By a special arrangement I made with Bruce Safran of BizZites, you are invited a premier Tele-Webcast training event exclusively for NPT readers.

Bruce will teach you how to “create” a complete, commission ready affiliate website, featuring targeted products, relevant articles, and related videos. ALL engineered to drive qualified traffic and convert more of your visitors into sales.

The webinar is on Thu, May 14, 2009 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT (9PM Eastern).

Register here.

Need a website but worried that building your own website will be complicated or too expensive because you’re NOT a geek?

Fear NOT!

It has never been easier to build your own website.

A number of services offer website building packages that let you create your own personal, business and/or ecommerce websites without the need to know how to code HTML.

Better yet, it won’t cost you an arm and leg to build your site using a website builder as you won’t have to hire a developer to create the site or a designer to make it look great. They’re all plug ‘n play. Choose your template, input your information and you’ve got a website that you can manage yourself.

Below I list and differentiate between website builders that I recommend for affiliate marketers and small business or ecommerce sites.

BizZites

I LOVE this website builder for affiliate marketers, especially those affiliates who want to integrate merchant datafeeds into their sites without the hassle of using a third-party service. Structured on a WordPress platform (with beautiful template choices) BizZites sites will be natural traffic magnets. There’s absolutely nothing else like it currently on the market.

Go to BizZites | Read my BizZites Review

SiteBuildiT! (SBI)

Around since 1997, this might be the perfect website builder for small business owners who want to build ecommerce sites. Tools include domain name registration, site builder, point-and-click page creation, a content management management system, search engine optimization, autoresponders (newsletter management), traffic stats and more.

Go to SiteBuildiT! | Read my SiteBuildiT Review

Yahoo’s Site Builder

Used by Lance Armstrong, the Oakland Raiders and Ben & Jerry’s sites, Yahoo! Small Business solution was winner of PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice Award in June, 2008. Yahoo! Small Business is chock-a-block full of features to start your own online store. Plans start for as little as $25.97 per month. Note: I mention Yahoo’s website builder only in passing as I have no personal experience with it, except to have spoken with small business owners who have used their services successfully to build ecommerce sites.

Go to Yahoo

How to Turn a Messy Datafeed Text File into a Beautiful Website

I’ve been using a variety of affiliate datafeed processing tools and services since I first bought datafeed processing software a number of years ago. I loved how nasty old text datafeeds (either merchant product datafeeds or my own created from Excel / text files) could quickly be turned into pages and pages of content with relatively little effort — or considerably LESS effort than creating static pages one-by-one.

Fortunately, over the last few years, even easier-to-use datafeed processing services have emerged to answer the needs of affiliate marketers. The list below is by no means exhaustive — just a few datafeed integration tools that I’ve used, like and can recommend.

Datafeed Processing Software

WebMerge

WebMerge by Fourth World Media Corporation allows you to publish datafeeds with templates from any HTML editor on any web server, fast.

Shown right is a screenshot of of a short review page for DLGuard created with Webmerge and pumped through my own template. Note the breadcrumbs, categories and |< First | < Previous | Next > | Last >| section, all auto-generated by the Webmerge software.

It took me awhile to figure out the software and the other downside was that I would have to upload ALL the pages in a folder to the site again if I added a product — just so the < Previous | Next > linking would work properly. Not a real big issue, but something to think about.

Visit WebMerge | Read My Review

Datafeed Processing Services

Several services have popped up to help affiliates incorporate merchant datafeeds into their sites including PopShops and GoldenCan.

GoldenCAN

Launched in May 2005, GoldenCAN was the first affiliate product data feed, coupon and search integration service. It remains to this day one of the leaders in providing easy access to product data to the average affiliate.

GoldenCan is a service that makes it easy to incorporate datafeeds, however the downside is that MANY of their merchants are “4th Click” merchants. That means that when you use a 4th click merchant, you share 25% of your traffic with GoldenCAN. For every 4th Click™ generated from a GoldenCAN Integration towards merchant’s web site, GoldenCAN will replace your affiliate site id with its own and subsequently receive affiliate commission should the 4th Click™ convert into a sale/order/lead. The screenshot below shows the output for a travel store I had on my travel blog..

Visit GoldenCAN

PopShops

PopShops offers up affiliate products from all of the major networks–Commission Junction, LinkShare, ShareASale, and Google Affiliate Network and several smaller ones as well. You can use their service for free to create up to 10 shops using JavaScript. Beyond that, you’ll have to sign up for a paid version to get additional SEO tools, product search within your shops, and the ability to manage multiple affiliate IDs within the same network. Output options range from JavaScript snippets, classic ASP and PHP code, XML, RSS, TypePad or Blogger widget and more. What I’ve noticed with this service is that the graphics are broken about half the time.

