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Want to increase your affiliate link click-through rates and profits? Then you’ll need to learn how to master your domain. One of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld was the “master of your domain” show where the gang bet each other as to who could hold out the longest without giving in to self gratification. Whoever ‘caved in’ would have to lay down the cash. The question - will the domain master you, or will you master the domain? There is a price to pay if it master’s you. In today’s power tip, of course, I’m talking about an Internet domain. One that describes your piece of Internet real estate. If your mother catches you mastering this domain, she may actually be proud of you! If you’re not using this technique, you may be paying the price of lost customers. So let’s get right to it. Affiliate programs are the most popular choice of making money online. However, they’re so common that most people recognize an affiliate link and are less likely to click on one because of the selfish notion that they might be contributing to someone else’s success. But that’s another Oprah … I want to show you how to conquer this issue while looking like a pro. Take a look at the following examples. Each are affiliate URL’s. But 2 of 3 are ‘masked’; you don’t know that they’re affiliate addresses.
In should not matter which link to click if you are compelled to click to find out more information. However, human nature says that we are guided by our emotions. Therefore, each link may portray a different image to you. Here’s how to make your affiliate link stand out in the crowd. Typically #2 is the most widely used and is very easy to put into place using a redirect script on your own domain. You simply create a new file on your domain server, name it (ie:”greatproduct.html”), copy and paste the script code. Then enter the affiliate url address (where specified) that you want to forward to. Now when someone clicks on the new sub-domain you created (ie: www.mysite.com/greatproduct.html), their browser will redirect to the affiliate site but appears to the prospect that it is your site. A simple redirect script can be obtained by sending any email to the following address mailto:script@6figuremarketing.com Now here’s a really cool technique as seen in example #3. Get your own domain! It’s the most professional strategy and will gain instant credibility and trust which can increase your rate of click-throughs. More click-throughs equals more traffic which means more eyes on your product or service, which means more cashflow in your pocket. Just be sure to sew up that pocket hole you’ve been neglecting since 1977! Ok, here’s the cool part and you don’t even need your own website to pull this off. Go to godaddy.com and search for the availability of your desired domain. Register the name, but be sure to choose the ‘redirect’ and the ‘mask’ option. Cost? About $9 for one year. In about 48 hours, your domain will be live and kicking. In example #3, if you chose www.thegreatestproduct.com and someone types that address in their browser, it not only redirects to the site you chose, but will show up in the prospects browser window instead of the site’s real URL www.greatproduct.com/98765/aff?=dude Did someone break out the pixie dust? It’s marketing magic at it’s finest! Use this powerful technique to add credibility and professionalism to sub-domains and affiliate urls or any url where you want to increase your conversion rates. Tip: Use your domain solely for tracking reponse rates to specific advertising campaigns such as pay per click, etc. Follow these techniques and you’ll soon be the master of your affiliate domain! Copyright 2005 David Lovelace About The Author Dave Lovelace an experienced Internet marketer, publisher, and product creator who holds the self-proclaimed title, “Third Laziest Man on The Internet”. Subscribe to Dave’s free course, How To Generate Free Traffic, Prospects, and Profits On a Zero Dollar Budget in 4 Easy Steps! Click here http://www.6figuremarketing.com. Tags: affiliate, affiliate marketing, internet marketing, marketing tip
What is a domain name? A domain name is the location of your website on the Internet. Your domain name will be what you become known by online so it’s important to get it right. Each website on the Internet is labeled with something called an IP address which is the actual address of the website online. A typical IP address looks like this: 159.134.27.64. Remembering a string of numbers like that is difficult so a domain name translates all those numbers into something like amazon.com. This is far easier to remember. #1 Dot what? Each domain has what’s called an extension. The most well known of these extensions is .com. This, however, is not the only type of domain extension available. There is also: .net If you can’t find your preferred .com domain name you could always choose the same domain with a .net extension. It might not have the same ring as a .com but is still as just useful as a .com. .org These domain extensions were orginally designed for educational and more formal websites. Anybody can register a .org however so you have more options for domain selection. .info A more recent introduction to the domain name game are .info domains. Many of the valuable .info domains were bought up overnight but there’s still a huge range of good .info domains available. With a little creativity you could really make a .info work for you e.g. www.moviereview.info. Bear in mind that most web surfers tend to remember .com more easily than anything else. #2 Branding vs Business Name There is an age old debate on the whether or not you should establish a brand name online or use a domain that more actually reflects your real business. Let’s look at Amazon as an example. Amazon sells books online. Most people setting up a business would have chosen say www.booksonline.com instead of amazon.com Amazon has since established itself as a brand name of global recognition - proving the value of building a brand name. You’ll need to choose between the two. Brand name or your own business name. Consider how your domain sounds, how it might look on a business card and how well it relates to your business. There’s no one right answer to this question. You need to choose what makes most sense for you, your website and your business in general. #3 Hyphenated or not This is another area of debate. Should your domain be one single word or should the words be separated