How To Build A Sniper Affiliate Site – Part 2 – Setting Up Your Product Site

If you missed Part 1 – Researching A Keyword, please read it here.

Now you should have your keyword decided on and have registered it as your domain name. What we need to do next is set up the actual website for which you will use to promote your affiliate product.

Here is what we will be doing in Part 2:

1. Installing Wordpress.
2. Choosing The Right Wordpress Theme.
3. Essential Plugins For Better SEO.

Step 1: Installing Wordpress

The main reason why I chose Wordpress is because it is very SEO (search engine optimization) friendly and indexes and ranks well with search engines in general but primarily Google. It also offers us some useful features exclusive to Wordpress in the way of flexibility with our sniper site setup.

Firstly you will want to download Wordpress version 2.9.1 and extract the folder onto your desktop. Next you will need to download and install an FTP client to access your server. I prefer to use FileZilla since it is free. When you set up your hosting with Omnis they provide you with your FTP login information in an email. FTP just means File Transfer Protocol. To set up a new site connection in FileZilla just go to File>Site Manager>Click on New Site and enter in the FTP information Omnis gave you then save it and click “connect”. Now you’re in the area that will contain the files of your website! Note: the host will be ftp:yourdomain.com and don’t worry about the Port.

When you log into your Omnis FTP server through FileZilla, you will see your computer contents on the left and the FTP server contents on the right. The bottom right hand box is what we want to be looking at right now. In it you will notice an “etc” and “www” folder. Double click on the “www” folder as this is the root directory of our domain name that we just registered.  We want to put the Wordpress files into this directory.

In the top left box click on desktop as this is where we put the Wordpress folder. You will notice now that the bottom left box is displaying the contents of our desktop. Look for the Wordpress folder and double click to open it. Select all of the files by pressing Ctrl+A, right click on them and click Upload. Now you will see your Wordpress files uploading. This will take a little while so go grab a drink.

Note: You can use Omnis’ File Manager to do this however I am old school and like to use standalone FTP clients. They provide a better layout for visualization than any web hosts’ online FTP clients.

Once you have all of the Wordpress files uploaded to the root directory go type your domain into your browser and there you will see that Wordpress is asking you to install it. Follow the instructions and eventually you will come to a window where it is asking for some database information. For this you will need to go into your Omnis account and click on MySQL Manager then in the next window Create A New Database. Follow the steps Omnis provides creating a new database name, user login name and password. The hostname that Wordpress asks for is just mysql.yourdomain.com. Click next on the Wordpress installation and it will take care of the rest of the installation.

Great! Now you have a website with Wordpress installed on it! If you type in your domain name you will see just a very simple website. That is the Wordpress default theme.

Step 2: Choosing The Right Wordpress Theme

There are thousands of free themes out there. However, the default theme works great if you’re promoting an affiliate product like weight loss where you are trying to come off as a middle-aged woman who is not tech savvy. If you’re into promoting products like software or money making systems then you will want something a little more professional looking. However don’t ever go over the top with your theme design to the point where you don’t seem believable to the visitor. The theme needs to fit the character you’re trying to portray. Remember, we are trying to drive sales and not win a design contest.

Another key to success in using the right theme is to put yourself in the position of the potential buyer. Ask yourself a question like “What would the look and feel be of a website that you would feel comfortable buying this product from?”

Generally, for a personal story type website where I am trying to come off as a person who has lost a lot of weight and am sharing my discovery, I use a simple theme like the Wordpress default. If I am doing a product review I will tend to use the i2Theme.

A great versatile theme I like to use outside of the default Wordpress theme is the i2Theme by MangoOrange. It’s simple, clean and doesn’t make you look like a money hungry affiliate.

Installing a Wordpress theme is simple. Download the Wordpress theme that you would like to use (keep in mind my suggestions for theme selection) and extract the theme file to your desktop. Log into your FTP server using FileZilla. When you double click on the “www” down in the bottom right box you will see all of the Wordpress files appear. Next you click on the “wp-content” folder and then the “themes” folder. This is the directory that you will upload your theme to. Look in the bottom left box (which should be displaying your desktop files) select the theme folder, right click and click “Upload”.

Once it is done uploading, go back to your Wordpress admin panel by typing www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin. In this page you will enter your user name and password which would’ve been given to you when you installed Wordpress in Step 1. Next, click “Appearance” and then under that “Themes”. Now you should see the theme that you just finished uploading to your site’s theme directory. Simply click on “Activate” under the thumbnail picture and you’re set! Go check out how your theme looks now.

Step 3: Essential Plugins For Better SEO

There are 2 plugins I recommend to enhance your website’s SEO. To get to where you need to be to install plugins, log in to your Wordpress admin panel by typing www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin.

Now that you’re logged in you will need to click on “Add New” under the “Plugins” column.  To the right of that you will now see a search box. The first plugin we want is Google XML Sitemaps. Type that in and hit search. It should be the first one on the list in the search results. Click on “Install” on the far right hand side. A small window will come up in which you will need to click on the orange button that says “Install Now”. Another window will come up after installation with an “Activate” button. Click that to activate. Now you’ve installed your first plugin!

For the next plugin we will use the same procedure outlined above to install and activate it. The name of the plugin is All-In-One SEO Pack.

Now that we have the basic foundation of our website set up, we are off to a good start. In Part 3 I will show you how to optimize the entire website for better SEO.

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