WebSpawner.com Blog

Affiliate programs are advertising programs that provide monetary compensation in exchange for qualifying traffic (web visitors) sent to the advertiser’s website. If you have a website, you can make real money by placing affiliate program banners on your website. Adding an affiliate banner to your website is simple, and in today’s post we’ll explain how you can do it yourself.

First, you need to have a website. If you don’t have one yet, we invite you to create a free web site now with WebSpawner’s easy-to-use online creation tools.

Next, you need to join one or more affiliate programs. Many affiliate programs are available online from popular sites such as eBay, Amazon.com, and Apple’s iTunes Music Store. You can find more affiliate opportunities by searching your favorite search engine for “affiliate program” or through online directories such as Affiliate Scout and Memolink. Follow the instructions on each site to complete their online forms and join the programs you select.

After joining a program, you will be able to obtain the affiliate program banner code which you will add to your website. Some programs may email the code to you; others will provide it on their websites. Select the code for the banner you wish to add by highlighting it with your mouse and then Copy it (Control-C in Windows, or Command-C on a Mac).

Open a new browser window and log in to your WebSpawner account at http://www.webspawner.com/ with your Account Name and Password. Under Step 1 select the web page to which you would like to add your banner and click the ‘Modify’ button under Step 2, as shown here:

Scroll down through the Modification form to the ‘Body Text’ step. Click inside the Body Text box, then Paste (Control-V in Windows, or Command-V on a Mac) the copied code. Next, add ‘begin’ and ‘end’ markers (being careful to avoid making any changes to the code) before and after the code to surround it exactly as shown in the image below:

Note that the ‘begin’ and ‘end’ markers are VERY important as they notify the WebSpawner page engine that it should not filter or modify the code information between the markers, thus ensuring that the banner will appear properly on your webpage. The ‘begin’ and ‘end’ marker should be entered exactly as shown in the image above. You should use these markers any time you add code to your website.

Complete the Modification process by clicking ‘Continue’ at the bottom of the form, and then click ‘I Like It’ at the page preview as shown below (this saves and publish your changes:

After completing these steps, your website should display your affiliate program banner. You can add additional program banners to the pages of your website in the same manner.

Be sure to take steps to promote your website in order to pull in web visitors… the more traffic that your website receives, the more opportunities you have to make money through your affiliate programs. Click the orange ‘Promote Your Site’ tab in the Member Menu of your WebSpawner account for helpful information and promotion options.

For more information on how affiliate programs work, there is an excellent article here from HowStuffWorks.com.

The rise of the internet has brought about a great exchange of information, which flows not only from the webmaster to the website visitor, but also in the other direction. Opinion Polls are a useful tool for gauging the thoughts of the public by examining the responses from a small sampling, and the internet has made conducting such polls significantly easier than it was in the past. There are even entire websites dedicated to the task of polling public opinion such as The Gallup Poll, Zogby International, and PollingReport.com.

Now you can conduct your own online polls… find out what the visitors to your website think about topics of your choosing by adding a poll to your website in a few easy steps.

WebSpawner members with Enhanced accounts can find the WebSite Poll tool in the Member Menu, located under the orange ‘Add-Ons’ tab as shown below:

Click the ‘Add-Ons’ tab if needed and then click the Website Polls icon to begin. The Poll Menu will appear; click the ‘New’ button as shown below:

The Create New Poll window appears. Fill in the fields for the Poll Title and Question for your poll. Then provide a number of answers in the Options fields for viewers to choose from, as shown in the sample below.

Be sure to leave the poll Status set to ‘Open’ and enter an appropriate Expiration Date, then click Continue to save your new poll. You’ll be returned to the Poll Menu and your new poll should appear in the Polls list. Close the Poll Menu window to return to the Member Menu.

Now that you have created your new poll, you must add it to your website for viewers to see. At the top of the Member Menu select the webpage under Step 1 to which you would like to add your poll and click the ‘Modify’ button under Step 2. In the page modification form, scroll down to the ‘Voting Booth’ step and select your new poll from the drop-down list as shown below:

Scroll to the bottom of the modification form and click ‘Continue’ to proceed, then click the ‘I Like it’ button at the page preview to save and publish your changes. Your poll will now appear on your webpage for viewers to see and vote on, as shown in the example below (this sample is inactive, but your poll will allow viewers to click a button to cast their votes).