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Bank Card Finder
One of the ways that I first learned about affiliate programs was from credit cards sites. This was like way back around 1999 or 2000. I noticed that just about every credit card directory I came across had affiliate code in their links, and so they would get a commission each time a visitor applied for one of their card offers. I thought, "Wow, that's lame, but I bet they make a lot of money." And, yes, they certainly do.
Soooo, much later on after I had built some of my own websites about templates, hosting, computers and Internet access, I helped my friend, Jon, get into affiliate marketing. He initially wanted to do a site about, you guessed it, credit cards! So, I pointed the way. About a year later, we merged our collective sites into one company, and now I had a credit card directory to work on . . Bank Card Finder (www.bankcardfinder.com).
Online Credit Card Applications
The goal of Bank Card Finder is to make it easy for visitors to compare credit cards from a variety of major credit card issuers. The most notable of these financial institutions are Chase, Citibank, and American Express. I have found those three to have the best overall selection of credit cards. The site also lists offers from Discover, HSBC, Advanta, and a few others, but those issuers only offer a few specific types of cards.
Our credit card directory organizes cards by type (business, student, prepaid, etc.) and by financial issuer (Visa, Mastercard, Chase, etc.). BCF also provides unique reviews for each card in the directory. Of course, we constantly update the information on interest rates, introductory offers, terms and conditions, and the like. It truly is a quality site to find a good selection of credit cards which you can then apply for online.
Designing A Credit Card Directory
With this site, I decided that it was best to list the data for all of the credit cards in a MySQL database. I noticed that other big credit card sites, like CardOffers.com (www.cardoffers.com) had all of their data in a database, and thought this was a good idea. This is a decision that I've always been happy about, since it allows us to manage the card information very easily. I'm able to feed out the credit card data onto several different pages on several different domains, and yet when it is time to change an interest rate or some other bit of info, I only have to update one thing: the database. I can also backup all my credit card data in a couple minutes.
In our recent site redesign, which started in March and will be done this June, we gave BCF a whole new look. I certainly like it much more than the previous two designs. More importantly, we're adding tons of new content. Our previous card reviews, articles, and FAQ's were getting out-of-date, so we are re-writing every page on the site to make sure the information is still relevant. By June 30th, BCF should have around 150 to 200 pages of unique, up-to-date, relevant content. Eventually, I plan on adding a comparison function where visitors can select up to four credit card offers and compare them side-by-side. Jon and I will constantly be adding new content and additional credit card offers to the site in the weeks and months to come. Yep, there are lots of good things to look forward to from Bank Card Finder over the remainder of 2006.