Fortunately, there's Site Build It (SBI), an affordable e-commerce solution for just about anyone.

It's an soup-to-nuts solution, where you are guided from beginning (deciding what to sell) to end (designing the site) in creating a profitable site for affiliate marketing -- that is, promoting and selling products on behalf of a third-party. Affiliate-based sites are one of the simplest, yet most profitable, ways to get one's feet wet in e-commerce.

Fundamentally, Site Build It teaches the user about providing high-quality content, rather than a just a straight product site. If you want to succeed in affiliate marketing, SBI gives you all the tools you need, but it's not a get-rich-quick scheme. Time and effort is necessary -- but if pay close attention to the instructions, the software is geared for helping almost anyone create an impressive affiliate site.

Conceptually, Site Build It is centered around the process of building a theme-based content site, where each page focuses on a single topic related to that theme. Each page is referred to as a "Keyword Focused Content Page" (or KFCP). The goal of purpose of creating such a Web site is to drive targeted traffic to your pages -- that will generate commissions if you're an affiliate, or sell a product or service.

One of the things that makes SBI unusual (and perfect for beginners) is that no HTML, FTP, CGI, graphic or programming skills are needed, nor is any search engine knowledge required. However, for more advanced users, SBI is compatible with popular Web editing applications such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. In actual practice, I found that HTML skills are valuable, even when working in the template mode. A case in point is if you want to introduce Google ads into your Website. While the templates work well if you're introducing horizontal ads, they don't work if you want a table to appear on the site of your text, as in this screenshot. Here, you need to know HTML to get that to work.

First Step: What Is Your Affiliate Site About?
Don't know what to sell (or refer)? Here's where Site Build It shines -- helping you with the process of developing a workable (and profitable) affiliate site concept.

The core of the software is the Site Build It Manager. This is where you research concepts for your Web site.

Now, you're ready to start researching your domain concept. I brainstormed several concepts, such as 3D modeling, Photoshop tutorials and computer graphics. You use the program's Master Keyword List to help determine which concepts are popular and potentially profitable. For me, I decided to try the concept of Photoshop tutorials -- a topic I'm personally interested in -- and entered several terms that seemed likely to relate to that concept.

When you enter potential concepts into the system, the SBI Manager determine whether the topic you entered is popular among Internet users -- and thus, would make a likely concept for your e-commerce site. The software searches Internet search engines for instances where the phrase you typed has been used and creates a list. To the right of the $ icon are the labels: Demand, Supply, Profitability, Supply Site Info, Possible Partners and Ideas for Content.

Brainstorming and researching topics for your affiliate site.

"Demand and Supply" is where you truly see whether your concept will work for you -- or not. "Demand" is a relative number of how many times people search for a particular phrase, compared to other words. Demand gives you a good idea of what potential visitors want. "Supply" refers to the number of sites that supply that particular phrase and is an indicator of the competition that you face.

"Profitability"-high site concepts have a good Demand/Supply ratio (high demand and low supply). They also are a good source of potential partners.

Continued on Page Two: Brainstorming topics.