Many affiliate sites today create self-duplicating web pages for
affiliates to use. The web site URL often looks something like
http://www.companysite.com/xxxyyy/?yourname&zzz or one of
hundreds of variations of this. This is not bad in itself,
however, if you are serious about making money via the Internet,
there is one piece that is a MUST for Internet Marketers. It is
called a DOMAIN GATEWAY PAGE.
What is a domain gateway page? A domain gateway page is a web
site address such as http://www.your-name.com set up so that when
someone access' your web site, they get YOUR information for your
affiliate program (whatever affiliate program you are marketing).
For example, instead of marketing
http://www.collector-club.com/DET/members/101321/index.shtml (a
sample company URL assigned to you from net detective), you would
market http://your-name.com instead and it would pull up your net
detective page in this shorter URL. More specifics on this will
follow.
Why is a domain gateway page a MUST?
1No Lost Orders:
When someone visits
http://www.companysite.com/?your-idxxxxxxyyy the tendency that
happens quite often is that the /?your-idxxxxxxyyy part of the
URL will get left off the URL (web address); so you are no longer
get credited for the order. Another common problem is that a
visitor gets the long complicated URL wrong (ie:
http://www.collector-club.com/DET/members/101321/index.shtml); so
again it is a lost order for you. What happens if they come back
to the main site in the future and don't put in your id#? You
got it. It's another lost order for you.
Another problem with associate program self-duplicating pages is
that some search engines don't accept the /?your-idxxxxxxyyy
portion of a URL. As you go out and market your site across the
Internet, some (many) of the search engines will not accept the
/?your-idxxxxxxyyy in the address, so will drop that part of the
address.... thus, people get dumped into the main company site
instead of your site.....more of your orders get lost or
redirected to the main company site.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not bashing associate programs or
the way their self-duplicating pages are set up. I am simply
providing information to help you use those programs more
effectively.
2Business centered marketing:
With your own domain name, you can do all of your marketing by
promoting http://www.your-name.com vs. another web site name.
This will also allow you to have your email address as
you@your-name.com (it can be automatically forwarded into
wherever you currently check your email, so nothing on your end
has to change). This puts the focus of your marketing efforts
around YOU and YOUR domain name vs. the vendor company's domain
name and creates a business centric marketing stategy for you.
You can then set up additional businesses around this same name
to market additional products.... such as
http://www.your-name.com/company2/ and
http://www.your-name.com/company3/. Now, what happens if someone
drops off the /company2/ portion of that URL? They are dumped
into another of YOUR companies and you never loose a potential
client!
Here is an example of business centered marketing model that I
use. I have two sites in which I promote (among others). Here
are their cumbersome URLs:
http://www.collector-club.com/DET/members/101321/index.shtml
http://www.outsource2000.com/?id908596093
I market these two sites
as:
http://ahwa.com/netdetective/
http://ahwa.com
My email is sent out as me@ahwa.com. When I join other associate
programs, I create new gateway pages on my own domain such as
http://ahwa.com/new-program/. My entire business and marketing
strategy is centered around MY domain name, not someone else's.
3Higher order ratios & portability:
The biggest reason for having your own domain gateway page is
that with a domain site (such as www.your-name.com) you will get
a higher ratio of orders (signups) to visitors because you will
loose fewer of your potential clients to the company site.
If you ever decide to move your domain to another host provider
or begin to promote a new product/service, all the hundreds or
thousands of links across the Internet that are currently
pointing to you will continue to point to you. That is not the
case if you have a web page such as
http://www.some-other-company.com/yourname/. If you ever move
your sub-page to someone else's domain, you will loose all the
work and effort you put into building links to your original
page.
4Domains names are cheap:
You can get your own domain (your-name.com) hosted by a good web
site host provider for as little as $20.00 per month w/ a $20.00
set up fee (and sometimes cheaper). You will charged $35.00 per
year to have the name registered with Internic. You will be
billed the first two years Internic fee in advance. So, for the
cost of one or two orders (depending upon what you are marketing)
you can pay for your domain name and site set-up. If you want a
company with a specialty in low cost domain gateway pages visit
http://www.johnsons.net/.
It is possible to make money with the many affiliate and
associate programs. I know of people who do nothing but work
their associate programs and are making thousands of dollars a
year at it. With a little knowledge and advance planning, you
can also.
About the Author
Tobe Johnson is the president of Johnson & Associates
(http://johnsons.net/). He has been involved in Internet
based consulting and web site development technologies since the
early 1990's. He specializes in building large network marketing
downlines and product sales via the Internet.