Have you ever wanted to set up your own e-commerce site but don't have the funds to start one up? In this series of articles you will find out to create your own sites for little or no cost and start earning money. Future articles will show you how you can earn money by selling mobile phones and mobile content such as ringtones and java games.

Online dating is a large industry, and you can get in on the act for very little cost. DIY-Dating.co.uk offers you the opportunity to create your own site for free. The DIY-Dating platform includes searchable free profiles with photos, media and audio plus anonymous messaging and an instant messenger service for fully paid up members.

Click here to sign up for your own DIY-Dating site.

When members of your dating site pay for a full membership, you will receive 50% of their membership fee whilst they are a member.

You can choose from a number of pricing plans and there are two types of site you can create - dating and adult contacts. You can create one of each and refer one to the other.

The first stage in creating your site is to register and choose a domain name. DIY-Dating offer free subdomains and they have a number of domain options to choose from. You can also use a domain that you have registered elsewhere by pointing it to their domain name servers.

Once you have registered and chosen a domain, the next stage is to choose the look of your site. There are a number of predefined templates to choose from, allowing you to tailor your site to your audience. You can then choose the layout of your first screen, such as whether to include flags and/or a country list, how many member names to display and what header and footer text to include. The next screen to customise in the main 'logged on' screen and then you can choose from predefined layouts for the profile and search screens.

If you are comfortable with HTML you can switch to advanced mode which offers more customisation options for your pages. You can change the graphics used on your site by either choosing from a set of predefined options or downloading the image pack and modifying it. The modified images can then be uploaded to a website. You then enter the URLs of the images into DIY-Dating to replace the default ones.

Click here to see the site I created - e-DatingGuru.co.uk.

Once you are happy with your site, you then need to market it. DIY-Dating provide a link page on your site so you can add reciprocal links with other sites. There are many directories of dating sites that you can add your site to in return for displaying a banner on your site.

There are two other tools you can use to promote your site. The first is a partner programme that allows you to recruit affiliates. These affiliates will then refer customers to your site by displaying your banner on their site. When the customers take out a full membership the affiliate receives a percentage of their membership fee for the full time that they are a member.

Click here to sign up for the e-DatingGuru.co.uk partner programme.

The second tool is a link exchange for your site. Other sites join the exchange by entering their details, uploading a banner and adding a link to their page. The sites that refer the most visitors to your site are displayed higher up in the list. Your site is always displayed at the top.

Click here to add your site to the e-DatingGuru.co.uk link exchange.

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