Are you ready to create your affiliate marketing website? This tutorial will run you through how to set up your own website for free using Wealthy Affiliate’s hosting.

In under 10 minutes you can have your very first website set up ready for you to build your online marketing empire.

It really is that easy.

For those who do not know Wealthy Affiliate (WA) is a training and hosting platform that will teach you how to become a successful affiliate marketer, as well as host your website(s) with all the bells and whistles.

And best of all, you can do so for free, and remain hosting your websites for free, if you choose not to upgrade to a Premium membership.

You can read all about the platform and what it has to offer in my Ultimate How To Affiliate Marketing Guide.

If you just want a free website to start your online business, kind of test the waters and see if this is for you, then read on and I will show you how it’s done and get you started.

First let’s answer your questions

Before we jump into it I’m sure you have a few questions.

With so many scams out there I know when people see the word FREE they start to wonder if it really is free, or if they are going to get started and then find out they can’t go any further without paying a heap of money they don’t have, and the time they have spent is basically wasted.

Let me give you the facts about having a free website at WA.

YES – it is completely free to join as a Starter Member. You just need an email address, no credit card details are asked for or required. There is no sneaky billing or contracts to cancel after the 7 days.

YES – you really do get 2 free websites on a subdomain (.siterubix) that you can keep forever.

NO – you do not have to upgrade to the Premium Membership. You can remain on a Starter Membership indefinitely and have access to your two free websites, hosted for you with Site Security and Site Protection included at no cost.

NO – you don’t get access to all the wonderful training on offer. You do get 10 free lessons to get your site up and running and to explain how affiliate marketing works so you can make up your own mind whether this is a way you want to make extra money or a full-time career.

NO – there are no upsells. You get the first 7 days to really check out the platform and see if it is for you. After that time some features are not available to you but it’s up to you how you want to proceed after the first 7 days.

You can choose to remain on the Starter Membership or if you are serious about making money you can upgrade to Premium. There is nothing else.

I have included the comparison table below so you can see exactly what you get on Starter as opposed to Premium. There is nothing hidden, I want you to go into this with your eyes wide open.

OK so hopefully you understand now that you can build an affiliate marketing website for free and remain free for as long as you want. So let’s get started.

Step 1 – Choosing Your Subdomain Name

First up you need to choose your website subdomain name. If you are not familiar with the term subdomain, rather than take a heap of time and space now you can read exactly what it is here.

You can do so in the box below and it will show you if that subdomain name is available. Once you click “Build it Now” you will be taken to Wealthy Affiliate to create your free Starter Membership and start building your site.

You will see the following screen – Click on “Build My Free Website”

Step 2 – Set Up Your Account

You need to set up your free Starter Membership at this stage. Simply fill in the details and click “Create Account & Continue”. Do fill in your proper name and choose a username you like and are happy to be referred to as.

Wealthy Affiliate has a real community of like-minded people and we build friendships and make professional contacts through the platform.

People like to help real people so if you put in your Full Name as My Dog Fido and your Username as Spot, you will not have much credibility within the platform. If you really wish to remain anonymous you can, but I find it is best to start with an open mind and give the community a real person they can connect with.

They are just people like you and me.

Since I joined I have made long-lasting friendships with many members and being able to connect with the community is one of the greatest benefits of being a member. Anyway up to you, but have a think about being honest and genuine from the word go.

OK so fill in the details and click the green button.

Step 3 – Welcome to WA

Congratulations you are now a Starter Member with Wealthy Affiliate. You will see a screen like this.

I know your keen to get to the website building part of this but take a few minutes to run through the Tour which will pop up so you know how to navigate around the platform. It is only 6 steps and gives you a good understanding of the various areas of WA that you will be using.

It really is worth it.

Step 4 – Getting Started

Now the fun begins. Click on the green Training button on the left of your screen and you will see this:

This shows all the training for the Online Entrepreneur Certification you can do with Wealthy Affiliate. It is so thorough it’s absolutely amazing.

As a free Starter Member you get the first 10 lessons as part of Level 1, which is where I recommend you start. You also get the first 10 lessons of the Affiliate Bootcamp, which is structured to teach you how to promote Wealthy Affiliate and is great once you have your first website up and running.

You will see at the top left of your screen is your profile. It will look like this:

As I said in Step 2 it’s worth taking the time to set up your profile so other community members know who you are.

