Link Master

In Affiliate Marketing Blueprint 2 we went over researching our market and finding a product. We talked about Keyword Research to get our Keywords, SEO and discussed whether to use a Website or Blog, or even both. I offered a Free Book on SEO for you to download and I hope you enjoyed it and had a chance to read it. If you missed the download you can get it Here, or go back to Affiliate Marketing Blueprint 2.

What’s In A Domain Name?

Now we move on to the foundation or our site, which is our Domain Name. Now there is a lot of controversy on what is and what isn’t ok with choosing a domain name. Keyword Rich, doesn’t matter, Hyphens Ok, Hyphens not, keep it short, .com or other. All of these questions to deal with, so what is the answer? Who really knows? Google maybe!

Keywords?

Unless you are going to be hosting a eCommerse site where you may be targeting hundreds of Keywords then I would stick to a Keyword Rich Domain Name. For the eCommerse site you might want to come up with something catchy that would be remembered but for what we are after a Keyword Rich Domain Name would help us in the eyes of the search engines.

Hyphens?

I would not use hyphens, although I have. I have found that they haven’t helped me. Do a search on any topic, and see if there is a Domain Name listed in the Top of the Search Results with a hyphenated Domain Name. My experience says there won’t be, but you try it yourself.

Is It Short?

As far as short domains go I don’t think that is an issue any longer. Most keyword rich short Domain Names have been used up and as far as Google is concerned I don’t think that matters to them. They want content. By doing our keyword research and drilling down into a Niche we come up with what is referred to as long tail keywords. You want to use your main keywords for your Domain Name, at least to start your Domain Name.

A Few Extra Words To Better Your Odds

If your having trouble finding a Domain Name with your main keyword you can add other words to the end of it if they fit. Some words that can be added to the end of your Domain Name are, site, guide, guidelines, review, by (your name), more, plus more, etc, now, today, info, information, plan, resource(s), 2009, strategy, strategies, course, free and many more. The main thing is to have your keywords up front in your Domain Name. You could come up with many other words to add if you try.

I would also stick with .com for your domain name. If I had to make a second choice I would choose .org, but you should try to get a .com domain name if at all possible.

I used an example about drilling down into the golf market in the Post “Where Do You Start” because golf is too competitive. I used golf swing tips as my Keyword Phrase. Just for an example here lets say I wanted to get a Domain Name for that. I would try golfswingtips.com, if that was taken I could use one of our other words like and more so we would have golfswingtipsandmore.com, if that was taken I would see if the org extension was available for either of those. You get the idea here.

I use godaddy.com for my domain names, as you can probably tell from my sites.

Hosting

Once you have your Domain Name you need to think about where you are going to host your site. I do my hosting at Hostgator.com. Unlimited Domains, Subdomains, Disk Space and Bandwidth. Hosting is the easy part of all of this, but if you have never hosted a website before there are a few things you should know.

Lets take the above example. Lets say I registered my Domain Name at godaddy.com,, which was golfswingtipsandmore.com, and I hosted with hostgator.com. I would have to change what they call Name Servers so my new Domain Name will point to my new hosting companies servers. Don’t let this scare you; it isn’t that hard to do.

Name Server Information

When you registered your Domain Name at godaddy they assigned Name Server information to your Domain Name. When you get your Hosting from Hostgator they will give you Name Server information that you can use to point your Domain Names to their servers. All you do is take the Name Server information that you get from your Hosting company, sign in to your account where you registered your Domain Name, and change the Name Server information for that Domain to the Name Server information from your Hosting company. It is that simple

One thing I like about Hostgator is they have video tutorials on just about anything you will use with their Hosting. That helps a lot for someone who is new to this sort of thing.

Site Layout

Ok so lets move on to Site Layout. What I mean by that is what is our plan of attack for our website. Is it going to be a How To website, A story, or a review site. You will want to know what type of site you are going to have before you start putting it together. Are you going to be using a Blog, or a Static website or both. This would also be a good place to read SEO Made Easy by Brad Callen again to keep the SEO ideas fresh in your head.

If your going to be using a blog, there are plenty of themes for you to choose from, just make sure it goes with the product that you intend to promote. You want something simple, but professional. You want something that is clean and not to busy or dark. You want your visitors focusing on the content of your website, and not the design.

Write Like You Talk

You want to write your content, or articles like you talk. Like you were talking to someone sitting across from you. Keep your paragraphs short, and a space between paragraphs. White space is good. It makes it easier to read. You also want to use headings throughout your content. People are all basically skimmers and will skim through your content to see if they actually want to read it.

Use Headings

Make your headings so that they flow through the progression of the Story, the steps of the How to, or the features and benefits of the Review, or Product. You want a person that skims your content to be able to understand the story, the procedures, or the benefits without actually reading the whole page. At some point they will decide if they want to actually read it or leave, but they will have an idea of what your site was about without having to read everything. They maybe back, or not. Express the points you want to convey to your visitor in a flowing manner. Take a look at how I have used headings in my Posts and you will see what I mean.

Italic text and highlighted text I would stay away from. Most people get carried away with using these two things and I think it lessens the value of your site. I believe it is better to make your text bold, underlined, or bulleted to stress a point verses using Italic, or highlighted text. Use the same font throughout. If you want to use a different font, use one for yout content, and maybe a different for your headings. Other then that i would stick to one font.

Bullets

Even better use bullets, or bullet images to highlight the benefits and features you want to point out. They give your text a more streamlined effect and look more professional then the Italic, or highlighted text. Just don’t use some animated bullet file that flashes, spins, or whatever. Remember you want your site to look clean and professional no matter what your topic is.

Images

If you use images in your content then above the image you should use a heading and then have the text flow around the right side of the image. A lot of sites add bonuses that will be received upon purchase of the product. You use the heading to point out the bonus. An image for a visual reference to what that bonus is. Then wrap that image with the text that explains the bonus in more detail.

Even if the image was not for a bonus I would still use a heading above the image, and wrap the corresponding text around that image whenever possible.

All That Legal Stuff

Make sure you have your legal stuff at the bottom of the page. You should have a Term Of Service, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Anti-Spam Policy, and maybe even a Copyright Notice. You could also have an About Page or Contact Page, which are good as well.

Link Structure

Lets move on to Link Structure. You want to structure your links in a way that is going to utilize your keywords. Contextual links carry more weight then say a list of links because the contextual link is part of the text that make up the content. I am not going to spend too much time explaining this section because I think by reading the book SEO Made Easy by Brad Callen this will have been covered already.

I am going to have to wrap this section up with that last paragraph because this is getting to long. But I want you to think about what is coming up next and what your ideas are on the type of site you want to have. Do you want a static Website? Are you going to use a Blog, or combine both into your plan of action?

Coming Up Next: Our last section.

Affiliate Marketing Blueprint 4

Creating your site

Getting Indexed

Adding your links

Etc.

I also plan on setting up a resource page of some of the sites I like to use, and maybe they can help you too.

Plus I have a couple more great books for you to download if you are interested.