Affiliate Marketing Basics

Building a site without a plan is like attempting to build a house without
one. You are doomed before you start. A critical part of building a site is the
planning phase. Search engines want quality content to satisfy surfers looking
for information so you site must be content rich and relevant to the theme or
topic.

The more you can narrow down a theme the better. For example a broad theme
would be modes of transport but narrowing the focus down to just one mode
like motorbikes is preferable and if you can narrow the focus down even
further to just one aspect of motorbikes like helmets its even better. 
The more specific the theme the more targeted your traffic,  and the higher
your conversion rate is likely to be.

If the ultimate purpose of your site is to earn income then the theme must at
least have the potential for profit. Its no use choosing some totally obscure
topic for which there is no online interest.

Your plan must be detailed and address these issues. What will be the content
of the home page. The home page is your master page or top level page and the
first surfers are likely to see when entering your site. From this top level you
will link to pages on the next level which in turn will link to pages on lower
levels. Generally 3 levels is sufficient. Which pages will link directly to the
home page? what will the subject be of each of these pages? What keywords will
form the basis of each page's content?

Another important part of the planning process is to determine whether there
is potential to derive income from the site? It's not necessary at this point to
know exactly what you will promote but you do need to know if there are relevant
income producing possibilities that you could use. This is often the sticking
point with ideas for sites. However great the idea, or your passion for the
subject, if the financially feasibility side looks dicey think carefully about
going ahead.

Only when you have a very clear idea of what your site is about etc should
you start looking at domain names
to ensure that your domain name accurately reflects the theme of your site.

By the end of the planning stage you should have the outline of your site
including the keywords for each page.