setting your WordPress’s Site Title and Tagline has helped you setup your WordPress affiliate site. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below!

This affiliate guide is about changing your WordPress user profile settings to make your website’s title more relevant and known to the search engines. If your wordpress theme displays the author’s name all over your website saying what user wrote each post, then this setting is for you. Some WordPress themes do not display author information on each post or page, some WordPress themes even have a setting to allow you to display author information or not.

I would recommend having the author information displayed. The reason I say this is because if someone comes to your website and copies your post and pastes your guide on their website you will at least get a back link from that website because your author information will be a link to your affiliate website. Yes, they can remove this link and you will not get a back link, but I’d rather have a possible back link than nothing from someone stealing my information from my websites. Hopefully no one ever steals your website’s information, but just in case! You can choose yourself, if you want author information displayed on your affiliate posts or not, it’s up to you. It’s not going to make that significant of a difference for me to tell you, “Yes, add it” or “No, don’t add it”.

Now since you have the author information displayed on your website, you need to change a small setting in your WordPress user profile. Instead of Admin or your first and last name being displayed all over your affiliate website, since no one is searching for that, we will have your website title displayed. Instead of your affiliate website saying First Last name wrote this guide, your affiliate website will say Your Affiliate Website’s Title wrote this guide. Let’s start changing your WordPress user profile settings!

What to do to WordPress User Profile Settings

1. Login to your WordPress affiliate website by adding /wp-admin/ to the end of your domain name in a web browser.  http://your-domian-name.com/wp-admin/
2. In the top right of your dashboard / admin area click on your username. Howdy, Admin
3. Enter your website title in the Nickname section.
4. Select this new nickname in the drop down menu Display name publicly as
5. Enter your domain name in the website text box. http://your-domain-name.com
6. Click update profile at the bottom of this page
7. Done!

That wasn’t hard at all. Now your WordPress posts will look a little better and have your affiliate website title in them! Hope this guide helped answer any questions you may have had about changing your WordPress user profile settings. There are many other settings you can change in WordPress to help your affiliate website, so be sure to read the other guides on Affiliate Marketing Niche Site about setting up WordPress settings to help your affiliate website even more!

Software Needed to Install WordPress

Here is the list of software you will need installed on your computer to be able to install WordPress software manually:

• FTP Client: FileZilla
• Text Editor: Notepad or Crimson
• ZIP Compression Tool: 7-Zip or WinZip
• WordPress Software: Latest.zip, Latest.tar.gz

You may already have the above software installed on your computer. If not you can download them for free, except WinZip. WinZip is a paid for software, although you can download a trial. I would recommend installing the free software.

Create an SQL Database for WordPress

Login to your web host and create an SQL database for WordPress. Your web host most likely uses cPanel. To access cPanel go to http://your-domain-name.com:2082 and type in your username and password.

Scroll down until you see the Databases section and click on the MySQL® Databases once loaded you can create a database in the section that says Create New Database. Some web hosts will have a prefix to the database name already added so remember this for later. You can make the name whatever you like, as long as you remember it for the next few steps, after that you won’t need it anymore. You can make it as simple as site01 and remember the prefix your web host already has added if any. Click go back.

Create a Database User

On the same page you are already on scroll down further to MySQL Users. Here we will create a username and password for your database, again this can be anything and will only be needed for the next few steps even the password. Then you can forget them forever.

Your username will probably already have a prefix to it as well so remember this for the next few steps. You can make this user01 if you like. After you fill out the username and password click Create User. Click go back.

Add User to Database

Now we need to add the user you just created to the database we created. Telling the MySQL server that the user you created is allowed to access the database you created.

Scroll down just below MySQL Users and you will see Add User To Database. Select the user you created and the database you created. Click add. Now you need to tell the MySQL server what privileges this user is allowed to have for this database. Select all privileges. Now click make changes. Click Go Back.

Extracting WordPress Software Files

Now that you have the all the needed software installed on your computer, we can start installing WordPress software. First we need to extract the WordPress software. You will use 7-zip or WinZip for this part.

