I have made some summaries that have come in very handy while doing my own website (http://www.breastfeeding-problems.com/) I love working with SBI (Site Build It) They make everything so easy for a person. So here are the basic things you need to know...

1. Avoid using banner ads: Banners are cheesy and hurt your credibility. Because visitors simply arrive feeling "pitched" rather than informed. So they arrive at your merchant in a resisting mindset, rather than with an open, ready-to-buy attitude.

2. Make sure that your site contains the info that your visitor is looking for: And instead of giving them a long sales pitch of your merchants product rather give them useful info and then add your affiliate link into your text. There's really not much point in straight selling off your site - that's what your merchant's site is for. People resist sales efforts, so your click-through actually goes down. And if they do click, what do they see when they arrive at the merchants site? More sales effort. And, in some cases, many of the words on the merchants site are similar to the words that they've just read.

3. How to Reach Your Visitor...
Free-For-All Sites (FFAs) are a great example of how not to to reach people. For the most part, they have become so seamy and useless, that no matter what you say, you're doomed from the start.

4. Put yourself in your customer's brain. What will she think, how will she feel when she searches for something.

5. Create high-value content-jammed Keyword-Focused Content Pages. Also weave relevant, "in-context" text links right in the content, as appropriate. Links to...
- Books about the topic (ex. what the page is about)
- Suppliers for what you are selling, etc. If your site is about cars then provide your visitor with many links to car manufacturers.

6. Finding a Niche.
For the most difficult part. Find a subject that you really know and like. Here are a few examples of starting points to get your neurons firing...
Advertising, Aerospace, Agriculture/farming, Antiques and collectibles, Apparel/clothing/fashi, Architecture/buildings, Arts & Crafts, Auctions
Automotive, Aviation, Beverages, Books, Chemicals, Children/parenting, Cleaning, Communications Computers, Construction, Consulting, Conventions/Trade, Shows, Design, Disabilities, Education, Electronics, Employment, Energy, Engineering, Entertainment, Environment, Ergonomics, Financial services Food, Gambling, Games, Government, Health Hobbies, Home/garden/flowers/, plants Hospitality Information, Jewelry, Law, Manufacturing, Music, New age, Office supplies, Publishing, Real Estate, Religion/Spirituality, Research and Development, Retail management, Science, Security, Sex, Software, Sports, Telecommunications, Toys, Trade, Transportation, Travel, Video, Weather.

Remember if a concept really turns you on, you won't be working. You'll be playing. So focus on topics that you love.

7. Brainstorm as many related Keyword-Focused topics as possible that are related to your niche. Use GoogleKeyword tool to find keywords that are high searched with low competition. Also try to find words or phrases that are about your topic. For example if your theme is about concrete then you should also think of looking up related keywords such as statue etc.

8. More Keywords. Search for sites that are ranked high with Ixquick that are related to your topic. Click on those sites then click "view" in your browser and "source" what will happen is the HTML of that specific website that you are on will pop up. Inside this window have a look for a tag with "meta" in it. It will look something like this:

META name="keywords" content="Fashion, fashion, models, chat, news, shopping, haute couture, ready to wear, pret a porter, style, runway, catwalk, Use the keywords that you find for your KEYWORD LIST. These websites have done a lot of brainstorming for you! ;-)

9. Ask yourself three questions: Who are your visitors? What are they trying to do? What else are they looking for?

10. Finding your affiliate products to sell on your site: Have a look at the affiliate directories on the top of this page. Enter the keywords from your list made, one by one, into the merchants directory's search tool. (Put each keyword that is a phrase inside quotes.) This way you will find products to sell on your site that are relevant. Build an (affiliate product) store that "fits" your theme. Represent only the best merchants, choose them wisely so as to keep your good name.

11. When a reader hits your site, she must be easily/immediately able to
understand what your site is all about.

12. Don't be boring. Keep it fun, bright, intriguing! Bring out the appropriate emotions for whatever your topic happens to be.

13. Get your most important message in, right at the beginning. Up to 70, even 80 characters. If the engine cuts your title off at 60 characters in its listing, you've still fired your "big gun." Meanwhile, some engines will show up to 90 or so characters.

14. Do not, ever, get off-target. Keep each page focused on material related to your keyword.

15. Traffic. submit your site to the engines (look for all the major ones). Then wait.
Submit your site to Google

Here are two resources to get you started tracking...
Fantomaster
Spiderhunter

enter your URL (host:yourdomain.com) into the search
box. It will show you every page from that domain that it has indexed.
List with major directories like Yahoo!, Open Directory, LookSmart -- Since
their standards are high, the engines "figure" that your site must contain valuable content.

Yahoo!
Open Directory
Ask Jeeves

16. Online shop and more: Create a links page that sends links out to terrific, non-competing, high-traffic (verify with Alexa) Web sites.

17. "How to succeed? Try hard enough."

18. If all of this seems a bit too technical for you: Try Site Build it, it's the best program on the net! It hosts your site, helps you find all the best keywords and much, much more.