Choosing a Content Management System
Creating a basic website is relatively easy however, if you want yours to stand out from the crowd, you may find yourself spending hours, days, months, even years tweaking and fine tuning your html code. For an affiliate marketer for whom time is money, time spent on website development means lost revenue which may ultimately lead to failure. What to do? Find and use a good content management system! There are many content management systems available, but three of the best are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. One outstanding feature of these solutions is the cost-they are all free!
WordPress
WordPress is used primarily for blog-type websites although with the many plug-ins and add-on modules available it can easily be adapted for affiliate marketing and even an e-commerce site. Blogger (google’s blog service) is generally considered easier to set up and use for new bloggers, however for serious affiliate marketers, WordPress is the preferred choice. WordPress is frequently upgraded and because of its popularity, support is readily available. If you don’t need have a web host, you may consider getting a free blog on WordPress.com but most affiliates will want to host your blog on their own domain and will then have access a significant range of plug-ins and tools that are not available on their free service or at Blogger.
Joomla
Joomla with its myriad of modules, plug-ins, and components has all the bells and whistles available that any affiliate marketer needs. So many that it can be overwhelming! However, it is relatively easy to use although there is a learning curve. Fortunately, because there are so many users of Joomla, you can usually quickly find solutions to any problems you may have in forums. There are two versions currently available and both are robust and complete management systems. Either version will likely exceed you needs, which is good thing. You don’t need to worry about outgrowing your software.
There are many, many free templates available for each version. However, I have yet to a ready-made template either free or paid for that I did have to modify significantly to work adequately for my sites. You can modify the html and css codes of the templates but this does require at least a basic understanding of html and php. There is a Joomla template tutorial available so you could custom design you own but this may require wasting precious hours reading through pages text and graphics which may be difficult for a new user to comprehend. Even with these cautions, I still consider Joomla one of the best choices for a content management system.
Drupal–Versatile CMS
Drupal seems to be used primarily for community websites designed so that the members can add their own content and perspectives. Drupal is, in my opinion easier to learn than Joomla, but not as easy as WordPress. Drupal can easily be adapted to a blog or content site and also has many add-on modules available to expand its basic capabilities. Drupal comes with a selection of themes or you easily create your own. Most themes have a central content column and left and/or right sidebar columns. Drupal will remain free but you can expect to see more non-free additions in the future.
Choosing a Web Host
Joomla and Drupal both use MySQL and PHP so make sure you select a web host that has these available. Also, if you select a hosting company that uses cpanel with fantastico, you can easily install Worpress, Drupal or Joomla. Some hosting company allow you to put unlimited websites in one account. That means you have many websites in one hosting account without any additional hosting fee. Most affiliate marketers will find they will need many sites to promote enough products to be successful. Using a free content management system and a versatile hosting company can start the affiliate marketer on the way to making his or her online fortune!!
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