Niche Website Building Tips | Niche Reaper Lenses

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Niche Website Building Tips

Hi, Welcome to Niche Website Building Tips, the fourth in The Niche Reaper series of lenses to give you a kick start on your Affiliate Marketing journey!

First, let's say straight off that we love Squidoo lenses at the AffiliateNicheClub!

They are simple to set up, look great, rank well in the Search Engines and are a superb way to get started in Affiliate Marketing.

There are many Affiliate Marketers who use Squidoo exclusively and do very well, thank you very much!

The purpose of this lens is to give some broad guidance on how to set up a website for Affiliate Marketing if you decide you want to go that way.

Affiliate Niche Club Freebies!

Free Sample Niche Report!

Head on over to the Affiliate Niche Club website here to grab your FREE Sample Niche Report. All our Niche Reports include:-

Background - An overview of the niche in question including insights and trends.
Marketing Methods - A look at the best ways to tackle the niche.
Affiliate Sites - A look at existing Affiliate sites in the niche.
Merchants - A review of the best merchants and products in the niche.
Keyword Themes - A comprehensive list of the best converting keywords.

Affiliate Niche Club Bonuses

Free When You Join ANC

When you join ANC you not only get more than fifteen red hot niche reports but EIGHT Bonuses worth more than $350! Including:-

List Legions - Our complete guide to list building.
Build a genuine relationship with your customers!
Covers all aspects of list building: using an autoresponder; how to capture leads; offering incentives; killer mail messages; getting traffic.
Includes a step by step 'How To' section.

Wordpress Wizard - Advanced Web Design and SEO made easy!
Learn:-
How to do One Page Landers / Squeeze Pages, Site Sculpting, Advanced SEO and backlinking, Easy Content Creation, Action Plan, FTC Compliance
How to do IM for 2 hours a week sitting on the beach!
Genuine step by step guidance.

Why Use Websites?

What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Websites are hard to make, right?

Well, yes and no. Sure, there is a learning curve and it is steeper than using Squidoo but not by a lot.

There are many website editors out there, both paid and free, that really are very easy to use and most now have a WSIWYG option so that you barely need to touch the 'raw' HTML.

And I can tell you, if you can master the basics of HTML in Squidoo, you are well on your way to being easily able to create websites.

Here a couple of 'must see' lenses for help on basic HTML within Squidoo:-

Basic HTML for Squidoo

Advanced HTML for Squidoo

So, what are the advantages of using a website?

> Control. You have absolute control of your content and what you want to appear on your website. (There are certain limitations of course in relation to obscene or offensive material)

> Flexibility. You can grow and diversify a website as much or as little as you want. It needs to be relevant to your audience but you can use it as a base for many different types of marketing campaign : Articles, PPC, List Building, CPA

> Expansion. Once you have got over the initial hump of creating your website the possibilities to expand you campaign are limitless, only dependant on your own creativity or desire.

Are You Website Building? - Poll

Let's take a quick straw poll...

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Getting Started With Website Building

It's not as hard as you may think...

First off, you'll need some kind of editor to create your websites and we'll mention just a few here. There is a poll below where you can vote for your own favourites (and please feel free to add to the list).

At the AffiliateNicheClub, Thad I both use Dreamweaver. It's not cheap and the learning curve is steep but in our opinion it is THE best bar none. Particularly, if you collaborate on building websites like we do.

It's closest rival is probably XSitePro which is certainly cheaper but as we have not used it we are not really in a position to make any kind of recommendation.

A couple of others worth mentioning are MS Frontpage and Web Studio 4.0

There are also many free web design programs out there such as NVU and Weebly.

Vote For Your Favourite Website Builder

What's Your Choice?

Wordpress

Getting better and better. But you do need to host more...7 points

Dreamweaver

THE Website builder of choice at ANC5 points

XSitePro

A great web design program3 points

SiteRubix

Free for Wealthy Affiliate members2 points

MS Frontpage

1 point

NVU

1 point

Weebly

1 point

Web Studio 4.0

0 points

Ken Envoys SBI- Site Build IT0 points

Kompozer

0 points

view all 13 comments

Which Is The Best - Duel

Only one to find out... FIGHT!!

Dreamweaver or any other Web Design Program

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Dreamweaver

btsuccess says:

Dreamweaver. Because after trying it you will not need other programs.

MishimaSan says:

I agree with Dreamweaver although I haven't really used many other programs... :P

NicheReaper says:

Well, Thad and I sit firmly in the DW camp for Web Design. Sure, there's a big learning curve but once you are over that hump there's no going back. It's especially good if you collaborate on designing websites as we do.

Other Web Design Program

EllipticalTrainersGuide says:

wordpress is designed for the masses and is the best

timsoulo says:

when I was coding websites I used Eclipse... dunno why.. but I just do not like Dreamweaver

NicheReaper says:

Well, I better whisper this one but for a some of the niches we are in we are going to be switching over to Wordpress / Themes. The integrated blog aspect can be a real boon in some niches. We'll be switching the entire ANC site over as well in the next couple of months.

fortune68 says:

I haven't tried Dreamweaver but I have to say so far I am quite happy with Kompozer, and I absolutely LOVE WordPress!

 

Website Building Basics

Let's talk about some basics...

It's obviously not possible for us to actually show you how to build a website on this lens, so instead we are going to talk about the basic structure of a website. A website that, no matter which website builder you use, will function well for any type of marketing campaign.

Our Basic Mini-Site Model



Home Page - A basic introductory page introducing yourself and your website.

Review Page - Contains reviews or comparisons of your product offerings.

Info Page - Contains any articles you may write. To start off with, just find some relevant articles from Ezine Articles but make sure that properly give credit to the original author.

Contact Page - Your Contact Details.

