Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Do You Own A Domain Name?

Let's say you promote a product from so-and-so company. They provide you with a website and give you a website address (link, URL) to promote. That link has the domain name of so-and-so company prominently displayed within it. Then they tell you to get traffic to your new, beautiful so-and-so company website and all will be fine.

Don't believe it!!! It doesn't work that way.

That "link" is what is called an "Affiliate Link". It is normally long. Hard for anyone to remember. Bet you can't even remember it. Believe it or not, no one is going to try to remember it. This is not what you want to happen.

You want people to remember how to get to your website. How in the world are you going to sale your product if no one remembers your domain name?

Okay, so what do you do? You go and get your own domain name. Simple. It really is.

When I first started promoting affiliate products on the internet I didn't know this. No one told me. I had to learn the hard way.

The main problems with using your affiliate link:
1. Too long to remember
2. People erase your affiliate ID
3. Search engines don't pick it up
These are problems that will kill your sales.

Go to any domain name registrar and get your own domain name. Think of something catchy and as short as possible that relates to your affiliate site subject. This might take some time but you will be pleased with the results.

Some things to look for when choosing a domain name registrar:
1. Inexpensive - you should not pay more that $12 to register a domain name.
2. Free email forwarding.
3. Free domain forwarding
4. Free domain masking
5. Automatic renewal.
6. Clean, non-cluttered site.
7. Ease of use.
8. Choice of extensions (such as .com, .net, .info, etc.)

You can do a search for domain name registrars. I have used Go-Daddy, Lowest Domain Rates and some others but I prefer Lowest Domain Rates because they meet all of my criteria. Now I only use Lowest Domain Rates and have for more than six years.

The end result of getting your own domain name will be: The problems listed above will be eliminated. 

Oh! By the way, always try to use .com as your extension. It is the universal extension for domain names and is the most recognizable.