Visit PopShops

Datafeed Processing Solutions by Affiliate Networks

Most of the affiliate networks offer some sort of datafeed processing solutions for their merchants and affiliates. Check out Pepperjam’s Store Builder.

Datafeedr

Datafeedr is a slick solution by Stefan Everaet and Eric Busch for WordPress bloggers who want to easily incorporate merchant product datafeeds into their blogs. The service eliminates the requirement to work with flat files (spreadsheets or txt files) or having to share revenue with 4th click merchants.

Shown below is Datafeedr output on the laptop bags page on my Datafeedr travel store.
When visitors click on individual products, a larger image and description is returned on YOUR site, which is great for your SERPs. Too, alternative products are shown below the larger individual products.

Visit Datafeedr | Read My Review

Datafeed Processing Specifically for eBay Affiliates

BANS

Build A Niche Store (BANS) is a store / website development platform which enables you to create content based sites that generate income through the eBay affiliate programs. BANS supports the development of niche stores for the following 11 eBay marketplaces: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, India, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States and has a user base of over 9,000 worldwide.

The screenshot below is the cruise page of the BANS store on the travel blog.

Visit BANS | Read My Review

BizZites has scheduled a Webinar with the highest paid SEO strategist on the planet, known as “Mr. Black”. His name will be revealed for the first time on this Webinar. He works with Fortune 100 companies getting paid Millions for his services. His services are focused on high level inbound linking campaigns, as he will reveal more details on the call.

The webinar is on Thursday, May 7th at 8PM Eastern.

Details about what Mr. Black will discuss on the call include:

• How to get a large diverse set of targeted back links that come from properties that give you a tremendous amount of control in “bleeding” ranking factor to your target URL.
• How to get both home page ranking and deep target page ranking from your back linking program.
• Why “in content” links are the back links you want to your website.
• How to focus your ranking factor and its related anchor text to your target URLs.
• What are the best directory services, blogging services, article services, podcast services, video services, bookmarking services, wiki services, etc. to get back links from?
• The secret of how to pull a common thread from your off page linking to your on page, with specific targeted anchor text that will have significant effect on SERP organic rankings
• And much more!

Weboma

Reserve your seat today! There is a limit on attendees and I want to make sure YOU can reserve a spot at the event.

Click here to read my BizZites review.

UPDATE as of April 5, 2011: Bizzites has been sold and the new owner will no longer be supporting it. They plan to take the site down in fact.

Please visit Affiliate Datafeed Integration Software and Services for other datafeed solutions.

I’ve been working with a BizZites affiliate store builder for the last couple of days and man, I am truly impressed!

But before I tell you more about BizZites, let me say that I’ve worked with a number of different affiliate datafeed tools including Webmerge, Popshops, Datafeedr, Goldencan and Pepperjam’s Store builder — just to name a few of those that I’ve found useful on my affiliate sites.

Those datafeed tools vary from software that you install on your computer to third-party management tools and plug-n-play code snippet generators. In some cases, use of the service means giving up a portion of your commissions, e.g. the 4th-click merchants at Goldencan.

While those tools spit out merchant product feeds in an attractive format (some more customizable than others) none of those datafeed tools actually builds the site for you. You still have to have a website / blog into which to import the merchant product data.

If you dread the thought of having to set up your own blog or static website or if you’re just tired of working your way through site setups and tweaking out a theme before you can get down to the meat and potatoes business of incorporating products and reviews, that’s where…

BizZites Reduces Your Workload

BizZites is a COMPLETE website building, datafeed integrating, content management system.

When you login, you immediately see how many departments, categories, products, and articles you have running on your Bizzite site, and the number of clicks you’ve received at the top of the store builder interface. It also specifies the theme in use.

The store building process is all laid out for you step-by-step by realistic step. I say ‘realistic’ because beside each step is an estimate of the time it should take you to complete the step — although I think some of the estimates are perhaps a little over-guesstimated, i.e. it estimates 15 minutes to change / edit the default video code if your template includes video. I say 2 minutes tops once you’ve got the embed code.

Themes, Videos & Pics Built Right In

You start by selecting a theme from over 50 beautifully designed ecommerce, blog-style and landing page themes with a choice of left and right navigation, as well as 3-column sytles (one demo sample shown to the right). Next, upload your logo. Don’t have one? No problem, their design team will create one for you for a very reasonable fee.

