AssociatePrograms.com

pessimist · **Joined**: 25 Nov 2003 **Posts**: 6

Hi, I'm a newbie here. I dun know about web site design, but would really like to earn a reasonable income through affiliate programs, could any one roughly tell me what's the initial cost including advertising cost?

Would appreciate if any one could tell me the best way and best tool to get started?

Thanks.

Regards

Debs · **Joined**: 16 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 4296 **Location**: NY

The best tool is Allan's website AssociatePrograms.com

Allan offers great tips and guides to get started, and the Sitesell Affiliate masters course or 5th Pillars guide are both awesome free tools you can use to learn about affiliate marketing.

Make sure you check out his newsletter archives, and Ruperts foray into affiliate marketing too.

Debs
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AllanGardyne · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 4:18 am Post subject:

Debs, Thanks for the recommendation. Much appreciated.

Pessimist, You can spend anything from absolutely zero to thousands of dollars a year.

If you already have Internet access, here's how you can do it for absolutely zero money: Go to your nearest library and get a book that teaches you basic HTML. (Some web sites will do this, too.) Create your web pages in a plain text editor (Notepad should already be on your computer.) Do a search on Google for free FTP software and use it to upload your pages to a free web host. Instead of using a large web web host, you may be able to use hosting space provided free by your ISP.

Instead of paying for advertising, participate in forums, email discussion lists and anywhere else you can find to generate free publicity for your site. Make friends with other web site owners and help promote either other's sites.

Doing it this way will require only your time - and a LOT of effort. Keep experimenting and you'll find out what works and what doesn't. It will be a long, hard slog. You probably won't earn much, but if you stick at it, I guarantee you will learn a lot. It's fairly accurate description of how I started, when I was broke back in 1996 - except that getting on the Internet cost me hundreds of dollars a month.

If you wish to spend money in the hope of speeding up the process, you have a wide range of options. You have to decide, for example, whether you'll buy web editing software such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver (there are free web editors). You also have to decide whether you are going to learn first about search engine optimization so that you can concentrate on getting free traffic from search engines (my favorite), or paying for traffic on pay-per-click search engines and Google's AdWords (which many successful affiliates use).

You have to decide whether you going to pay for your site to be reviewed by Yahoo! which costs $299 a year. I think it's an excellent investment because it helps your rankings in Google. However, some say it's not necessary.

These days, you also have the enticing option of building an information-rich, keyword-rich site aimed mainly at pay-per-click revenue from AdSense. So you can make money without actually selling anything.

Some options at first glance will appear cheap, but then as you get more and more involved, you can gradually find yourself investing hundreds and then thousands of dollars extra because each bit of software or ebook you read about sounds like just exactly what you need to succeed.

In fact, the main thing you need to succeed is persistence.

You can shortcut a lot of learning curve and save yourself a lot of anguish by studying the case studies written by my assistant Rupert, who knew nothing about affiliate programs when I hired him but now creates successful sites:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/search/site-build-it.shtml
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/search/affiliate-programs.shtml

Hope that helps.
_________________
Allan Gardyne
AssociatePrograms.com - You're here. Explore it!

Kevin Robb · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 8:37 am Post subject:

Pessimist,

Alan has just provided you with a plan to go forward at no cost.....this kind of detail and advice you are usually expected to pay for!!

You can proceed with little or no money but you will have to put in considerable effort.

Many have started from nothing, so use Alan's advice, add your committment and success can be yours.

Good Luck

Cheers

Kevin Robb
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stone · **Joined**: 16 Dec 2003 **Posts**: 37

The Plug-In Profit Site is the best way to get started. But, I'm biased. Wink

Don't dump your wallet into advertising without having a game plan up-front. In truth, most of the best advertising is free.

I encourage you to read through my "30 Days to Success" guide here: http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/30daystosuccess/ to give yourself a better understanding of the whole game before you engage.

Warm regards,

Stone Evans
_________________
Plug-In Profit Site: Free Website Builder

How to Get Paid $10,000+/Month from Host4Profit...
http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/affiliates/
"This is a super quick way to get some checks coming in now."
-- Allen Says

kidino · Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 7:31 am Post subject: How To Make Your Own Website

Actually this is for my on website, that's why the lengthy explaination ... but I think it'll do good here ...

How To Make Your Own Website

There are a few ways that you can build your own website. I am going to lay out for you the options. Some options are easier and faster but do cost you some money. Some are cheaper but that can result in a poor website, at least in the beginning, when you are still learning.

Just read through and consider which is best for you ...

Learn HTML and be a Master

If you really want to learn how to build your own website, you should learn HTML. With that, you can really develop your skills on how to format the output. HTML is what websites are really built on. So, this is actually the important basics.