The benefits of this are that they are more likely to engage with “real” people. Click on your name and take a minute to fill in your details, let the community know what you hope to achieve through your website and say G’Day.

Once you’ve done that click back to the green Training tab on the left hand side under your profile.

At this point I’d just like to say my suggestion is to work through the training and you will get to the lessons on how to set up your website. The training is structured to walk you through step by step and give you a solid understanding of what your doing and why. There are videos you can watch on how to set up your website there as well.

Education is the key to your success as an affiliate marketer and I strongly encourage you not to skip any steps. But if you are impatient and are starting to think “but Heidi I came here to build a website” then you can jump straight to that part and I’ll show you how easy it is to do below.

Step 5 – Your very own website

So on the left hand side under your profile you will see the main menu at Wealthy Affiliate. This is the starting point for all the training, live webinars, your keyword research, access to technical help and most importantly your website.

Click on Websites, then Site Builder and you will see the screen to the left.

Let’s build your website!

It’s 4 easy steps.

1. Click “On a free domain”
2. Re-enter your chosen domain name or you can choose a different one now if you have changed your mind. Try to keep your domain name short and sweet but describing what your site will be about. So let’s say you want to help people who have older dogs. This is your niche (see my other blog about choosing a niche if you don’t know what that is or you are having trouble deciding what your website should be about). Your domain name might be tiredolddogs.siterubix.com, just keep it to the point and short so it is easy for people to remember.
3. Enter the name of your website. It’s a good idea to keep your website title or name at least similar to your domain name. It is off-putting to people if they see your domain name as tiredolddogs.siterubix.com and when they click on the site they are taken to a site about breeding cats! Your website title might be exactly the same so in our case Tired Old Dogs might be the title. Or if you want to be more descriptive you might call it Advice for Aged Dogs. You can change this at any time so don’t get too hung up on it at the moment, just pop something in the box.
4. Time to choose what your site will look like. This is where you choose a theme for your site. Again this can be changed later. I have changed mine about 5 times until I found this one that I am reasonably happy with. You get access to 12 free themes as a Starter Member. Don’t get to hung up on it at this stage. Yes you want a theme that looks good, but more importantly you want a theme that is functional, quick and easy to work with. All the 12 free themes available work well and are perfect for any affiliate marketing site. So go ahead and choose.

That’s it. Click the green button down the bottom “Click here to build this site!” and you are in business.

The magic starts now and your WordPress website is created in a matter of a few minutes. No technical skills required, no tricky coding or back office fiddling around required.

Once it’s completed you will see this screen which gives you access to your site to start adding your content and personalising it to your tastes.

At the top you have your log in details for the site, use this to access the WordPress editor to customise your site. You are given a password which is random and secure. You can change this if you like but I haven’t bothered.

Next are all the details about your domain name and your actual website address. You can promote the website address (Website URL) to have people go straight to your home page or use the Admin Login URL to go straight to the administration dashboard within WordPress to edit your site.

Just one more item to check off and that’s Site Speed.

As I said in choosing your theme having a site which is responsive and with as little lag as possible is important. This is not only to improve the user experience but also Google like sites that are fast and are less likely to rank websites that are slow and clunky. Wealthy Affiliate offers you increased site speed even on the free websites so you might as well use it.

Click Site Speed on and then choose Extreme. I have both my sites running on Extreme and it’s fantastic.

Your Own Free Website Created

There you have it your own website up and running. It literally took me all of about 10 minutes to run through these steps, so while it might look like a bit to get through, it’s as simple as following the prompts on each screen and it takes next to no time.

I have elaborated on each area so you have the knowledge you need to make good choices when setting up your website. I even created a little animated video you can check it out below.

Don’t be nervous about the setup, many aspects of your website can be changed as you start to work it.

Everyone needed to start somewhere, and you need to get your site up and running so you can start to build it out and make the changes as you see fit. Using this system gives you not only a beautiful free website but it is hosted on the best value platform around.

So iyou areur ready to make a start choose your domain name and pop it in the box below. And remember I will be available inside Wealthy Affilate to answer any questions, provide support and coaching as you move along your affiliate marketing journey.

Ready, set, go!

If you do have questions I haven’t answered here or need further clarification on any of the steps, drop me a comment and I will get back to you as soon as I can with some answers. And as always if you enjoyed this blog, and feel it could help out someone else, share it on social media.