| By Sandi Hunter
So you've been doing affiliate marketing but have never booked your own domain name.
Here's the problem with that; it's a COSTLY problem and it's sabotaging your business growth.
As an Affiliate marketer you are promoting the services of various companies to earn sales commission. First let me say there is nothing wrong with that. Affiliate marketing is in an explosive phase right now. More and more BIG name companies offer an affiliate program, and the pandemic has forced more people to be at home they are spending their time online looking for ways to earn extra money. So if you want to earn some extra money, sign up for one or a few Affiliate programs and start promoting. If your content with that it's a simple, uncomplicated approach, have some fun, make a little money.
But if you want to get more serious and turn that extra income from affiliate marketing into some more serious dollar amounts, then here's something important to think about and some strategies to achieve your goals.
If you don't have your own domain name, get one, book it in your name. By this I mean, get a domain name one that YOU have registered in YOUR name and PAY for every year. It can be a business name, your name, a niche specific string of words. Keep your domain name, easy to remember, easy to spell, shorter is better but not abbreviated. Cost is about $20 a year depending on where you register it. It's inexpensive yet one of the most important aspects of your business. The extension for your domain name, be it a .com or a .biz or a .info or any of the others matters not so much, just remember that .com was the original extension and is preferred by most for being most memorable. New marketers, new business owners, often overlook the value, power, professionalism and permanence of a domain name.
Your domain name is YOUR piece of property. If you have booked your own domain name, and you own it, it's PORTABLE, move to host your site (and your domain name) any where you like.
When you book a domain name you become the legal owner of that name.
Why does having your own domain name matter?
It's so that when you PROMOTE a link, a product, or a service, you can ACTIVELY be promoting YOUR brand, YOUR URL, your business - each and every time. Think about how this simple practice will add up in YOUR interests as your business grows daily, monthly, yearly. You can tie in ALL your social media, all your blogs, all your advertising your specific niche, or URL, or online property that you own. You leave footprints promoting your brand every time you post, instead of promoting someone else when you use their service for posting, blogging, promotion. Backlinks are one of the elements used for SEO ranking by Google and others, they consider backlinks as a measure of importance the site has for users. The longer you have had your own domain name, and been promoting it, the more likely you are to have back links, multiple pages of unique content including key words and video, just what Google and Bing love! SEO is massive topic for a whole other article, for here, it's suffice to say the OLDER the domain name and the more unique content on the site the better in terms of search engine indexing. Your domain name may cost you $20 today but it's value to you, can grow significantly over time. I know a person who decided not to renew his 10 year old domain name, he let it lapse and it was eventually purchased and resold for over $50,000. Had he renewed the domain name and kept it or sold it himself, that amount might have been much bigger and in his pocket. His cost to book the name each year? $15. Let me give you an example of why you need your own domain name.
Affiliate marketers are often in a number of affiliate programs. Each one gives you a unique URL to refer sales, it's the URL of the company with your ID attached. That's required and how they track your sales referrals. But YOU can post that link on YOUR site, or create a new landing pages with a URL from your domain name. Instantly you are promoting yourself, your company, your URL, your brand every time you post. It's easier to do ad tracking on your own domain name(s) for mapping out the blueprint for your ad campaigns accross platforms. The reality of affiliate marketing is that the companies sometimes suspend operations for any number of reasons, that means you have a lot of dead links out there. If you are using your own domain name, and integrating links to your site you simply remove those dead links but you don't lose your SEO, your backlinks, your online presence.
Now think about Your Autoresponder. If you are using one of the big names out there for your Autoresponder, every time you post you are promoting THEIR URL/ their service alongside your own promotion. When you have your own domain name, your Autoresponder messages and referral URLS, and landing pages etc can be sourced from YOUR URL - not the companies. Now think about what happens when your business grows and your Autoresponder service starts charging you more and more each time you post to your list. Now they got you! Move away from their service and you risk losing your list and as your business grows your cost goes up significantly. Over time not having your own domain name boxes you in, limits your growth, costs you more. It's a mistake made by newbies not thinking big or long term.
Let's now talk about free blogs.
Years ago I had a blog on a free service. After building my blog for many years to a large following with thousands of pages of quality unique content, I logged in and was mett with a Service Termination Notice. The free blog company changed their policy took issue with something on my blog and removed it. Instantly - I lost years of work and faithfful followers. As a free service the owners had the right to remove my content withour notice and without appearl. Out of luck Chuck. Lesson learned. I booked my own URL and started hosting my own blog, I'm therefore the owner and have complete control. Since then I have heard from many people who had the same bad experience with free services not just blogs, also file storage sites, autoresponder services etc who just decide to turn you (and your entire business) OFF in a click of a mouse one day. Solution, book a domain name, get a WordPress Blog, own it, control it. Use it to grow your online portfolio, your footprint without fear of losing it all over a policy change.
Think of yourself an an affiliate marketing tycoon.
Real estate tycoons buy up properties always adding to their net worth with new aquisitions and real estate growth. As an Affiliate marketing tycoon, you can be an Affiliate for MULTIPLE programs/companies, promote multiple products/services and increase your sales commission potential. The MORE programs you are promoting the better, but only if you have a system for effectively managing your online empire - AND - you have your own Domain name(s) in your inventory to facilitate your growth now and for years to come. Think big.
For a complete proven system for managing your online affiliate marketing programs, look to the 26+ Year trusted leader worldprofit.com
Every tool resource, software you need to start and grow your online affiliate marketing portfolio is available at Worldprofit. Start with your own domain name as your base, we can book i for you if needed, or bring us the one you have now and we will help you build your online portfolio into a sales conversion machine.
Domain names, hosting, software, autoresponders, advertising, traffic, listservers, newsletters, blogs, ebooks, graphic software, Ebooks, SEO, training, sales conversion.
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