Article / Tutorial

Why should I have my own Website? Do I Really Need One?

If you are into Affiliate Marketing here are some of the arguments for and against setting up your own website:

If you only market a few affiliate programs, you can point all your advertising efforts directly to the affiliate program's own sales pages. Huge downside - it makes it very difficult to capture and start building your own mailing list of potential customers and as the overworked (but true) saying goes "Success is in the List".
If you want to tell your visitors about similar affiliate programs, or to give them a choice of program options to visit, you need your own website. One of the most powerful tools is viral marketing but if you dont have your own website, the best you can do is point the visitors to either the affiliate programs or to your blog. Again, a potential mailing list problem.
Yes, you can use a blog to build an pseudo-website and you can set up a mailing list here. Just remember, the actual purpose of a blog is to inform and voice your own opinions. Blog readers sometimes don't want to wade through pages and pages of information to get to the point. Your website can logically structure your information so its easy to navigate and find.
Content is king: Search engines love content and information and while they do index your blog, and visitors do get to you that way, a dynamic, changing and interesting website always beats blogs hands down.
Everyone know that blogs are free and that many are filled with ramblings with a lot of "junk" information. When you set up your own website, your visitors are definitely going to take your more seriously as a professional business. Rather use your blog to point or link back to your website and in this way create a valuable incoming link.
If you want to give your visitors a whole lot of supporting information and options, all in one place, then a website is the only way to go. Your website will cater to multiple prospects and their different needs. A website gives them a variety of destinations to choose from (and you capture their mailing address for your all importing list at the same time). Using multiple affiliate marketing program options in the same site or niche means only one thing - you have multiple streams of affiliate income all nicely structured in one, easy-to-find, web space.
Tracking of your advertising campaigns becomes a bit tricky when you have no central point of reference i.e. a website. Your website is the jump off point of all your marketing efforts. It is the secret to easy website promotion. Having your own website also makes website submission to hundreds of search engines much more viable.
It is also a good technique to create a professional private website and offer access to it to anybody who clicks on any of your affiliate adverts. Visitors are definitely more interested in a private websites as opposed to just one of those awful long sales landing pages.
Your own "private" websites also gives you a venue to promote your back-end affiliate products i.e. after a visitor has bought one product, you can autimatically encourage him to buy a similar or complementary product.
You can setup your own incentives and bonus products, giveaways, newsletters (because now you will have started building your own mailing list) and even surveys and competitions. In the long term, you could even start monetizing your site by accepting payment for banners, adverts, etc. because you are getting so many visitors that other sites want to advertise with you.
The content of your site tells a whole lot about you. It will build a much better credibility and trust from your visitors if they feel that they know you a bit better. Good content is precisely the reason why users choose to visit your site. Write interesting unique articles related to your theme. Add links to the business sites and other very good informative sites. You can set up RSS feeds to add to the content of your site to make it much more interesting and ever-changing (which search engines love).
You can have one, three, five, or even more email addresses that all contain your business name, and give your business a professional feel. When customers get emails from joefrank@yourprofessionalcompany.com they feel as if they are dealing with a stable, professional business operation. No need for customers to understand how you manage all your email boxes on your domain. They just need to feel your business is dependable and reputable.
You can create extra review and recommendation pages for the products you are endorsing, and not have to just promote the products by putting hyped-up sales page adverts. Keep your readers interested by injecting lots of relevant and useful information and even some verifiable testimonials if you have them. This would make them click the link to the affiliate program site and buy the product. Remember that no good content means no frequent visitors, no sales and ultimately, no commission.
Additional benefits can be gained by doing free website promotion such as Search Engine Optimization so that the search engines start noticing you as a valid business and you get better positioning and ranking in the search enginer results..
Downside: you are going to have to pay for professional webhosting every month and for your domain name registration and renewal every year but you can get these from less than $10 per month.
Downside: if you are not technically inclined you are going to have to pay someone to develop your website. However, there are a number of free web site development programs out there. So do some research and play around with them to see if you can cope and do the website on your own. Keep the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle in mind at all times. Make your site simple but with a touch of your own personal style in order to make it appear more of a business website rather than a personal website. Start small and grow.

The most important and indispensable tool in Affiliate Marketing is your own niche website. It will definitely give you the edge over the thousands of other affiliate marketers on the web.

Author: The Work at Home Wizard @ www.248wealthwizards.com
Step-by-Step Wealth Creation | Helping ordinary people realize their dreams