Synopsis Overview of common tools and resources for creating a website.

Chapter Contents Introduction Key Concepts Some Ideas Evaluating an Affiliate Program Types of Affiliate Links Product Placement Building a Website

Building a website

In this chapter we introduced several key concepts and tips on creating a quality affiliate website. At this point in the course, understanding the key concepts is far more important than knowing how to make a website. Many people believe creating a website is difficult and that you need special computer or programing skills. But the fact is, creating a website is not difficult. There are several tools, resources, and software applications available to easily create a professional website. Read on for more information...

Online tools

Online website creation tools allow you to create a website in minutes. You simply choose a pre-made design, add your company information, content, and affiliate links and you're done! You don't need any HTML or programming experience to use the software. Some online website creation tools allow you to publish your website immediately, which eliminates the need to manually upload your files.

Website development software

For those in search of a more robust website development tool, there are several professional software applications to choose from. While these programs are generally used by professional developers, beginners can also greatly benefit from these programs.

Coding by hand

We do things the old fashioned way! We use a simple text editor to code our HTML by hand. However, it will not be necessary to become advanced at HTML to be successful at affiliate marketing. If you are interested in learning about authoring web pages, the following resources are some of the best:

HTML Goodies is a fabulous resource for beginners who want to learn about authoring web pages. In fact, it is where our co-founder learned the basics of web authoring when he was getting started. The section of HTML goodies which will probably be most useful to you is their HTML Primer. It is a full seven step course that covers everything from the basics, to more advanced topics such as placing and manipulating images. The site contains several other educational sections too, so be sure to search around for other topics that interest you.

Web Monkey is targeted towards more knowledgeable visitors. But don't let this scare you off. It is a very valuable resource with educational material for people of all levels. Their HTML Basics guide is a good place to start. Other resources include the HTML cheat sheet, and the color codes reference.

There are literally thousands of resources online that can help you in your process of mastering HTML and web page authoring. All you have to do is search for them. We suggest visiting your favorite search engine (we like Google) and searching for "HTML basics", "HTML beginners", "HTML tags", etc.