Right click on the WordPress software you downloaded and select Extract. Now depending on which software you are using different windows may appear, but what they will ask you is where you want to extract the files. Just make sure you put the WordPress files that get extracted in an easy to find place like you Desktop or My Documents. Just remember where you put the WordPress files.

Edit WordPress Configuration File

Open the WordPress folder that you just extracted.

Right click on wp-config-sample.php and select rename. Rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php

Open wp-config.php in your text editor (notepad or crimson). Open notepad or crimson first then go to file > open and select the wp-config.php file.

There are 4 settings we need to edit in the wp-config.php file.

define('DB_NAME', 'wpsitename');
Change wpsitename to the database name you created above. Remember the prefix as well it yours had one. So now it should look like: define('DB_NAME', 'prefix_site01');

define('DB_USER', 'wpsqlusername');
Change wpsqlusername to the user you created for your database. Don’t forget the prefix if you had one. So now it will look like define('DB_USER', 'prefix_user01');

define('DB_PASSWORD', 'wpsqlpassword');
Change wpsqlpassword to the password you created for your database user. This does not have a prefix and is whatever you made it. So now it will look like define('DB_PASSWORD', 'mYkRazePASwoRD0123');

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
This is probably correct already unless your web host specifically said use mysql01.webhost.com as your database server hostname then you don’t have to change this. If they did, your’s will now look like define('DB_HOST', 'mysql01.webhost.com');

Save your WordPress configuration file, but don’t close your WordPress config file, there is 1 more section to edit before we are done. Go to WordPress Secret Key Service and copy the 4 lines of text. Go back to your config file fine the 4 lines that look like this:
define('AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
Delete them then paste the 4 lines you copied from WordPress Secret Key Service.

Save your configuration file, close your editor, and forget the database name, username, and password as you should never need it again.

Upload the WordPress Files to Your Web Host

Now you need to upload all of the files in the WordPress folder to your web host using the FTP client software you downloaded and installed.

Open FileZilla and connect to your web host by entering your domain name, username, and password for your website. Then hit enter, this will connect to the web host.

On the left pane will show your local computer files stored on your hard drive. On the right pane will show the remote web host’s file on your web host’s hard drive.

On the left pane (your computer hard drive) navigate to inside of the WordPress folder, you should now see all the files inside the WordPress folder like wp-config.php, wp-admin, wp-content, etc.

On the right pane (web host’s hard drive) navigate to your domain name’s root directory. Most likely /public_html but if you have multiple domain names, it will probably be /public_html/yourdomainname

Now we need to upload the files on the left to the right, so select all the files on the left (wp-config.php, wp-admin, wp-content, etc.) after they are all selected click and drag them to the right side. Your files will begin to upload. This may take a few minutes depending on your internet connection speed.

Close the FTP client software after the transfer is completed.

Run the WordPress Install Script

Open your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome) and go to http://yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/install.php

You should now see the WordPress install script screen. This will ask you a few basic settings for your website. Follow the directions on the WordPress install script’s screen, which is basically entering your web site’s title and your e-mail address. Click next, click install.

IMPORTANT: This WordPress install script will generate your password for you, the username will be admin. The password that was generated will be displayed on the screen, copy and paste this password to a text file or write it down. You will need this password to login to your new website.

Click login button, which will take you to http://yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/ enter your username, which is admin, and the password that was generated for you.

Change Your Password

I highly recommend changing your password from the password that was generated for you to a password you will remember. This password will be the password you use every time you want to work on your website.

Once your are logged in to your WordPress website click on the top right where is says Howdy, admin. Now scroll to the bottom type in your password in the first box, then in the second, click Update Profile.

Setup WordPress Options

Now your done installing WordPress software via FTP. Hope everything worked correctly for you. I would suggest reading How to Setup WordPress Options to learn how to setup your WordPress website to be most effective for affiliate marketing.

The WordPress install process is almost exactly the same as the WordPress Softaculous install as far as questions asked, what you fill in, etc. So lets get to the WordPress Fantastico De Luxe install process guide then at the end of the install guide I will have a video walking you through step by step installing WordPress software using Fantastico De Luxe.

