Homepages to do affiliate Marketing

[Naro]

I don't know if somebody has this question already because I have not finish reading all the sticky yet.
Can I use a homepage the same way as a web-site to do affiliate marketing.
Is is good or a bad idea?
Nobody has metioned it so far.

[Linda Buquet]

By homepage, you mean a freebie site like Homestead.com?

Well you could with a couple caveats.

1) Need to check TOS to see if affiliate links are allowed

2) Then you don't own the content, you are building up someone else's web property. THEY get the traffic you drive, THEY can decide to delete your site or change the rules about what it allowed.

3) Consumers are less likely to click on links to homestead.com./vxy123/johndoe
More likely to click on nichekeyword.com

4) Search engines don't like and mostly don't even index freebie subdomains like the old fashioned homepage options.

Now with all that said, if the issue is not wanting to spend money for your own domain - there are some free more modern options to the old fashioned homepage that DO allow affiliate links and DO get indexed by the search engines. The top 3 off the top of my head are blogger, Squidoo and Hubpages. The last 2 even have ways to make money and share revenue with you.

[Linda Buquet]

Knowing everything I know today

IF I was a brand new affiliate

IF I didn't know how to build a site

IF I didn't have a measely 6.95 a month for hosting
(There is hosting at that price that even includes a FREE domain...)

I would probably start a little hubpage or squidoo lens - Or possibly use one of the other sites in this post that gets high search rankings. Get HIGH in Google with these Social Marketing Sites

I would start off with one of those free sites to et the hang of writing copy, adding affiliate links and marketing. Also those sites could get you higher ranking and more traffic than starting off with a new virgin domain.
Then once I was comfortable with the niche and saw some traffic and/or sales coming in, I'd pay to launch my own site and link my hub or lens to it
to give the new site an SEO boost.

Again that is a VERY conservative starting point, only for someone with no money and no web skills at all. It's not the best place to start, but it's better than not starting at all.

[KirkhamsEbooks]

I think a home page would be good practice for learning some simple html skills, ftp etc without it costing you anything

Rick