However, some marketers take this a step further by digging into every facet of your online business and seeking out every other niche in which you might be dabbling so they can hone in. But there are things you can do to keep prying eyes away from your various online businesses.

And I have a bad habit of assuming certain things are common knowledge, but I was made aware that not everyone who ventures into the affiliate or online marketing business knows how to maintain a level of privacy when it comes to their internet portfolios.

Because of that, I decided to write a short guide offering tips on how to do so. It’s completely free. Download it, read it, share it–you’re welcome to upload to your site and allow your readers to download it if you feel it will help them, only thing is it must remain unaltered. Or if you don’t feel like sparing the bandwidth, feel free to send them here.

Without further ado…download Private Business (PDF): Tips for protecting your online business from the prying eyes of your competitors. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

• WordPress is flexible: With WordPress you can choose whether to use a post or a page to promote a product. You can also choose to enable comments on your product pages in order to solicit user-generated content on your website in the form of reader reviews. It also allows further customization by choosing whether to have a static front page (rather than a long page of posts) so you can highlight particular products or your mailing list.
• WordPress supports themes: There’s a saying that you only have once chance to make a good first impression. Designing and testing a new look every other week for a traditional site is time-consuming, but with WordPress, it’s as simple as picking out a theme you like, uploading it, and clicking a button. WordPress’ theme capabilities make modifying the look of a site based on whether someone is looking at the homepage, a category page, or a single entry page a reality. That means you can better optimize each area of your website for higher conversion rates. Plus, there are a wide variety of wordpress themes available.
• WordPress can be extended with plugins: Being a lightweight software application, WordPress doesn’t come with every capability under the sun right out of the box, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add that capability. With plugins, you can have WordPress do a number of things such as maintain a mailing list, create shortened affiliate links and track their clicks, or even import affiliate product feeds directly into your website.
• WordPress has built-in author management: One part of growing an affiliate marketing business is learning when and how to delegate. Since WordPress allows for multiple authors, you can easily have other people create and add content to your website without giving out your personal admin information or giving them too much power over your website, only enough to get the job done.
• The WordPress community is huge: Since WordPress is so widespread, there are many volunteers who develop themes, plugins, and understand the intricate workings of the software and can offer help should you encounter a problem. There are also a number of guides and books to help you get started installing and using WordPress. Basically, if you ever get stuck on something, there is most likely someone right around the bend that has an answer.

It should be more than clear that WordPress isn’t just for blogging anymore. Use the software to help manage your entire affiliate website and watch your productivity go through the roof.

Back Up Your Website with cPanel

If your host uses cPanel, there’s a good chance you already have a built-in backup capability. (I use and recommend HostGator, which does have cPanel.) Depending on the size of your site, you could have a complete backup ready to download within minutes. This backup will take care of your email accounts, databases, files on the server…everything.

1. Log in to your website’s cPanel account
2. Scroll down to the Files section and click on the Backups icon
3. In the Full Backup section, click on Download or Generate a Full Website Backup
4. The next page will ask if you wish to be notified via email when the backup is complete—this option is good if you have a large site which will take time to process, otherwise you could probably leave it blank and check back a few minutes later; if you leave Home Directory in the dropdown, the backup file will be stored in the directory above /public_html/
5. When the backup is finished, you can either download the file directly from the backup page, or you can log into your website via FTP and navigate to the directly above /public_html/ and download the file that way

If your host doesn’t offer cPanel, you may still have access to an automated backup facility, but you’ll need to read your hosts knowledgebase or contact them for assistance in using it.

Back Up Your Website Manually

This method is rather tedious, however, it gives you a level of control over what is backed up. With the above method, you’d back up all your website’s files. If you decide to move hosts and that host doesn’t have cPanel (or uses a different configuration entirely), it could be a bear to reinstate the backed up files.

1. Before you back up your website manually, it’s a good idea to have a plan. Take note of the email addresses/passwords currently in use on the site, along with database usernames/passwords, and any other relevant website information. (I prefer jotting these things down in Notepad.)
2. Log into your hosting account and back-up your MySQL databases by exporting the data via phpMyAdmin
3. Download your website files via FTP
4. Zip up your notes, databases, and files and save in a safe place

Back Up Your Website with an Online Service

When you use an online service such as Mozy, you meld flexibility with ease of use. The upshot is that such services aren’t free (they, however, can be quite cost effective). With online services, you will also be able to schedule your backups to suit your needs.

Rosalind’s book is about getting your affiliate marketing foundation set, while the WordPress Affiliate Guide is a flexible blueprint specifically for leveraging WordPress for affiliate marketing based on years or testing and tweaking. In fact, the WP Affiliate Guide is built on the principles outlined in Rosalind’s guide.

But let me not stray to far from the topic of this post, reviewing the Super Affiliate Handbook so you can decide whether it’s a worthwhile guide to help you build an affiliate business.

When I purchased my copy of Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook, I was wary of its promises, but over the years, I’ve come to realize just how invaluable a tool it is. The fact that it’s been around (and updated) since 2003 is a testament to its value.

When I first read the book, I was a bit put off by its focus on Pay Per Click advertising methods, which was confusing and because I didn’t have the kind of money necessary to make a go of it. As a beginner, I found myself floundering to understand it more than once, almost submerging me in information overload. That’s something to prepare yourself for if you’re brand new to affiliate marketing.