Steps to Install WordPress using Fantastico De Luxe

First you need to login to your web host’s cPanel by going to http://your-domain-name.com:2082 and then entering your username and password.

After you are logged into cPanel you need to scroll down to the Software/Services section of cPanel. Here you should see Fantastico De Luxe, which should be represented by a smiley face icon. Click on Fantastico De Luxe.

After Fantastico has loaded you should have a list of all the software you can install using Fantastico. Under the Blogs category click on WordPress. Now on top center click New Installation, which will load a form of settings you need to fill out in order to install WordPress.

Install on domain: Select which of your domain names you want to install WordPress on. Just make sure this is correct if you have more than 1 domain name, you don’t want to accidentally delete an entire website of yours by selecting the wrong domain name on accident.

Install in directory: Leave this blank.

Administrator-username: Make this whatever you like.

Password: Something no one will guess, but you’ll remember.

Admin nickname: Make this the name of your website in title form. If your website title is Affiliate Marketing Niche Site make that your nickname.

Admin e-mail (your email address): Enter the email address you’d like to use for this website. Any notifications you have your website setup to send will be sent to this email address. I usually create a new email address for each website for the domain name. So if my domain name is affiliatemarketingnichesite.com I would create a new email address admin@affiliatemarketingnichesite.com or something similar. This box is for existing email account so if you haven’t already created a new email account for this, then don’t enter it here. Create the email first or use one you already have.

Site name: Here you want to do the same as Admin nickname. You want this to be the name of your website in title form.

Description: This should be a short one sentence tagline, motto, short description. Like for this site I could use something like for all your internet marketing needs. This description will usually be displayed under your website’s title on most WordPress themes.

Now finally you can click the Install WordPress button and Fantastico will install the WordPress software on your domain name for you. After a minute or 2, your WordPress software will be installed and ready to use. Your website is now live!

How to Log in to WordPress Site

To log in you your WordPress software you can go to http://your-domain-name.com/wp-admin and enter the username and password you just created.

Some WordPress themes will have a section on your website itself with a log in button. I usually remove these from my websites as I’m the only one logging into the site and looks kind of tacky with it on the front of your website when no one else uses it. If you plan on allowing others you don’t know to register and log in to edit your website you may leave this on but I remove it. Or if you want to allow people to register to leave comments you may leave this. I usually allow anyone to comment my sites without having to register and log in. I figure some people just want to leave a quick comment and don’t want to go through the whole registration process.

Step by Step Video Installing WordPress using Fantastico

Here is a video on How to Install WordPress using Fantastico De Luxe:

First you want to open your web host’s cPanel, you can access this by going to http://your-new-domain-name.com:2082 you will be asked for your username and password for your web host. Once in cPanel scroll down to the very bottom and select Softaculous. Replace your-new-domain-name.com with the domain name you purchased.

Once you’re in Softaculous you want to click on the left hand side on Blogs. Then click on WordPress, then at the top you should see a blue button that says Install. Click on Install.

Now you will be given a form to fill out with a few basic WordPress settings. First is your protocol which should be http://

Next you will choose your domain name that you want to install WordPress onto. Then you will be asked for the directory to install into, this is very important, make this blank, delete whatever is in this box.

Database name for WordPress can be whatever you want to call the database, this is not really important and will probably never be needed again. You can call it wpsite1 affsite1 sitedb1 or whatever you like. You may be limited to 8 characters. You can even leave what is already in this text box if there is something.

For your site name setting in Softalulous WordPress install you will want to use your domain names words in title form. For example my domain name is affiliatemarktingnichesite.com so I will use Affiliate Marketing Niche Site without the .com

If you domain name is woodworkinghelp.com you can use Wood Working Help.

Site description is a short description, 1 sentence site description. You can use a slogan, motto, tagline, something like that. Just a very short description of your website. Most WordPress themes will display this description on your website directly under the website’s title.

Next is username, password, and your email address. You can use any username you prefer that’s easy to remember, or you can keep it Admin. The password box only asks for your password once, so double check and make sure your password is exactly the way you want it.

