[winningratings]

First of all it is essential to get your website into the search engines - this is because if your website doesnt show up in the search results, you will have reall difficulty selling anything, as search engines is where 99% of people go when they search for content online

The best way to get your website into the search engines is to do it manually. You dont need to pay to do this - although some of the bulk submission services can be fair to use every now and again, just to make sure you website gets into as many directories and smaller search engines as possible

Put simply there are really only 3 search engines that matter - Google MSN and Yahoo. You can simply visit these 3 in turn and start adding you website manually. The easiest one to do first is MSN, but the others are quite easy too. first I would check if you site is somewhere in their database. It could be already there, even if its doesnt show up in the search results. The best way to check is to type in your domain name from the www bit into the search box and see what shows up. If you site shows then you are already in the database and ther is no need to do anything further

Next I would say concentrate on content and especially new original content for your website. You need to keep adding as much stuff as you can. RSS feeds will help, but I would get a list of all the keyword people are typing in when they are searching for content similar to what you have on your website. Then create different pages for each of these main keyword phrases. You basically need every possible variant of your theme as a different page. You can find this information by using something like wordtracker or going to the yahoo or google publisher site - you just type in a broad theme, and it will give you every imaginable keyword and kyword phrase people have typed in

When designing your website, you should always start NOT from how you would like it to look, or what content YOU think should be on it, but on what people out there are actually searching for. Search Engines cant give you a good ranking when your content doesnt match what people re looking for. The search engine listings are based on what people type in when searching

I would also be very careful of just sticking to affiliate programs - you may do OK but most people find that they generate very few sales this way. You will do alot better if you have your own product to sell from your own website - I would say hundreds of times better!