WordPress – Using Affiliate Blogs

WordPress is a script that allows anyone to setup a blog or website in as little as five minutes, and that’s not just marketing hype.

While WordPress is better known as a blogging tool, more and more Internet marketers have begun using WordPress to create affiliate sites. WordPress is a fantastic option for affiliate sites, and I see a number of key advantages to using WordPress over more conventional web site editors.

1. Five minute install if done manually. If your host has Fantastico, installation is done in seconds.

2. Since your website is built “online”, you can use a computer anywhere in the world to update your site. Simply login to your sites Dashboard and add/edit content to your hearts content.

3. WordPress plugins are third party scripts, simply enabled through WordPress. These extend the features of WordPress. These can include Google sitemap makers, Database backups, spam filters, plugins that help you control the design of your pages, etc. Plugins aren’t limited – They can customize it a lot.

4. What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) style editing. Lots of WordPress plugins give you even more control. My personal favourite is not a plugin, but a free stand-alone application called Windows Live Writer. It allows you to update multiple sites from within a single desktop application (meaning you can create your content offline, and then go online to publish).

5. When you publish new material to your site, WordPress automatically updates the necessary menus, adds links to your new content, and organises everything for you based on the “rules” you specified when you set WordPress up. This is one of the biggest time savers over traditional web editors where maintaining links and adding new content can be a pain.

6. Since WordPress is free (a major benefit in its own right), there is a huge following of WordPress, so there is plenty of support and help when you need it.

7. It’s easy to find free and paid templates. There are specific WordPress templates for affiliate sites, templates that have been designed for SEO benefits, two column and three column WordPress templates and everything in between. You can change the design simply by selecting a different template.

8. WordPress has a built-in trackback or pingback feature.

9. There are constant updates for WordPress. The tool is evolving nicely, and you wont have to worry about the future of WordPress, or if bugs will ever get fixed.

10. Users can add their own comments to your posts. This means your content is updated frequently as comments are posted and your pages can grow over time due to visitor participation – something the search engines will like. Before you start worrying about comment spam, a plugin called Akismet can help remove 99% of spam without you ever seeing it. You can stop spam comments by enabling comment approval.

Article created by Jake Ruston.