Privacy Page - Your Privacy Policy.

We'll talk in more detail later about the Landing Page but this model is great for basic Article Marketing where you would link back your articles to your Home or Review page.

The Customer Buying Cycle

This is an important element that is often missed by many.

Before we move onto a more complex Website model we should first understand the Customer Buying Cycle.

Put simply when people search the internet they go though three main phases:-

1.Research Phase. Where they are looking for general information on a topic.

2.Decision Phase. Where they are looking to compare different products and are likely looking for more information and reviews.

3.Buying Phase. They have come to decision and wish to buy.

So what is the best way to market to the customer at each phase of the buying cycle?

The Relevant Marketing Method

At stage 1 of the buying cycle a customer is unlikely to buy but they may do. They are interested, so we would look to capture them using an opt-in form on our mini-site.

At stage 2 of the buying cycle a customer more likely to buy but they may not. They are more interested, so we would look to capture them using an opt-in form on our review pages whilst giving them an option to buy via links to our merchant sites.

At stage 3 of the buying cycle a customer is likely to buy. They are very interested, so we would look to pull them directly to our targeted landing pages probably using Adwords.

Website Building - A More Complex Model

Don't worry it looks more complicated than it is...

=

Yes, it really does look more complicated than it is in reality.

The point is to get the customer at the right point in the buying cycle.

In the Research and Decision phases we can present more general information to assist our customers to make an informed decision. At the same time we would look to get them to opt-in to our list.

In the Buying phase our Landing pages are much more targeted, probably around specific products.

In this way we are maximising our potential of first capturing leads and then making sales!!

Landing Pages

How to Create an Effective Landing Page

Knowing how to create an effective landing page is essential if your targeted customers are to be converted into actual buyers.

A landing page's main purpose is to compel the reader to take some form of action, to visit a merchant's page, or to sign up for a report or newsletter. If you are the merchant it will be to make a purchase. Ideally this action should be taken as quickly as possible.

A Compelling and Relevant Headline

Here is the headline from the AffiliateNicheClub sales page:-

"Tough Time Finding Ideas For a Niche?...Well Hey, It's Your Lucky Day Because We've Got More Than We Know What To Do With"

Enclose the quote in italics and bold it up in red font colour. In this case the headline compels the reader to 'READ ON'...

A Clear Exit to Your Merchant

Whether, it is a single product or multiple product review type of Landing Page you need to have clear exits to your merchants. Both pictorial and in your text:-

[Click Here To Grab Product X Now!]

Into Action

Use 'call to action' phrases telling the reader what to do in order to receive whatever you are promoting e.g. "Buy Here!""buy now, limited offer!" or "sign up now!"

No Other Distractions

Avoid any distractions to other areas of your site or the web.

Short Punchy Text - Use Bullet Points

Use short, punchy phrases and break them up into easy to read bullet points. Answer any questions your reader may have before they take action. Ask questions yourself and then provide the answers.

Bonuses

If you are offering a bonus make sure it is clear what it is and how to get it. Are there any time limits on the bonus. It may be a good idea to set a time limit, as this in itself, is a call to action.

Opt-ins

Don't miss an opportunity to capture leads. It may be that that is the purpose of the landing page. If that is not its primary purpose, capture a lead anyway. Use a free bonus to do this. There could be opportunities to sell to the customer via a list series.

Landing Page Relevancy - With Video!

Watch Thad's video!

THE most important thing about landing pages is they must be relevant!

Keywords > Ads > Landing Page(s) > Merchant.

Everything must be relevant to what your searcher is looking for.

Check out Thad's video here:-

Understanding Landing Pages

In this video Thad talks about the importance of relevancy on landing pages and some other cool stuff.

Flexibility Theme - Perfect For Every Niche!

Niche Review Websites Made Easy!

Flexibilty ThemeFlexibility Theme!

Using WordPress? Then you MUST check this out.

Flexibility Theme! is THE simplest and best system for setting up Affiliate Marketing Review sites using WordPress!

- Choose Layouts to Improve Conversion!
- Optimized for your PPC and SEO campaigns.
- Built-in Color Picker - Perfect for every niche!
- Need to test more? Change everything you need!
- Hate coding? No problem. Love it? Great!
- Lifetime access to Resource Center and support.

Web Hosting

You'll need somewhere to host those websites..

Just a very brief word on Web Hosting here. There are tons of website hosting services out there.

Prices and services vary hugely and it really does depend on what you are looking for. We could probably devote a whole lens to this topic but we won't. (It would be as dull as dishwater IMO)

Thad and I use KnownHost which is absolutely top notch if you really want or need ALL the bells and whistles!

Another popular alternative is Hostgator which many people might prefer for basic hosting.

AffiliateNicheClub Blog

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The Niche Reaper Lenses

Other Lenses In Our Grim Friend's Series

FREE Affiliate Marketing Tips!?

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Niche Research Tips

Top Tips On Niche Research:-
> Defining A Niche
> Getting Started With Niche Research
> Hot Trends
> Organise Your Niche Research
> Using Keyword Tools

Niche Article Marketing Tips

Top Tips On Article Marketing:-
> Article Writing Tips
> Optimising & Structuring Your Articles
> How to Write A Compelling Author Bio
> Where & How to Submit Your Articles


Niche List Building Tips

Top Tips On List Building:-
> Why Use List Building?
> Automating Your List Building
> Capturing Leads
> Your Mail Messages Series
> Think Strategically

Niche Website Building Tips

Top Tips On Website Building:-
> Why Use Websites?
> Getting Started With Website Building
> Website Building Basics
> The Customer Buying Cycle
> Landing Pages

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NicheReaper

Hi, My name is Dave B and this is me and my buddy Thad's lens on Website Building. Find out more about us at the AffiliateNicheClub! more »

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