We’ve touched on affiliate marketing a couple of times with our affiliate marketing starter guide and a guide to CPA marketing.

However, unless you’re a web designer and good with code then you’ll struggle to get started with affiliate marketing in a big way as it’s costly to pay for even the most basic landing page sites, especially when many of those sites will prove to be unprofitable.

This is where Affiliate Theme comes in. It’s by far the best website builder that I’ve used. Previously I reviewed Moonfruit but after a while it’s limitations really started to become a problem, with its flash-based editor proving to be a little too inflexible.

On the other hand I’ve been using Affiliate Theme since March and it’s still as good as ever. It uses Wordpress and has one main advantage over other website builders - Affiliate Theme has been built from the ground-up for affiliate marketers.

If you’re looking for blog themes or a feature-packed website then Affiliate Theme isn’t for you. However, if you’re looking for a quick way to set up professional looking landing pages and review websites then it’s ideal.

Affiliate Theme Features

- Change the layout of your landing page with the click of a button. Six different layouts are available to choose from.

- Excellent customization options by instantly changing colours and backgrounds. If you’re comfortable coding then you can also edit the source code to get the perfect result (this isn’t something I’ve done).

- As its based on Wordpress you can fully utilize all the Wordpress plugins which are out there.

- First class support. There are video tutorials, a 5-step explanation of how to install Wordpress and Affiliate Theme, as well as a superb support forum. All my questions have been answered promptly, they’re very receptive to suggestions and more than happy to put together some custom code to help you achieve exactly what you want.

How To Get Started With Affiliate Theme

It’s a 4-step process to get started. The first time I found it a little tricky, but once you go through it once it then becomes very simple.

1) You need somewhere to purchase and host your domains. Affiliate Theme recommended Bluehost and I haven’t been at all disappointed. They offer a free domain when you sign-up for hosting and the hosting itself is extremely reliable.

2) Install Wordpress on your domain. Bluehost offer one-click Wordpress installation in their cpanel area through a link-up with SimpleScripts.

3) Uploading Affiliate Theme to your domain. I found this the trickiest part, using the FileZilla FTP solution to upload Affiliate Theme to the blog. However, once you’ve done it once it’s straightforward to repeat on other domains.

4) Activate Affiliate Theme in your Wordpress login area and begin customizing your site.

Affiliate Theme Examples Sites

I’ve set up quite a few sites with Affiliate Theme, including PersonalisedBirthdayGifts.co.uk and AdoptAnOrangutan.org.uk, and you can check out a few of their examples on their test drive page.

How Much Does It Cost?

When I signed up there were only three options but since then a 4th option has been added which includes free setup and installation. In summary:

• Option 1 - $97.00 - allows you to use Affiliate Theme on a single domain.
• Option 2 - $147 - use on an unlimited number of domains
• Option 3 - $197 - the same as Option 2 except that you have access to a number of free USB header graphics
• Option 4 - $297 - the same as Option 3 except it comes with free setup and installation

They are all one-time payments and you can find out all the features in each option here. I purchased Option 3 but am yet to use any of the USB header graphics as they haven’t quite fitted into any of the niche’s I’ve targeted. I certainly wouldn’t recommend going for Option 1 but any of the others are a good choice depending on your particular preference.

Limitations

Affiliate Theme does have its limitations.  If you’re looking to build out a complex website, develop a great design, or start a blog then I’d say that it’s not for you. It’s great for developing landing pages, either for specific niche sites or those to be promoted via PPC, but it’s not the tool to build a blog or Web 2.0 site.

If you’re looking to start a blog or content website using Wordpress then we’d recommend Thesis and as an alternative Artisteer also looks to be worth a go.

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Related Posts:

Affiliate Marketing Starter Guide
Review Of The Website Builder Moonfruit
Lessons From Choosing a Premium Wordpress Theme
Interview with Affiliate Student
3 Invaluable PPC Tools