After your WordPress software is installed you can go to http://your-domain-name.com/wp-admin to login with the username and password you just created. Replace your-domain-name.com with the domain name you purchased.

You can watch this video of me installing WordPress using Softaculous:

You need to remember that NO AFFILIATE PROGRAM SHOULD CHARGE YOU ANY KIND OF MONEY TO USE THEIR SERVICE! If an affiliate company is wanting to charge you any amount of money to use their affiliate program, LEAVE THEIR WEBSITE! They are a SCAM!

What is an Affiliate Program?

An affiliate program is a site you can use to get products to place on your website, well ads for products. Companies selling products or services, known as the advertiser, will use affiliate programs to help advertise their products and services. They set an amount that they pay the publisher, which is you, for selling their products. Sometimes this is a set amount of money, sometimes it’s a percentage of the sale. You can get this company’s ads for their products whether it’s an image ad, banner, text link, and place it on your affiliate website. When someone on your site clicks this ad, they get a tracking cookie that stores on their computer. This tracking cookie tells them you are the one that sent that person to their website. Now this person buys something on the company’s website, the company will give you an affiliate commission for selling their product for them.

For example Amazon has an affiliate program, I can place any product on Amazon and advertise it on my website. If and when that person purchases anything on Amazon, Amazon will know I made that sale for them and award me with a percentage of the sale. You never see any products, inventory, shipping, or customer service, you do nothing except advertise their products on your affiliate website. Cool huh?

Types of Affiliate Programs

There are different types of affiliate programs. The types of affiliates are determined by what they pay you for.

There is pay per sale,which is where someone has to buy something from your affiliate for you to get your commission. Like the example above.

There is pay per impression, which is where you get paid for impressions. An impression is when your affiliate’s ad is displayed on someones screen. Most affiliates that pay per impression are paying for every thousand impressions. So every thousand times people view your website you get your commission, just by people seeing the ads.

There is pay per lead. Pay per lead is when the affiliate program gets a sales lead, a potential sale. Usually like a free registration, free trial, or signing up for a news letter.

Some affiliates are doing pay per call. You want to guess what they pay you for? That’s right, you get paid for calls.

Finally there is pay per click, which is where you get paid every time someone clicks the affiliate ads.

List of Affiliate Programs

Chitika – An online advertising network that offers pay per click and pay per call ads. The minimum payout is $10 for paypal and $50 for a check. I have my account set to paypal, so I can’t tell you how long it takes to get a check as I have my payouts going to my paypal account.

Amazon Associates – This is Amazon’s affiliate program which is pay per sale. They pay 4% – 15% of the customers total in commissions on all of their products on there website. If someone buys 20 items totaling $200 you will get $8 – $30 commission depending on your percentage. You start with 4% after you sold X amount of items you get bumped up to 6% and the keeps repeating. Every month you get reset to 4%. Amazon pays you direct deposit, amazon.com gift cards, or by check. Minimum payout is $10 for gift certificate or direct deposit and $100 for a check. I suggest you do direct deposit or gift certificates as they charge you $15 to mail you a check. Amazon affiliate program holds your payments for 60 days in case someone returns a product.

Commission Junction – This is a large affiliate network, companies that don’t want to handle their own affiliate program like Amazon does can sign up here and have people advertise their products. Once signed up at Commission Junction you can select which companies you would like to advertise for. Minimum payout is $100, paid via direct deposit or check. The type of affiliate is different for each company within Commission Junction. The majority is pay per sale and pay per lead, but their are some pay per call and pay per click ads available.

Google Adsense – This is another pay per click program to earn revenue from your website. They are also probably have the largest amount of advertisers, so no matter what your site is about, they should have ads for you. Google’s ads are automatically generated for you based on the topics of your website. If your website is about gardening, they will show gardening ads to your website’s viewers. Google’s minimum payout is $100 for direct deposit or check. Google AdSense holds your payment for 30 days to make sure there were no invalid clicks.