Among other skills that can come handy would be Javascript and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). Javascript is programming language that operates in the browser. With Javascript you can make your website even more interactive like swapping images or making a count down and more.

CSS is the language that can format to look and feel of your website to another level. With CSS, you can define layers and put one on top of another and place them anywhere you want them to. You can even set them to be visible or invisible interactively when combined with Javascript.

Well, those are just about the technology available for you to use. Learning these can take time and your first few website wouldn't be good yet. But if you really want to build a website fast, you don't really have to learn all that.

Easier HTML with website editor software

Actually, there are softwares that can help you with the generation of the HTML code. I would call this website editor software. With this, you can concentrate on the layout and the look of the website, the software will generate the HTML for you. The mode in which you just focus on layout is what you call, What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get or WYSIWYG (pronounce "Why See Wig").

You can also edit the HTML later. Website editor softwares would also have a HTML-mode to allow you to do that. So knowing HTML would still help. Maybe you could start with a website editor and learn the HTML along the way.

I know that you don't want to spend a lot on building your first website. I happen to know three free website editor softwares. You can just download them for free. Some might require you to register first or something.

Free Website Editors
1st Page 2000
URL: http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage/
Price: Free
1st Page 2000 is a great software. This is totally free. I think this the most popular free website editor software. Over 3 million downloads.

Trellian WebPage
URL: http://www.trellian.com/webpage
Price: Free
This is another great software from Trellian. While their WebPage is already a great software, Trellian also has an advance version of the WebPage, WebPage Pro. It has far more features. Maybe you would like to upgrade later when you get better with web designing.

Microsoft Web Matrix
URL: http://www.asp.net/webmatrix
Price: Free
I never knew this exist until recently. I guess, the people at Microsoft just developed this as a very, very light version of Visual Interdev, a professional website and programming tool. You can get them from the ASP.net website.

If you think that you can go pro, other website editor softwares that professionals use are like Macromedia Dreamweaver ($399) and Adobe Go!Live ($399). No doubt, these are good software and worth the price.

Enhancing your website with web graphics

Now, how about graphics and design? You can have a website with just HTML, but I think it will be less attractive. You need to reach out to your visitors and without graphics and design, your website might be very boring.

To make a web graphics to support you web design, what you would need is an image editing software. I hear you, "Yeah, yeah .. this software, that software. When will I have my website?" Well, just hang on, OK. We'll get there. Don't you want your website to look great?

With the software, I hope you understand that you would need to learn it. Don't worry, most softwares today are very easy to learn with great user interface. Some quite affordable graphic image editing software that you can use are like JASC Paintshop Pro, Xara Webstyle.

Image Editing Softwares
JASC Paintshop Pro
URL: http://www.jasc.com
Price: $87
This is really a great image editing software. Even pros use them. The thing that is even more wonderful is that it comes with a great price.

Xara Webstyle
URL: http://www.xara.com
Price: $69
Xara Webstyle would be great for beginners. In Xara, you have templates for you to start with. You can have a website design and minutes.

For a more professional version of image editing softwares and also if you have the budget for it, you can try Adobe Photoshop ($649) which is very popular among graphic and web designers. Other advance image editing softwares are like Corel Painter ($299), Macromedia Fireworks ($299) and more.

Instant website design with website templates

Do you there are websites out there that sell website templates. There are also websites that give out website templates for free. When you get your hands on a website template, you just need to make some minor modifications and then key in your content.

This is a whole lot easier. And you would definitely have a great looking website knowing that a professional designed it. You can even browse the collection that they have and choose the one that you like. Those that you don't like, leave it be.

About the modifications, knowing some image editing software and website editor software would make it easier. So, I think it is wise if you have yourself a website editor software. Mastering around an image editing software like Paintshop Pro would really help a lot.

My favorite source for website templates would have to be the Template Monsters. There are quite cool templates and I am sure that you will like them. For a low budget, you can get clean and simple website templates from Free Site Templates and Jim's World.

Website Templates
Template Monsters
URL: http://www.templatemonster.com

Jim's World
URL: http://freesitetemplates.com/

Steve's Template
URL: http://www.steves-templates.com/

About web hosting

OK, when you have your website ready in your computer, you would need a place for it on the Internet. Firstly, you would need a web host. This is where you will put your website. I am sure that you have heard of free web hosting like Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire. Well, I don't recommend it. There would be too many restrictions and most of the time, they will put ads with your website. This will make your website appear less professional.

So, let's look at the paid web hosting. I know of a few good and reliable web hosting companies. With a few dollars a month, you can have a complete web hosting package.

Web hosting companies will offer you an amount of space on the Internet for a small amount of fee for a certain time contract. The space is measured in MB or megabytes. Companies below offer packages from 100 MB to 500 MB of space for less than $10 per month. With 100 MB of space, you can actually have tens of thousands of web pages. Cool, eh?!

