New to the Forum advive needed please

[derbyowl]

Hi
I am new to affiliate marketing ( but not to sales ). I am wanting to develop an affiliate site that I can feed my existing clients to.

Initial questions:

Is there a turnkey site that I can buy? ( I will want to add and adapt it but initially I want to get going )

I have looked at:

Websites for sale | Business Opportunity | Work from home | business for sale

Has anybody any thoughts about this or experiences pllease or do you have alternatives sources of 'turnkey' sites.

I was looking at developing 3 sites mainly because of my persnal intersts:

1) Travel
2) Gambling ( In particular Poker )
3) An amazon affiliate store to back onto my Ebay business.

Finally I send a lot of business emails ( Definately Not SPAM ). what are the rules about links on those emails. If someone forwards one of my emails to someone who does not want it where do I stand.

Thats all for now , I am really excited and committed to being in this business , any help or advice would be gratly appreciated.

thank you

[DannyW]

If it's a travel solution you're after I'd say have a look at Chris' Travel plugin for WordPress sunPress - WordPress Plug-In Affiliate Blog - sunshine.co.uk

Seems to be one of the biggest plugins for WordPress to date, and it's something I'll be playing with soon.

[accelerator]

Originally Posted by derbyowl Hi Is there a turnkey site that I can buy? ( I will want to add and adapt it but initially I want to get going ) I have looked at: Websites for sale | Business Opportunity | Work from home | business for sale Has anybody any thoughts about this or experiences pllease or do you have alternatives sources of 'turnkey' sites.

My own view is that if you are serious about this business you should learn web design:

Web Design Tutorials

However, if you want to get started fast, then I suggest starting a blog using blogger.com. There will be no technical barrier for you doing this. Then once you have mastered web design you can use your blog to link to your sites.

There is a list of UK affiliate programmes here:

UK Affiliate Marketing Networks

Do your keyword research properly and you will know what areas are worth targetting:

Keyword Suggestion Tools

Make sure you learn about domain names and buy some good ones:

Domain Name Trading Resources

Best rgds

[accelerator]

Oh, and you won't have a problem sending newsletters providing you have a working unsubscribe option. Legally you should but the company's contact address on the newsletter you send too.

See:

Mass Email Software

Rgds

[derbyowl]

Thank you for the replies. I do intend to learn how to design my own site. But what I need to do initially is to get up and running. On Nov. 1st I launch an Ebay shop business and i also run a telecoms business which is currently run on a direct sales model and not on line.

My the end of 2008 I intend to be sending several thousand opt in emails per week nd simply put what I need is to create my affiliate site quickly. what does any body think of the tunkey idea please. If you have one yourself I may be interested in buying a 'clone' ( Not sure if that is the right phrase of it.

Al help greatly appreciated even if it is to say that I am looking in the wrong place.

[accelerator]

I would say think about going to see some local web developers and see if you can get some good quotes rather than opting for a turnkey. A turnkey site isn't going to be that good for search engine optimisation or for you to customize it, and I don't see it performing that well. I guess another alternative is to try some of the outsourcing sites on the internet, but it can be difficult to assess how good someone will be online and that's why I say think about going to see someone face to face. See:

Outsourcing Development

Rgds

[D-Mac]

It sounds like you want to get up and running as quickly as possible with minimal fuss and I would assume minimal expense at this stage. I would recommend setting up a Wordpress site. WordPress › Blog Tool and Publishing Platform

Although it promotes itself as a 'blog tool', it is perfect for running a more standard web site. It's free, so the only expense is paying someone to install it for you (although you can do it yourself fairly easily), plus the cost of some reasonable quality shared hosting, and a domain name.

There are loads of free Wordpress 'themes' available, so you can get a design that you like: WordPress › WordPress Themes Themes can easily be customised to incorporate your logo, colour scheme, etc.

Managing the web site is an absolute doddle - about as easy as operating Microsoft Word.

Loads of people on this forum run Wordpress sites, mainly because it leaves you free to run your business without having to to mess around with the many annoyances of web design. Good luck

[derbyowl]

Thank you all again . Please keep the advice coming. It is very kind of you. In a business bookI read it said that the most successful business people do not in general invent new things ( There obviously being some exceptions ). What they do is see an idea that works and enhance it.
I know this will sound naive but can someone please point me at some sites that make sensible money per mpnth out of affiliate marketing. ( For this purpose lets call sensible a minimum of £12000 per year after expenses. )

Or is that figure too high or to low.

To explain my background I have been in high value direct sales all my working career and have made normally between £50K in a bad year and around £100K in a good year. Unfortunatley I have just been made redundant ( Well done Gordon for managing the economy so well 0 due to the crurrent recession. And now being the wrong side of 45 my employment options are shrinking. I do not need to make a fortune or get on the front page of the financial times what I need to do is replicate the lower figure ( £50 K ) in 2009.

All sensible ideas very warmly recieved and no I do not mind paying for something that works. ( I do expect and will work hard at it ). But please no rubbish A 20 year old kid turned up at my door the other day showing me how to make £250K a year unfortunately the car he turned up in was worth about a third of my wristwatch! and I am just too old to listen to dreamers, liars and scammers.
Regards
DerbyOwl

[accelerator]

You can make 12k a year in affiliate marketing, it's not an unrealistic target, and many people earn 60k a year plus. The problem is that in my opinion only a very small percentage, say 2-5%, have the necessary skills to "make it". The revenue is there but you have to have the originality and marketing ability to make it. I would say sign up to a handful of affiliate marketing networks, see the links here:

UK Affiliate Marketing Networks

then take a look at the stats within their admin areas, in particular the EPC rates. The big areas online are travel, mobile, finance and gaming. Once you have found something with good EPC that you think you could write about and provide the content people are looking for, get your site started.

It's certainly not easy, most people don't make it, but those that do have the skills make a good living and have a good lifestyle working for themselves.

Rgds