In this post I’m going to show you how to easily create an affiliate site that’s great looking, SEO friendly, and completely free. It should be noted that the first step to this whole process is figuring out what products or offers you want to target, and making sure there’s a market for it. That’s a key issue that I won’t be covering in this post, although I hope to write about it in the future. For now, I’ll assume you have your keywords and you’re ready to run with it.

As an example, I’m going to use a site I created recently called BlackBerry Storm Wallpaper to show you first-hand what I’m talking about.

Find a Starter Theme

This is the easy part, unless you’re OCD. I typically spend way too much time browsing themes because I’m somewhat of a perfectionist, but as long as you’re a reasonably well-adjusted individual, this should be no sweat. Here are a few things to look for when choosing a WordPress Theme:

• Simpler is better – You’ll probably want to go with a clean, one or two column theme. The last thing you want is for your visitor to get distracted by the cool ad boxes or the array of oddly placed columns. Plus, if you go with a complicated theme, you’ll have to spend extra time filling the space.
• Watch for widgets – Most new themes are widget-enabled, which makes adding features on the fly really easy. Keep an eye out for widget-ready sidebars when picking your theme.
• Keep your product in mind – Don’t get a grudge theme for your gardening tips blog. Just use your intution.

In my case, I wanted to create a mini-site that provided cool wallpaper for the BlackBerry Storm, because the Storm had just come out and there were no good resources available. I ended up finding a great photo gallery theme that allows me to upload and display my new wallpaper.

Customize Your Theme With Widgets and Plug-ins

After you’ve selected your theme, you need to decide what you want it to do. If you’re creating a simple affiliate site that you don’t want to put a lot of work into, the answer is probably “not much”. Since affiliate sites are typically centered around good content with affiliate links mixed in, focus on additions that make your site function and add depth to your existing content. Here are a few plug-ins and widgets I like:

• WP-PostRatings – This widget came with the theme I used in my example project, but I’ve used it on several other sites as well. It essentially allows you to turn your WordPress blog into a product review site–or anything review site–on demand. The included sidebar widget is nice because visitors are automatically drawn to the top rated posts (think products).
• pageMash – Allows you to easily control how your pages display in navigation menu. Sometimes you’ll want to change the order of the pages, or stop a page from displaying altogether. This plug-in can do that for you.
• All in One SEO Pack – Basic SEO is a necessity for any self-respecting affiliate site. With this plugin, you’ll be able to do a bunch of things, including customize meta descriptions, change your page title, and prevent duplicate content issues by stopping certain content from being indexed (like categories).
• Google XML Sitemaps –  A great way to get indexed. Google likes sitemaps, this plugin will create one for you. It’ll also notify Google and the other major search engines when you make updates.

I also frequently use the ‘Recent Posts’ widget that comes standard with WordPress, along with the ‘Categories’ widget. Beyond that, there is probably not much you need. I would recommend against displaying recent comments and your “Blogroll”, unless they have a specific purpose. Remember to keep it simple and legible.

Modifications and Hacks

Plug-ins and widgets are the easiest way of customizing a theme, but typically there are a few elements that you’ll have to get your hands dirty to fix. This often involves dealing with a bit of code–whether HTML or PHP–so some basic programming knowledge is advisable. If you don’t know much about programming and you’re just stubborn, Google can be a great place to find exact instructions on how to create your hack. Here are some basic changes you might consider:

• Changing header graphics – If your theme includes a standard header graphic instead of text, you’ll likely want to change it to match your site theme. Understand that going the extra mile and creating a simple logo can shake any sort of “spam blog” feeling your site may have. Usually the HTML for the logo will be contained within the header.php file, but if it’s not, you should check index.php. These files are located in your theme’s home directory and can be modified through SSH/FTP or the Theme editor within WordPress.
• Remove post dates, authors - This is a cool hack that can transform the feel of your blog into an actual content site. Look through index.php and page.php to locate the lines of code that display the post information, like date added, author, and trackback links. Simply delete this line and you’ll be left with post titles and post content–no dates showing just how old your content is. This can be an advantage if you don’t plan to update your blog frequently. If new, fresh content is part of your plan, then it would likely benefit you more to leave this information intact.
• Delete sidebar elements – I find myself doing this quite a bit. Much of the time certain elements will be be hard-coded into the sidebar, like RSS feed links and ‘About Me’ sections. These can be distracting for users, so you’ll want to remove anything you can’t manually remove through the Widget interface in your admin panel. Fortunately it’s quite easy. Go to your theme’s home directory, open sidebar.php, and find the code that displays the sections you don’t want. Typically the content will be above or below the code that makes the widgets work, which you don’t want to touch.
• Design customization – In general it’s a good idea to leave the theme’s basic design alone. Otherwise, you’re likely to spend a lot of work on a simple affiliate site when you have better things you can be doing (like creating more affiliate sites). If it’s a big project that warrants more work, or you need some structural changes to make your content display correctly, you can go about changing those elements in the included css files, as well as the various page files written in php. With my site, I left the colors and basic elements alone, but had to hack at the stylesheets to make my wallpapers look right when clicked on.

Anytime you’re editing code, you should be sure to back-up the files before you make significant changes. It’s also a good idea to comment out lines of code by typing ‘//’  in front of them before making any actual deletions. If you don’t know what you’re doing, get some help or leave it as is. Code hacks can be frustrating.

In addition to code hacking, there are some simple settings you may want to adjust before you put your blog live:

• Permalinks – For SEO purposes it’s good to make sure your permalink structure is descriptive as possible. Click on ‘Settings’, ‘Permalinks’ in the your admin panel. Most people will recommend “/%category%/%postname%” for a permalink structure, and I agree. Just enter that text (without the quotes) in the ‘Custom Structure’ field of the Permalinks page and hit Save. You’ll need to add a bit of code to your .htaccess file, which you can do through SSH or FTP. The file sits in your blog’s home directory.
• Static Index Page – I don’t always use this modification, but it’s easy to do if you want to keep the same index page and list your posts/reviews/products below it or on the sidebar. Just create a Page containing the content you want on the index page, then go to ‘Settings’, ‘Reading’, and select the page you just created as your static index page.

Other Resources

The three levels of customization presented here are enough to transform your affiliate site into something unique, and with very little time invested. Once your site displays how you want, add your content, integrate your affiliate links, and you’re on your way. Here are some other resources:

• WordPress Themes – 100 Free Excellent Themes, WordPress Theme Directory
• Widgets & Plug-ins – WordPress Plugin Directory
• Hacks & Code – WordPress Codex