And then there's the data transfer traffic to consider. This measures that amount of data that travels from your website to the computer of your visitors. The companies below allow a limit of 10 GB (10,000 MB) to 50 GB (50,000 MB) of data transfer. You do not need to worry about this. Let me give you an example. I have a website that ranks around 300,000 in Alexa. And the bandwidth for that website has never exceed 300 MB. So the 10 GB actually a lot.

The companies that you choose must be reliable and one that can really give you great support. Especially if you have never built any website before. Consider any of the companies below. They are all very reliable and have a reputation in the industry.

Recommended Web Hosting
Dayana Host
URL: http://www.dayanahost.com

Dinsol
URL: http://www.dinsol.com/

About domain name

Domain name is the address to your website. You would want people to remember how to get to your website, don't you? Well, then you should get your own domain name. With that, not only you would appear very professional, you would have a shorter and an easier domain name for people to remember. When people do remember your domain name, it's easier for people to get there.

Domain names used to cost you around $35 per year. But now, not anymore. You can get a domain name for as low as $15 per year like from Dotster. That's really good. Most of the times, you can get your domain name at the same place as your web hosting. Most web hosting company would also provide domain name registration service.

The good thing is that you can get your web hosting from one place and your domain name from another. It is better to get the domain name first and then get the web hosting. When you are buying the domain name, the domain name registrar would ask for your name servers or your DNS server. Leave that out first or just use the default value that you see then.

When you are purchasing your web hosting account, ask the support for the address of their name servers. Then you would need to get back to the domain registrar and change the value according to the ones advised by your web hosting company.

Recommended Web Hosting
Go Daddy
URL: http://www.godaddy.com

Register Fly
URL: http://www.registerfly.com

About FTP and uploading

FTP is the protocol that is used to move the files of your website from and to the server of your web hosting. When you are moving the files over the server, that is uploading. When you moving files over to your computer, that is downloading.

This can be tricky at first. This the thing that you would need to learn to put your website up and alive. I am just writing this so that you know what you would need to know. It's going to get really lengthy if I do tell you everything about it here. Let me just give you some other place that you can go to learn this.

But anyhow, let me just introduce some software that you can use to do this FTP and uploading. First, there is Leech FTP, which is my favorite. This is a freeware but currently has discontinue development and support. However the previous version are still available for download.

Then, there's the WS FTP LE. This is the free version of the full version of the WS FTP. But actually the free version is only for educational purposes.

If you are already uploading your website, then, I think your website is ready. Hey ... great, huh?

FTP Software
Leech FTP
URL: http://www.ftpplanet.com/downloadLE.asp
Price: Free

WS FTP
URL: http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~jdebis/leechftp/
Price: Free

OK then ... I guess by then you should have your own website ... good luck.
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Simple IPN: Free Paypal IPN PHP Script for Digital Download Products

Charlie · **Joined**: 22 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 3305 **Location**: UK

AllanGardyne

I agree with Charlie. Social scientists have a term for it - "labeling".
If you call yourself something or if other people label you as such you'll tend to think of yourself that way and act accordingly.

Now, imagine if you thought of yourself as "Lucky" instead...

I'm lucky, I always have been... The world is full of wonderful opprtunities, I'm always alert, watching out for them... Perhaps that's why I'm lucky Wink

Debs · **Joined**: 16 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 4296 **Location**: NY

I am also an optimist, and stubborn to boot. So ... if I run into problems, I just pick away, research, whatever I need to learn to fix it. I tried for years to do it online, before I ever found this site or Allan's newsletter, and since finding Allan, it's been just over a year and I am getting there Smile

More so this year than anything as I had to be stubborn and not follow Allan's advice right away lol

My recommendation? Read the articles on Allan's main site, subscribe to his newsletter, dig into the newsletter archives, and ask specific questions here to guide you along. Believe me, it's the best investment of time you will ever make. I know ... it worked for me.

Debs
_________________
Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"

gana · **Joined**: 27 Jul 2003 **Posts**: 93 **Location**: India

I am also unbelievably optimistic. Some of my friends even named me Mr. Optimist. I don't know how i got that attitude(not that i regret it). Even if the odds are strongly against me(say 2 in favour and 8 against), i have a tendency to believe that the situation would result in my favour. I have a friend who is similar to me in this.
Strange, we both seem to get 'lucky' most of the time. I think it all has to do with your thinking, like napolean hill's book suggested. I would agree with everyone above. Try changing it. Afterall you have got nothing to loose.

To your success,
Gana.

P.S. I am not suggesting you are pessimistic or anything like that. So don't take it personal. Very Happy