If you are running an affiliate marketing website then you should know about the three most important site-related factors that can help you gather affiliate leads and sales.

These are –

1. Site domain name
2. Landing page design
3. Content

The site domain name has to reflect your niche as closely and accurately as possible. Or to be precise, it should reflect the sub-niche and keywords that you have chosen to focus on. People have moved towards sub niches in order to escape competition and an astute affiliate marketer will always be able to dig up a targeted niche and profit from it. One way to do so is to use what is called the “hair on fire” technique. People are looking for solutions to certain problems and they want those solutions “NOW”. Another method, as mentioned above, is to come up with a super-specialized niche. An example of generic to niche would be – toilet training pets > toilet training dogs > toilet training adult rescued dogs / toilet training adult Doberman Pinschers. Research and imagination will surely land you an as yet untapped niche. Keep geographical considerations in mind. In the above example; you could choose to focus the site on Doberman Pinscher owners in Belgium and tap that geographical market.

So, once you have chosen your site specialization you choose a name that carries appropriate keywords and is preferably short. Not more than 3-4 words. However; if you can string a nice and popular search phrase then no harm in going for a slightly longer domain name. Let’s fact it, all the good domain names have long been taken. If you want an impact creating domain name, do some creative research. If your profit-pulling keyword is not available with a .com domain, don’t worry. Take a .org or .net. It’s perfectly okay.

Ideally, you should get the domain name registered with the hosting provider of your choice. Not much sense in having the domain name registered with one provider and having it hosted some place else. All hosting services promise more than 99% uptime but the customer support experience varies. Check out on forums for a reputed hosting provider, one that offers prompt customer support, easy upgrades, and is inexpensive.

Next, you get down to building your site or blog. Here you need to pay particular attention to the landing page because this is where the website visitor can be influenced through your call to action. Whatever it is that you’re selling; you don’t have a long time to make a pitch for it. A visitor needs only a few seconds to decide whether he wishes to stay on a page or not. A gaudy page with too-good-to-be-true promises and patently phony testimonials screams “snake oil”. Don’t take that route. Instead, make your landing page appear sober, classy, and guide the visitor to the “call to action” in a smooth sequential manner. Offer visitors limited time trials, discounts, freebies, etc to get them interested. Have the link to FAQ displayed prominently. The pitch for your product should talk about its benefits, superiority over competing products, and answer common queries about it. This way the visitor won’t have to go to the FAQ page. Do all you can to keep the visitor on the landing page. The only exit from a visitor that benefits you is when he clicks on the affiliate advertiser’s link. Keeping this in mind some affiliates sparingly add outgoing links on the landing page.

The third factor is content. This one is like a perennial work in progress. You have to keep adding content to your affiliate site. Even if it is a small static site, you may want to add an article or product update from time to time. Content-related SEO when married to informative writing can yield rich dividends. Target your audience with information they can use and push your products without the hard-sell. Use content to gain audience trust; that’s important. It is necessary that you write, draw, and use audio / video to position your affiliate site or blog as an authority site on the product / service that you are promoting. If you can do that; you will make money.