There are plenty more affiliate networks and affiliate programs on the internet, but I have not tested out any others enough to judge their performance, ads, tracking, or if they even pay their affiliates. If you have any doubt try them out, if they don’t pay you get rid of them and comment below to notify others. Just remember never pay an affiliate program! That is a for sure sign of a scam!

Some affiliates will want to see your site before they approve your site. They can deny you, but it’s no big deal, you can reapply after you work on your site some more. Some advertisers want you to have your website up and running and full of content before you start signing up, but I’ve never had too much of a problem. Just make sure you have a little bit of content before applying for AdSense. After you’ve applied to all the programs you want to use, your done with the affiliate programs for a little while. Time to move onto building your website and writing content.

What is a Web Host?

A web host is a server on the internet. They are meant to run 24/7. A web host is a server that stores your website on the internet. When someone visits your website the web server will display your website to them.

Types of Web Hosts

Their are many types of web hosts. The two main characteristic of a web server you will need to know about is the type of operating system the web host is running. The two main operating systems used on web servers is Linux and Windows. You will want to use a Linux web server. Linux is faster, more stable, more secure, supports just about any type of web software available, and you don’t have to worry about viruses!

There are also different types as to what kind of software the server is setup to use. Some web hosts will limit you to only being able to use their website building software. Some web hosts will also limit you to how you can manage your web sites. The web hosts I’ve listed below will allow you to do just about anything you want.

What are All these Numbers?

Web hosts will tell you how much storage space you are allowed. This is usually measured in GB. This is how large your website(s) can be. Think of all the images your affiliate site will have, videos, etc.

Webhosts will also tell you how much bandwidth you are allowed. This is usually measured in GB as well. This is how much data can be transferred from your site to the viewers. The more people visiting your website the more bandwidth is needed.

Some web hosts will regulate how many domain names or websites you are allowed to have. 1,5,10, unlimited, etc. So make sure you look for that information.

Some hosts will regulate how many SQL databases you’re allowed, users, email accounts, etc.

Great news, most of that information I just gave you is a little useless as most of the web hosts I have listed below are all unlimited! So you can have as many websites you like, domain names, SQL databases, etc.! Sorry, but I just wanted to make you a little more informed.

Web Hosting Services

Here is the list of web hosts I’ve chosen for you to choose from. Most of these web hosts I have used in the past and some I still do. Some of them friends have used and I’ve had access to their account to help them and got to play around and get a feel for each of these web hosting companies.

These web host providers are in no particular order.

Although the above webhosts display a monthly charge there aren’t many web hosts that bill monthly, most web hosts bill yearly. The price shown is just the break down of what the host costs monthly. Usually the longer term you signup for usually you get a cheaper rate. Just do the math, do the highest term that still gives you a discount on your web host. I don’t remember which web host it was, but well say it broke down to $4/mo if you bought 1 year, $3/mo if you bought 2 years, and still was $3/mo if you bought 3 years!, so the 3 year plan didn’t give any extra discount on the web host.

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is basically a name for an address. For example if you are sending a letter to someone through regular mail instead of writing the latitude and longitude of the house you write an address. Another example would be instead of even writing a street address you could just write Mom on it and the mail carrier would know where it goes. That is what your domain name is doing. Instead of telling everyone the IP address of your web server (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) you can just tell them domain.com instead of a bunch of numbers.

Before you choose a domain name for your site make sure you have read my guide to Find a Niche Content Idea. Now that you know what your website content topic is going to be, we need to choose a domain name that is relevant to the site’s content.

Choose a Domain Name Relevant to your Site Content

If your building an affiliate website based on woodworking, you would want to find a domain name like woodworking.com although that will probably be taken already, but you get the idea. I like to use GoDaddy to search for a new domain name. The reason I like GoDaddy is if the domain name you are looking for is already taken, GoDaddy will give you some suggestions for a domain name similar to the domain name you searched for. You do not need to use one of the suggested domain names if you don’t like it or if it doesn’t meet the guidelines I’m going to give you in this guide to choosing a domain name. Use the suggested domain names to give you more ideas for a domain name, but again do not use one of them unless you like it.

What Should I Look for in a Domain Name?

