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Choosing a Content Management System
Category: Affiliate Marketing
You can spend a career honing and perfecting your website with an html editor such as Microsoft’s Expression Web or Dreamweaver. However, because time is money, the affiliate marketer needs to spend time promoting, not developing. The solution to this may be a good content management system. Three very good and free products to consider are Worpress, Joomla, and Drupal.
Wordpress - Best for Blogs
Wordpress can be used for content, e-commerce, or as a blog which is its primary focus. Many available add-ons make it a versatile tool for the affiliate marketer. If you are on a tight budget, you can host it free at wordpress.com but you will not be able to use many of the additional features available on a self-hosted site. Wordpress can to compared to Blogger, Google’s free blog, but Wordpress is much more powerful and flexible. Many affiliate marketers will want to use Wordpress in addition to the other content mangement systems. For example, you can use Joomla for you main site and add Wordpress as a complimentary blogsite. More content means more traffic!
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.
You can customize the look of your site with the many free templates available for Joomla. However, you probably will need to modify any template for you own use–logos and slogans for example. So, you will need to understand at least some html and css in order to use it. You could design your own template with the available tutorial, but that would probably take a lot of time away from promotion which is key to an affiliate marketer’s success. So unless you plan on developing templates to sell, which many do, you are probably well advised to find a ready made one that you can modify to your personal taste.
Drupal–Another Useful Solution
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.
Web Host Considerations
Choose a web host that supports MySQL and PHP. These are necessary for many content management system including those discussed in this article. Also be sure to find one that has cpanel with fantastico. You can painlessly install Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal with fantastico. Many web hosts will let you have many domains and sub-domains without any additional fees. Get one of those! You will probably need several sites to be a successful affiliate marketer. Versatile hosting and free content management software is, in my opinion, the way to go!
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