The process seems pretty straightforward to start a website for affiliate marketing. And, in many ways it is. The thing is there are a lot of ways to get sidetracked and end up making some mistakes that can slow you down. Some mistakes can even derail your chance of making money even after spending a lot of time on your site.
There is no single right way of going about things that muddies the waters even further. However, there are some things that are not worth spending much time on while others are where you should be focused. Your path may be different than some other entrepreneurs but the basics are the same for everybody.
In this article, I will go over where you should make sure you are directing your attention and the things you should ignore for now so you don’t waste time.
Track Your Time
There are certain things that you really don’t need to spend much time on which we will go into further in the article. To know when you are spending too much time on a part of the project, you need to use a timesheet app to see when you are taking too long or can afford to use a bit more time.
Since a lot of the projects are going to be done when you have spare time, you can easily lose track of time spent on a particular part of the project when these moments are broken up.
You should definitely break up the building of the site into pieces and allocate a certain amount of time per segment. For instance, you shouldn’t spend more than a couple of hours choosing a theme for your site and setting up the framework when you are using something like WordPress.
When you hit your allotted time you know you’ve spent too much time and you should move on by wrapping up that part of the project quickly.
Don’t Get Hung Up On The Looks
Many people spend far too much time setting up their site. While a nice-looking site with a clean UX is a must-have, it doesn’t have to be so difficult. You shouldn’t spend more than a few hours total in getting your site looking right in the beginning.
This is a time trap that is just glorified procrastination. There are other more important things to think about where you should focus your attention. You’ll likely read about what colors promote buying as if there is a subliminal way to get through to your visitors and help them make a purchase.
This is really not the case. Although there are color combinations that look better than others, the actual color scheme is not going to be the key to your success. Take as much time as it takes to make a website that is easy to navigate for a visitor. This will have more to do with your conversions than the right theme.
Where colors will help you is coming up with a recognizable brand. When your visitors see your posts on social media they will know it’s yours based on the color and design.
Do Your Research First
The best way to stay organized when putting your site together is to come up with a content plan based on solid research. Do your research ahead of time and put everything on a spreadsheet. This is going to save you a lot of time in the coming months and even beyond.
The reason is twofold. One is that if you group your projects together you get into a rhythm and can go through that part of the work efficiently and even quickly. It’s like the more you practice doing the same thing over and over the better you get at it and it becomes second nature.
The second reason is that you will have a system that can then be outsourced far easier later on. You should be doing your own research for the first year to get good at it, but to grow your site you’ll need to outsource. When you have a system in place that you can then teach somebody else to do on their own it will be because you did it so often.
Make A Content Calendar
Knowing when and what you have coming down the line when it comes to content is going to make your process much easier to digest. This will now only get you on track to make sure that you have consistent content getting published but it does something else.
You are able to group topics together and make sure that the posts are interlinked better when you can see a list on a spreadsheet of all your planned content. This is the best way to help Google understand your site and is a fundamental part of SEO.
Do Link Building When It’s Time
Building links to your site is essential to make sure that Google is able to trust your site. Backlinks are like votes that tell Google that others think your site is worthy of a high ranking.
You shouldn’t do this too early, however as your focus needs to be on content. The more content that you have then the more chances of something ranking and getting you a lot of traffic. Traffic will come to the pages that you build the links to, but it’s better to have a lot of hooks in the water when you want to catch a lot of fish.
Final Words
When you are organized, your life is a lot less stressful and you are setting your site up for success. The less organized you are, the more of a chore most things will feel like. This is a big reason why people end up giving up on their sites before they have a chance to succeed.
See things through and your site will be ready to top the SERPs and make you a lot of money.