The most important thing you’re looking for in a domain name is that it is directly related to your website’s content or niche. You don’t want a domain name fastcars.com if your website is about trucks, boats, or even fishing.

The next highest importance in choosing a website domain is to get a .com domain name. .com domain names are more known, easier to remember, and the search engines seem to like .com domains more. .com is also the first thing that pops into people’s head when trying to remember a domain name.

Next up on the guidelines would be to try and keep your domain name short. The shorter your domain name, the easier to remember and looks better. This is not very important as most of your website traffic, visitors, will be finding your website on a search engine or a link from another site. Which means they will be clicking on your domain name to go to your website and not typing it in.

Spelling is a must! Do not misspell any words in your domain name! I know some people do this on purpose on words that are commonly misspelled, so they can get those people coming to their site instead of the website they were originally trying to go to, but I think that looks very unprofessional and tacky, so don’t misspell any words in your domain name.

Try not to use numbers in your domain name unless it is actually relevant to your site’s content. If you want woodworking.com and the domain is already taken, don’t get woodworking2.com just because that domain is available. This looks unprofessional and tacky.

Where Can I Buy a Domain Name?

You can buy a domain name on GoDaddy, but if this is your first website you still need to purchase a webhost and most webhosts will give you your first domain name for free. So we are just using GoDaddy to help us find a domain name that is available. If you already have a webhost or you’ve already built your first affiliate website then you can buy addition domain names from GoDaddy. After purchasing a domain name from GoDaddy you will need to setup your DNS. Basically this would be telling GoDaddy the address of your webhost. Again this is only needed if you already have a webhost, used your free domain name that came with your webhost, or your webhost doesn’t give you your first domain name for free. Which there are very few webhosts that don’t give you your first domain name for free.

What’s After Choosing a Domain Name?

Only move on if you’ve found a domain name you want to use and GoDaddy says the domain is available to purchase.

Make sure you write down what domain name you are going to use so you don’t forget it. Trust me it’s easy to forget when you have just been running 10 – 20 different domain names to see of they are available. You can leave GoDaddy now and read my affiliate guide on Choosing a Webhost.

Choosing a topic for your website should be the easiest thing to do. At least for you first 1-3 websites. So how do you choose a website subject? Well there are only a few options for your first websites to do. If you do anything but these few options you will fail! Let me repeat that, if you do your website on a topic that isn’t in my guidelines for your first few websites, you will fail!

Your first few websites should meet one or more of these guidelines. The more guidelines your affiliate website idea matches the more money you will make.

Your website niche idea should be something you are interested in, something you enjoy, and something you do, enjoy doing, enjoy reading about. If you attempt to build a website with some idea that you’re not interested in, but want to do that website topic because you read it’s a for sure money maker, you will fail! You have to meet this guideline or leave this site because you’re going to waste your time and money and gain nothing but failure!

You must have knowledge about the website topic. The more the better, but you at least need to know enough about the topic to be able to research it fully to learn everything about that website topic. You will become a guru on your websites topic or fail! Remember to become an expert on the site’s content idea.

Finally if your website never made a penny would you still enjoy it? You better answer yes, or again you will fail!

Now for some of the bad ideas, bad topics, crap content, and just things not to do a website on. Do not think of products. Do not think “How is this site idea going to make money”. Do not think what’s popular or what’s hot. All of these ideas will lead to failure!

So I’ll give you the ideas of how you should be thinking of content topics and also how not to think.

Bad Idea: I want to build an affiliate site selling digital cameras.
Good idea: I love photography, love photos, would love to build a website teaching people to take photos, and maybe have users write helpful content as well.

Bad Idea: I want to build an affiliate website selling computers.
Good Idea: I love computers, know a lot about computers and want to teach people how to use computers.

The above examples is how you should be thinking of website ideas. If you’re someone that loves woodworking, you can build a website teaching people how to do woodworking. Different woodworking techniques tutorials and videos. Teach people how to read blueprints and how to use each tool.

Once you’ve chosen what niche content you want to build your affiliate website about, you then need to choose a domain name and webhost. Before jumping into buying a domain name, make sure your read Choosing a Good Domain Name.