This is the fifth in a series entitled Internet Marketing 101. This series focuses on the basics of Internet Marketing; it will cover the basic pre-requisites to creating an income online and will outline all of the basics steps required to get started. This is a 5 part series and the five parts are: finding your interests, selecting and buying a domain name, selecting and finding a web host, joining affiliate programs, and building your website.

Part 5: Building Your Website

Okay class, this is the final article in this beginners series entitled “Internet Marketing”.  Up to this point I have shown you what is required of you before you can start making money with affiliate marketing.  By now you should have found some interesting products to promote, bought a domain name, purchased a web host, and joined one or more affiliate programs.  This final part will focus on building your website.

Right off the bat, I want to admit that I am probably the world’s worst graphic designer.  I don’t really know much about color theory nor do I know which colors I should use together to make a pleasant looking theme.  That’s why this site is rather basic with blacks and whites and reds.  With that in mind, I’ve been building websites for about 8 years now.  What I mean is that even if your’re not a very talented designer, you can still make websites that work.  The key to any website is great content!  If your website looks great, then even better.  If you can make a site that complements your content, then I think you’re set for success and will end up making money online!

So you want to start promoting products that you’ve just purchased.  Have you looked around at your competition?  Do you have a good sense of what your competitors websites look like?  What are their strengths?  What features can you make better?  Go around the to those sites and get an idea of the layout of the site.  Figure out what you like about the site and conceptualize it.  Draw out sketches of your site on paper and make notes of what you want it to be like when it’s live and online.

Now that you know what you want your website to be like, it’s time to start building.  The premium tools will make your job easier.  These tools are all Adobe tools: Photoshop, DreamWeaver, Flash.  If you’ve got the skills and the drive to put these tools to use, they’ll definitely pay off in the long run.  Luckily for the rest of us, there are free alternatives to most web building tools.  Check out the Gimp for photo manipulation and NVU for web development.  I don’t know of any free alternatives for flash, so if you know how to use Flash and want to employ it on your site, you should probably go and buy it.

The first “rule” to website design is to keep things simple.  You want to focus on content and not graphics.  To that extent, I highly recommend that you use WordPress for your website.  You can get lots of free themes for WP that make your site look great.

So know you’re familiar with what it takes to make money online.  This is a basic overview of the process and your imagination is the limit to the possibilities of moneymaking! Get started and read all that you can read about affiliate marketing.  Get yourself some books if you need to, and start making some money!