Why a Web Site?

There could be many reasons for building a website. Perhaps you have a group or organization that needs a central meeting place. Or, maybe you've got a small business you'd like to promote. It could be that you want a personal website or a blog to shout out your personal beliefs or opinions. Maybe you have a product for sale and need an e-commerce site.

Just do it

Whatever your reason is for a web site, I hope you do it. I do believe that everyone could or should have their own site. But
maybe that's just me. I've got a friend who reads tons of books This love of books could turn into an Amazon affiliate site reviewing books and making a little extra cash for reading books.

Facebook

I've been told by business owners that 'web sites are obsolete and everyone is on Facebook'. Trust me, not everyone is on Facebook. And, the right way to promote your business is to have a dot com and a Facebook page. Experts will say it is very non-professional to have your main web site a Facebook page. I personally find it very tacky.

Twitter
My personal approach would be to have a Twitter account as well as Facebook. Social media plays a very important role in today's web presence.

Tumblr
This would be my third social media choice. Of course your choices may be different than mine but definitely use as many social sites that you can keep up with. I'm working on my social approach but it all takes time. Right now I'm focusing on the 9wired site as I need to get the traffic up significantly to achieve the search results I'm after.

Monetize

What is monetization? It's a pay off for having a web site. Unless you're promoting and selling your own product you could monetize your site by promoting other people's products. Actually, you could sell your own products and promote other related items at the same time. Let's say you're a web designer, you could promote web hosting by way of affiliate links to help you earn extra money. Or, you could review and advertise related software for web designers. There's lots of possibilities if you get creative.

Affiliates

Affiliate advertising is a good way to monetize a site. Businesses pay you for advertising their products and pay a commission based on sales generated by your site. When a customer follows a link from your site to theirs and completes a transaction you then will be paid a percentage of the sale. This can be done by text links or graphic ads supplied by the affiliate.

Traffic
Make sure you have ample traffic to your site before you start affiliate ads. Why? First of all it takes a lot of traffic to make a conversion. That is to say, sales are only made about 2% of the time. Of course this percentage varies but if you plan on that rate you won't be disappointed.

Lack of Conversions
Many affiliates will disqualify your site for lack of sales. I suppose they have a model to adhere to and a site that doesn't make any or few sales skews their numbers in a bad way.

Approval
Some affiliates will accept anyone. Others you will have to go through an approval process. Some will make you fill out a form to submit for approval. You may have to provide the amount of hits and traffic your site gets as well as how your site relates to their product.

Anyone Can?
When you look at affiliate information on web sites they make it sound as if you can start right away and make money and I suppose some do. But it takes lots of traffic and they don't tell you they can disqualify you whenever they want. Many have a six month policy. If you don't make any sales in that time you can't be an affiliate for them anymore.

Where
Many businesses have an affiliate program. Affiliate links can usually be found at the bottom of the site in all of the links listed at the bottom of the page.

Commission Junction
This is one of the sites that deals in nothing but affiliates. You have to join their program and they then supply a list of affiliate advertisers in many different categories. You are then paid by them instead of the site your advertising for.

ClickBank
This is another affiliate site that works in the same way as CJ. Make sure you read up on an affiliate site before you join. Some prefer ClickBank to Commission Junction for various reasons. Many say don't put all your eggs in one basket which I would agree with.

eSellerate, MyCommere and Digital River are different affiliate programs under the same roof.

Mature Sites
My advice to you is let your site mature before you join any of these programs. I learned this the hard way. To make any money with affiliates or adsense a site definitely needs a lot of traffic. Get your site up, hopefully you picked a good niche, not all are good and many are flooded, leaving you struggling to get a following. Get up a lot of good, quality content and make your site relevant. I can't stress this enough.

Adsense

Adsense is a program supported by Google. You create an adsense account. Google must then approve your site. After that Google supplies ads for your site that compliment your content. You then will be paid when someone clicks on the ads.

Note:
Your site must be at least six months old before you can be accepted in the adsense program. There is other criteria but this is one that must be noted so you don't get all geared up for ads and then you find out your site isn't mature enough.

Amazon

Many use Amazon, they have tons of product and they are well trusted by most consumers. Definitely a good choice for monetizing your web site.

ebay
ebay has a partner program which is their version of an affiliate program. Another well trusted site by consumers with millions of product.

BANS
Build a Niche Site is a web site that provides you with step by step instructions on how to build a niche affiliate site. A niche is a topic within a topic. The hope is to find a topic with few sites promoting it but enough consumers looking for it. Finding a good niche can be tricky but there are formulas to find them. BANS outlines all the details in a well written PDF file.

WalMart
Yup, even WalMart has an affiliate program and they have tons of product to choose from. Search the web and you'll find many businesses to choose from.

50 Pages
I've read it takes a minimum of 50 pages before a site will rank well in search. As of this writing this site is half way there. Also, this site is in a very flooded market. So far my best page comes up on page two of a Google search. Making money from a website can take years. Many stories I've read state three years of work before the sites starts to pay off. I'm impatient, so I expected almost instantaneous results. Don't be like me. Do the work, make your site relevant with tons of content and then start to look for a pay day.