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A Simple Way to Affiliate!
 By Philip Winn

 
Ok, so you’ve just published your website. Maybe even got some products in your catalog. You’re frantically searching for more ideas for your website to make a little additional money. What to do? Where to go?


Maybe you’re like me, working on a site that’s focusing on the informational side of the internet. Writing reviews and news about items or products and not so much trying to dedicate all your time selling the items. Or, maybe you’re working your site so that it has all of the above. Well, whatever route you’re looking to take, do what I did. Simply add another affiliate. When I say simple, it’s just that, “SIMPLE”! It took me about 10 minutes to actually find an affiliate, sign up for it and integrate it into my website.


Let’s start from the beginning. I was working hard on one of my websites about video games, a site I really wanted to dedicate to informational purposes only. I wasn’t looking to sell video games as much as I just wanted to talk about them, review them, write about the updates and latest news in regards to them. I actually went as far as creating a catalog, adding some items to the catalog on my site. But again, that wasn’t one of my goals for this site. Sure, it would be nice to actually sell these items, but I decided that, for now, that wasn’t the route I wanted to take. Not quite yet, anyway. So, I continued on with my informational website venture.


Next, I got some pages created and finished off a couple of game reviews. I published my site and all was well. Of course I had a lot more work ahead of me, but all was going as planned. Then it hit me like a linebacker sacking a quarterback. I thought to myself, “Why not make a little extra profit off of my game reviews? What’s a quick, easy way to go about doing that?” Again, like a second sack in a row for the linebacker, I was hit hard with a great and simple way of doing so. Affiliate programs!


There are tons of ways to affiliate and to go about doing so. The first one that popped in my head was, Amazon.com. Here’s a great company that sells almost anything you can think of, including and especially, video games. Great, I’ve got my idea now how do I go about making it happen?!


Here’s the easiest part. All it takes is about 10 to 15 minutes of your time. Go to Amazon.com and join as an Amazon Associate. Participation is easy and free. Once you’ve gotten your account all set up, the next step is deciding what items you’re looking to link to from your site. For me, it was pretty easy. I was writing reviews about video games. I already had a couple done, so I searched for those games, got the codes and added them to my site as a ‘text’ link. You’ll have a number of options to choose from. But for me, I went for the text links. Simple and to the point.


 Now, you’ve got an affiliate link. From now on, each and every video game I review and or write about, I simply link it to my Amazon affiliate account and presto, I can make a bit of extra profit off of the simple fact that I’m writing reviews about video games.


This is just one of the many affiliates and ideas out there that you can utilize and integrate to your website. Now go out, research, and simply affiliate!








CSB Basics 101 - Using the 'Source' button.
     By Philip Winn

 
Do you ever wonder why you can’t simply copy and paste your Word documents into the blocks within your Clicksitebuilder? Or maybe you’ve gone as far as getting permission to use an article written by someone else, but cannot, for the life of you, figure out how to integrate that information into your website. Don’t worry about it. That’s alright.

Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to write, read or even utilize HTML to write web pages for your website but, you can’t figure it out and maybe it’s driving you absolutely crazy! Don’t worry about it. Everything is going to be alright.

Let’s start off with getting a bit familiar with the location of the Source button within the WYSIWYG editor of Clicksitebuilder (CSB). First off, as always, log into your Clicksitebuilder account. Click the ‘Build’ button and then click the ‘Page Edit’ button. Just for our example’s sake, we’ll go ahead and click the ‘edit page’ button of the Home Page. Once there, scroll the page down to Block # 1. As you may have noticed, there is a menu bar with lots of little icons scattered through out it. That, my friends, is the infamous “WYSIWYG editor”.

The Source button, which stands out like a sore thumb, is located first at the top left-hand corner of the WYSIWYG editor. After this discussion, the Source button may end up becoming one of your very best friends. It certainly has for me.

The Source button is there for many reasons. One of which is to see the ‘source’ code (or HTML) of what is typed out within the block. (This may come in handy as a learning tool for writing and or reading HTML.) Here’s a simple task to test how the Source button works: type one or two sentences in the block, then click the ‘Source’ button. What appears is the source code (HTML) of what you have just typed out within the block.

Now that we’ve determined the location of the Source button, and the basic steps to use it, let’s push on. As I mentioned before, you can’t just copy and paste anything into the blocks. Worst case scenario, people have gone as far as retyping their whole word document because of the simple fact that they could not copy and paste. Let me just repeat that: retyping a whole page. There is absolutely no need to do so.

Once you have finished typing up your page/article, all that you’ll need to do is copy it (Edit menu – Copy). Next, go into Clicksitebuilder to the page you’re currently working on. Whichever page that you want to place the typed up page/article. Scroll down to the block that you want the information in. Click the ‘Source’ button. The box or window that appears is where you’ll want to paste your page/ article. Select ‘Paste’ and poof, there you are. Click ‘Ok’ at the bottom of the window and you’re done.

At this point it’s a matter of previewing and or accepting what you’ve just accomplished. Not only does this allow you to paste what ever you need into your blocks, but you can also reference the source button for HTML coding. Best case scenario? You’ll learn something new and valuable about how html makes website look.

The same exact steps also apply to copying and pasting articles written by other authors into your website, just make sure you have their permission to do it, first. Sometimes it’s all about the WYSIWYG editor and how to use it.