Something every niche affiliate marketer should have.

A big part of having an affiliate marketing business is choosing how and where to promote your business. Writing articles and blogging are great for promotions but affiliate links are not allowed in many. Other web spaces like Squidoo and Hubpages are another very good option but you don't have complete control of the content on those pages. What options does that leave?

One of the first recommendations those successful in this business will tell you is to get your own domain that somewhat identifies the business you are promoting. Domains are relative cheap. You can get a dot-com for about $10 a year and have it redirect to your sales pages. But that somewhat defeats the purpose of getting one to begin with. So what options does that leave?

Hosting service. Web hosting services have grown bigger over the years and the demand of good web hosting services continues to increase. People realize that having their own domain and hosting service is far better than trying to build a business by just using free blog sites and other services like Squidoo. Not saying don't use these services as I use them myself, but use them to help promote your own personal websites. They are a good source to help generate traffic and increase search engine ranking of your web space.

I found some interesting statistics on the Internet World Stats website. Of the 6,930,055,154 people in the world approximately 1/3 or 2,267,233,742 are internet users. About half the worlds population reside in the Asian countries and about 1/3 of those have internet access.

I thought this was pretty amazing too. Of the 347,394,870 people in North America, 273,067,546 have internet access. That stat is by far the highest percentage of internet users of any area or country in the world.

So what's the point in all that? Web hosting. Millions of these people are starting an internet business daily and need their own personal internet real estate. A large majority of these are starting an affiliate marketing business and need web space to promote and sale their products and services.

Web hosting is relative cheap but most offer little support in getting a web site up and running. You could hire a web designer but then you are out hundreds more for basic design services and that likely want include any upkeep of the site in the future. So what options does that leave?

Join a hosting service that offers training and support. You would also want a hosting service that supports the type of bushiness you are in. For instance if you are in the business of affiliate marketing then look for organizations like Wealthy Affiliate University that offer the training and support specific to the affiliate marketing industry. I looked at several options and found the services offered though that organization met my needs. I couldn't begin to address the help that organization has provided me but will say I've learned more about marketing on the internet in the past few months that all my previous years of using the web for promotions.

If you purchase a hosting service generally you will need hosting for each domain you use. Some services will allow multiple domain hosting at no additional charge. With my basic membership at Wealthy Affiliate I have 3 domains and can easily build dozens of pages for each domain with ease using the wordpress blogging platform in my back office. There are also dozens of template there to choose from. It's a simple process to change your DNS settings from where your domain is parked and have them point to any name server that host your web space.

If you are new to affiliate marketing or an even more experienced associate and don't have your own domain and hosting service then I would suggest to take that into consideration. Look for a service that offers the training, support, and a plan of action like the 30 day action guide I received with the service I chose. That alone has been worth every penny I've spent thus far and also have a top quality hosting service that meets all my marketing needs.