Then you set your default store options including the store’s name, tagline, description and so on… just like you’d do with any other site. Experienced WordPress users will note the structural similarities and also appreciate that the BizZites setup is more intuitive, not to mention guided.

Many features that currently require separate plugins or hand-coding in WordPress are built right into the BizZites interface such as rotating pictures and Adsense setup.

I LOVE the little warning messages such as “Don’t Change Until you know what you are doing” that I found beside Space Delimiter in URLs in the Video Code section. Good advice!!

On the other hand, if you’re an experienced designer / developer / webmaster, BizZites permits full-scale theme modifications.

Join Networks, Add Your Products

You can apply to the Affiliate Networks directly through the BizZites interface if you’re not already a member. Along with plans to add eBay and Amazon soon, affiliate networks in the interace currently include:

1. Commission Junction
2. Performics
3. ShareASale
4. Pepperjam
5. LinkShare
6. Link Connector
7. ClickBank

Once you join, you simple plunk your ID into a form blank beside the appropriate network’s name and you can start building out your feeds.

Vendor names are listed with the number of products in the feed alongside in brackets. Click on the vendor name and it opens up a list of categories. You can choose the whole feed or just a category. Alternatively, you can search for products from all vendors or just one specific vendor by keyword using either broad or exact match.

The screenshot below shows the products in the Small Appliances > Food Processors category at Best Buy.

And if you have product feeds from other vendors not listed within the BizZites interface, you have to option to upload those feeds and work with them.

Overview of BizZites Features & Benefits

• 40+ Million Affiliate Products to Choose from
• Powerful and simple ajax enhanced admin
• 3 Membership Levels
• Proprietary Keyword Tools
• Content Creation Services
• Exclusive Back Linking Services
• Built in Pinging and RSS Feeds just like a Blog
• Custom Site Building Services
• Vertical Market Analysis Services
• Membership, Forum and 24/7 support
• And much more . . .

Is BizZites the Right Affiliate Store-Building Solution for You?

I would HIGHLY recommended BizZites to you if:

• You’re completely new to affiliate marketing, don’t yet have a website and are committed to building a full scale affiliate site that looks great and incorporated merchant datafeeds, or;
• You’re a more advanced affiliate marketer who just wants an easier way to build out a great-looking datafeed site in less time.

Visit BizZites now and take them up on their 30-day FREE Trial.

Or, watch the BizZites video.

UPDATE as of April 5, 2011: Bizzites has been sold and the new owner will no longer be supporting it. They plan to take the site down in fact.

Please visit Affiliate Datafeed Integration Software and Services for other datafeed solutions.

Here’s a video that shows you exactly how easy the BizZites interface is to use. (If you’re anything like me, you might want to turn down the volume first — but forgive me, I’m OLD. I prefer silence.)

Building an affiliate web site that sells between 5 and 20 products is relatively quick and easy to do. An experienced webmaster could build a site like 101Date.com in a weekend. If it took a week or even a month to build, that’s a minor investment in a site that will reap rewards for years to come. But how long would it take to build a site that promotes THOUSANDS of products such as magazines, garden items, posters, t-shirts or lingerie?

Or, what if you want to promote multiple merchants that carry products in the same niche?

The answer is simple – incorporate merchant product datafeeds.

DataFeed Format and Content

Merchants provide datafeeds to affiliates either as ‘flat file’ spreadsheet downloads or via FTP. Datafeed spreadsheets are typically available free of charge to affiliates. FTP access however often requires approval from the merchant as it often costs them money for the network to activate each affiliate’s access. Therefore, be specific as to how and where you plan to use the datafeed when you apply for access.

A product datafeed typically lists product names along with their categories and subcategories, descriptions, coded affiliate links, product graphic image URL’s, prices and even applicable keywords or tags.

Here is a screenshot of the Nature Hills Nursery datafeed (text file) that I downloaded from Shareasale.

Looks pretty ugly, eh?

So, how do you turn THAT ugliness into something that looks as good as the first screenshot of my Travel Magazines page above?

You need a datafeed processing service or software.

These services range from javascript snippet generation, to software loaded on your computer, to software you upload to your site and completely third-party solutions. Some require constant feed maintenance (keep downloading / uploading the new feed or regenerating the script. They also range in price from free (not really — you give up commissions with some of them) to paid services for as little as $5.99 per month.

Read more about Affiliate Datafeed Integration Software and Services now to find out which I MOST highly recommend. Hint: It’s the easiest one to use.