However, when you do get past all of that, the Super Affiliate Handbook is something worthy of being printed out and referenced often. There is a goldmine of information contained within its covers, and although it may not come complete with action-steps in a step-by-step sort of way, with a bit of trial and error you’ll get it sorted in no time flat.

The book is just over 200 pages long. That’s intimidating to put it mildly, but luckily there isn’t too much filler. Yep, that’s 200 page of straight dish to work with and it’s available instantly in PDF format.

It starts off by explaining what you’ll need to get your affiliate marketing business started (some things being obvious, such as access to a computer that can get on the internet), then it explains what affiliate marketing is, how it works, and the types of commission structures.

Since I was a newbie when I first purchased the guide, I remember going over it with a fine-toothed comb multiple times to make sense of it and then set out to build my first affiliate websites. At the time I knew HTML and CSS and had begun working with a new software called WordPress, but at the time, I never thought about using WordPress for the affiliate website process. WordPress was only powering my personal blog–it wasn’t even widely distributed or adopted then, so it was very inflexible.

That said, my first affiliate website was built using standard HTML and CSS. (It was huge by the time I actually switched it over to WordPress and it took a whole lot of overhauling to make it happen, but I’m much happier with it and its management now.) And I earned back my investment five times over in the first month by using her methods. I did a short happy dance because I realized, this affiliate marketing thing actually works.

Over the years, the Super Affiliate Handbook has undergone various updates and with the most recent, it now includes a marketing section which goes well beyond Pay Per Click advertising.

One thing I truly respect about Rosalind’s guide is that she teaches you how to build a business, not how to build a website that will be obsolete in a few days.

The writing style is smooth and entertaining, sometimes outright funny, which makes reading the book and following the prescribed methods seem less like a chore. She even shares with you one of her completed affiliate sites as an example and explains how she came to put it together and how she keeps it up, what type of affiliate promotions she uses, and even how much she earns from it.

The handbook explains:

• How to find a niche (pg. 25)
• How to evaluate market demand (pg. 32)
• 6 keys for choosing the right domain name (pg. 42)
• How to build content and increase your conversion rates (pg. 66)
• How to write product endorsements (pg. 77)
• How to make money from your website (pg. 93)
• How to market your new affiliate website (pg. 132)
• How to become a super affiliate (pg. 171)

This guide is certainly one of those rare finds in the internet marketing realm, and it’s certainly one everyone who wants to work from home should download and read immediately, taking plenty of notes.

Download the Super Affiliate Handbook and get cracking!

There’s a good chance that if affiliate marketing or online marketing isn’t your full-time business, you have another job to worry about; that other job will limit how much time you can devote to growing your affiliate business. To get a better idea of what time you have available and when, for the next 72 hours (3 days), take careful note of how your time is spent.

Once you know how you spend your time, you can easily see where you’re wasting time and where your time slot can’t budge. It will also show you when you’re most creative and alert. Those are the times when you’ll want to sneak in some business development.

You can do that by setting aside chunks of time (think 30 minutes) to developing some aspect of your business. For instance, if you know you need to write articles for a newly developed site, use one session to map out your planned articles, another to write them, and another to schedule them for publication on the site.

The beauty of WordPress is that you can schedule your posts and articles to publish when you’d prefer rather than immediately. So there’s really no good excuse for not having a regularly updated website.

But sometimes a little extra motivation may help, and that’s when you need to bargain with yourself–even better if you can rope someone into holding you accountable. One thing that helps me is to draw up a contract with specific terms in bullet point (i.e. I will publish 10 articles per week on each website, etc.), and my reward if I stick to it. Yes, it’s important to reward oneself. Then I print off two copies.

One copy gets put somewhere I’ll see it often throughout my day, and another gets filed away with a trusted friend who nudges me every week to see if I’m sticking to my contract. Soon enough, working on your site will become a habit and you can move on to drafting a new contract with yourself.

To start, you need to create a list of the websites you’ve already purchased. Go through the list and ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this site?” Based on your answer, add the domain to a specific category, for example Affiliate Network or Personal/Just for Fun. Since everyone is different, it’s best to come up with categories which best suit you and your organizational style.

After you know more about the domains, the next question to ask yourself is which stage of the developmental process is each of the sites in, then organize them into sub-categories of the main categories. For instance, if you’ve only registered the domain of a site you know will be in the Affiliate Network category, then create a sub-category called Undeveloped and add the domain name to it. Other sub-categories might include In Development and Fully Developed.

Once you’ve finished going through your domains and websites, it’s time to start the filing. As wonderful as computers are, sometimes I like to have something tangible I can reference, even when I’m not online, so I prefer to use a three-ring binder for this method, however, you can use whatever you feel most comfortable with.

That said, in my three-ring binder, I’ll add dividers for each of my main categories and then color-coded dividers for each of the sub-categories. Now, this is where things get interesting, because I write notes directly on the divider pages–the important thing to remember is write in pencil so it can be easily erased and updated later if necessary.

On the primary category divider pages, I’ll write the domain name and a short overview of the site with a quick note about its stage of development. On the sub-category divider pages, I’ll write the domain name, and more elaborate notes on its development stage. For each of the individual sites, I’ll then fill out a general information sheet which outlines the login information for various parts of the site (hosting, email, database, etc.), a break-down of the operating costs, and overall website goals.

Whenever a site moves from one stage of development to the next, I simply move those pages from one section to the next and update the necessary sub-category divider pages.

Like I said before, this is a method which works for me and it may work for you. But it’s important that you use an organizational method which feels most comfortable to you and your style of work.