by hyphens? There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. Single word domain names can be easier to explain, use on header paper and lend themselves to brand names very well. Single word domains are in very, very short supply. Hyphenated domains names can be slighltly more difficult to explain, may not look as well on headed paper and possibly harder to establish as a brand name. There’s no shortage of multiple word domains. The single biggest advantage a hyphenated domain has is that search engines can “read” the domain more easily. For example in a domain like foreignholidaysonline.com the search engine can only read the first word “foreign” and that’s it. It can’t tell anything else about the website domain name. If you hyphenated that to foreign-holidays-online.com the search engine can read “foreign”, “holidays” and “online” as separate words and therefore knows that this website is about foreign holidays. A well chosen hyphenated domain name can be just as effective as a single word domain name. #4 Your Domain Registrar These are the people you pay to register the domain for you. There are dozens if not hundreds of these companies out there so which one do you choose? This takes some research but things worth checking are:
Shop around for domain registrars. What you really want to find is a previously satisfied customer to ask questions before you buy. #5 Cheap Domain Names You can save a lot of money on the domain names you purchase. A typical .com domain costs about $15 to register from most registrars. However you can get the same domain for as little as $7.95 from other, very reliable, companies. Oddly enough some of the cheaper domain registrars are more reliable, have fewer horror stories and offer equally good customer service as their more expensive competitors. Are there any disadvantages in using a discount domain registrar? Will it affect your website in any way? The answer to both is a definite No. This article was provided courtesy of Domain Tutor where you’ll find tons of information on how to register a domain name Tags: affiliate, help, marketing, niche, web, website
It’s surprising, at least to me, the amount of Affiliates who aren’t aware of the value and flexibility that the ’sub-domain’ can give their promotional website activities. Set up in the right way, a single domain through a host who includes multiple ’sub-domains’ in their hosting package can fill ALL the online needs of even the busiest and most diversified Affiliate. Firstly, for those who need to know, a ’sub-domain’ is simply a separate, individual web folder, which can be attached to a ‘main’ domain and treated in all respects as a separate entity online. It is similar to a ’sub-web’, which most hosting facilities include except that it is, in it’s own right, treated as a separate domain by the SEs rather than a sub-folder under a domain. The way in which they are represented online as URLs is as follows: For instance, if you have a domain name, ‘domain.com’ and you add a sub-domain named ‘bubble’, the URL to that particular ‘website’ (which is what each sub-domain amounts to, a separate website) will be ‘bubble.domain.com’. No doubt, many have seen these types of URLs online and in promo emails etc. The ‘dot’ between the sub-domain and main domain is not to be confused with the ‘dash’ that can be used as part of a main domain. For instance, ‘bubble-domain.com’ would need to be registered and propagated in it’s own right whereas, sub-domains can be created under a main domain in a matter of seconds, with their own FTP password, image, private and cgi-bin folders etc. What makes them so valuable a tool, if it’s not so obvious already, is that an Affiliate can create a separate website for totally unrelated products or services, fill each website with the necessary pages of content, links and facilities etc and promote each to the Search Engines and other directories, virtually as if it were a different main domain. As I’ve said, the SEs treat each sub-domain as a separate entity and categorize them as such. A very handy ability when it comes to Affiliate programs that supply a website or webpage for their Affiliates to use and promote. In such a case, you can basically make that page or site your very own in every respect, optimizing for SEs and presenting it how ever you please (provided no agreements are broken). Obviously, having a ‘generic’ main domain name is essential to getting the best out of this cost, time and trouble saving method of creating multiple websites. If you have a main domain name ‘pillshop.net’ (perhaps your initial Affiliate endeavor involved promoting this type of product) it is really only going to be useful for the one type of product or service. Alternatively, something more generic like ‘online-plus.biz’ is going to be useful for promoting almost anything because it has no specific meaning. For instance, in the case of promoting a Singles Dating Affiliate program, something like ’singles.online-plus.biz’ would work as well as ‘pills.online-plus.biz’ or even ‘dogs.online-plus.biz’. However, ’singles.pillshop.net’ just doesn’t work, does it? (Although, I have seen some pretty weird URLs around!) The only problem you will be presented with, concerns the traffic ranking facility Alexa. Alexa will read all sub-domains as their parent ‘main domain’, so the traffic ranking for each website will be the same, as will all the other Alexa information. However, this isn’t such a great problem when you consider that the total traffic indicated for each website will actually be the total for ALL of them. In my opinion, not so much of a problem, at all. So, for the Affiliate at least, choosing the right type of domain name and a hosting facility that includes multiple sub-domains in their package is very important, especially if there’s any possibility that you’re going to be venturing into promoting unrelated products and services. The first hosting facility I was involved with a few years ago, charged $10 to create each sub-domain. The one I’ve been with for the last couple of years, allows unlimited free sub-domains (contact me at one of my websites if you want to know who they are). The 2005 Edition of Steve Brennan’s popular ebook title ‘The Affiliate Guide Book’ is available now. He also operates a number of Affiliate wesbites which include Hair Loss Remedy and Diet & Weight Loss Place. Tags: affiliate, affiliate website, domain, sub domain, subdomain, url, website url
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