There are 6 rules you must use when building any affiliate website if you want the website to make you any money.

Building Your Site Rule #1
Always have a strong headline.

No matter how great your sales copy is or how great your content and information is… no one will stick around long enough to read it unless you grab them with your headline.

Make sure you have a compelling enough headline to make the person want to stay and read your information.

Building Your Site Rule #2
Make your home page a strong sales letter that combines elements of an article and an endorsement.

The best way to have a sales letter that is not hyped up and can still do a good “pre-sell” is to have a form of a product “review” or “endorsement.” What most people are interested in is reading the pros and cons about a product. Spend some time and dedicate the home page to a good product, write a good “endorsement” article.

Building Your Site Rule #3
Stop hiding your links. Let your visitors read your articles…

Some advocates of the old mini-site strategy advised you to have NO other links on your site. There was supposed to be just one other link – the BUY NOW link. And I think this still works, but for merchant sites – not affiliate websites.

Remember, your job is to PRE-SELL, not sell. You’re not trying to corner your potential customer, you’re just trying to gain their trust. The best way to gain their trust is to offer them a bunch of useful advice and helpful content. That means you’ll need LINKS to all that good stuff on your site.

Now remember, the other articles on your site should also be “pre-selling” your readers – so one way or the other, you will be able to gain their trust and get the sale.

Building Your Site Rule #4
Offer lots and lots of articles – all with easy navigation.

As PPC gets more and more expensive, it’s getting harder and harder to get qualified leads from search engine advertising. It’s also getting tougher and tougher to find easy shortcuts to a #1 placement. A cheaper and more effective strategy is to patiently work WITH the search engines rather than trying to trick them or buy into them.

How do you work WITH the search engines? You offer content: articles, reviews, specs. If you can provide the search engines with what their users want, then the search engines will gladly send you free traffic. Affiliates are taking a strong turn towards doing search engine optimization and search engines want to see content.

Building Your Site Rule #5
Add some other services and products to your site.

Focus your site on one niche AREA; then introduce additional products or services in key spots throughout the site. These additions should ALWAYS be tightly related to your site theme. Your potential customers are introduced to additional choices in the CONTEXT of an article or a review. You’re giving them additional ways to spend money on you.

And by additional products, I mean products that you have potentially created yourself – high ticket products that can bring in a lot of money. High-ticket affiliate products are OK as well.

Building Your Site Rule #6
Include an FAQ section – most critical! 

Almost NO affiliate sites use this strategy. However, it’s one of the most powerful.

You’re probably very well aware of the most common questions people ask? Well, build them into your sales letter/endorsement/article. Use sub-headlines to draw attention to them. The quicker your visitors can find their answers through your website, the quicker they will buy from you and the more they will return to your site.

The above 6 rules should be followed very closely for every affiliate site you ever launch. Together they optimize your website to be the most profitable.