Personally, I don’t really like just having a WordPress blog that looks like a WordPress blog with ads in every post, and in every inch of the sidebar(s). I know, I know, that’s what this one looks like now, but it’s going to be changed, hopefully soon. I’ve just been concentrating on other things lately.
Anyway, if you trying Affiliate Marketing, but you’re having a rough time setting up a shopping cart or store type of site, then just keep using WordPress, except a modified theme version.
WordPress is a great piece of work, the developers keep updates coming regularly, there’s tons of plugins for it, the search engines love blogs, and IT’S FREE!! What else could you want ?
For the measly cost of some good web hosting, I use both Bluehost and HostGator, the phpBay WordPress plugin, a domain name, some of your time and effort, and you can get a great looking WordPress store online very cheaply.
If you have a look at this guitar site that I put up, you’ll see how easy it is. I will say however regarding this site, it isn’t a flashy, graphic-filled, animated site, mainly because this was my first effort at modifying a WordPress (theme) this much.
I also wanted something simple, but functional. This site has served me pretty well considering I’ve added very little content to it. It has however, dropped to very little traffic because I didn’t keep adding fresh content to it.
After you modify a WP theme, add some ‘text widgets’ in the sidebar(s) as I’ve done, naming them of course to whatever is relative to your store. Then, instead of just writing and displaying posts like a standard blog, you can set up pages instead. Using the phpBay plugin to insert your auctions, and you’ve got a great little store set up with very little work, and not much money.
About the only HTML you’ll need to know is how to add (and display) the link to your page (where the auctions are).
It’s similar to the following:
<a href=”http://ThisIsMyDomain.com/widgets-auctions-page”>Buy My Widgets Here!</a>
Of course you’ll then have the link ‘Buy My Widgets Here!’ being displayed in the text widget of your sidebar.
If you look at ‘The-Guitar-Store‘, that’s exactly what I’ve done. All the items for sale are eBay auction listings. I do need to add a better header, a touch more graphics, and to do a few tweaks, but it wouldn’t take much to make that site very professional looking.
If I average the cost of the phpBay plugin, my hosting and domain registrations over a year, I’m paying probably less than .75 cents per day (figuring just 1 web host). It actually gets cheaper as I add more sites because BlueHost and HostGator allow unlimited domains on my hosting services, and the phpBay plugin can be used on as many sites as you feel like setting up.
I’ve paid for everything and then some already. The rest is pure profit for the first year!!
If anyone has any questions on how to set up a WordPress/phpBay auction site, just click the ‘Contact Us’ link on The Guitar Store site, or this blog.