Bruce's Golden Goose Marketing Online

In this day and age, there is absolutely no excuse not to have some kind of reliable, reputable web host. Services like HostGator offer packages where you can host unlimited sites for as little as $7.95. That’s nothing. That’s 2 drinks at Starbucks, or less than one cocktail in a big city bar.

I think that at some level, we all know that we need good hosting. Not all of us fully understand why, though. Consider this:

• Cheap hosting goes down frequently, often due to inadequate technical staff or abnormal or unacceptable levels of usage on each server. If your sites collectively earn $80/day and you know that your hosting is down an average of one day each month, your cheap, no-name hosting has just cost you much more than you saved by getting it.
• If you go with free hosting, the situation is even worse. You can’t even get into certain affiliate networks if you don’t own a domain. Companies want to deal with professionals, not hobbyists.

If your hosting company doesn’t offer things like 24/7 support and hosting for multiple domains for each account, you should re-think your strategy.

What do you do about your hosting now? Do you wish you were doing something different? Have you ever made any major hosting mistakes?

Having had the opportunity to see a lot of affiliate websites over the years, I’ve noticed that a lot of affiliates have great marketing skills until it comes to their domain name.  Given that it’s such an easy thing to master, I wanted to offer up a few tips that can help you out next time you’re picking a domain for one of your affiliate sites.

• If you’re doing PPV, your domain name is of very little importance.
• If you’re doing PPC, make sure that your domain name (a) conveys professionalism and (b) includes your keywords
• Avoid hyphens wherever possible.  If you must use them, limit it to just one.  the more you get, the more spammy your site starts to look.
• Try not to use “the best” or “top” or “great” in your domain name.  These descriptive words make many users perceive your site as “cheap” or unprofessional.  Suppose you are reviewing anti virus products.  You’re much better off calling your site something like “Skyview Anti-Virus” or “Armored Anti-Virus” (just some random “brand-sounding” word) instead of “Great Anti Virus” or “Best Anti Virus”.  If you have to SAY it’s great or the best, it often has the opposite effect in the mind of your target.
• Don’t go too keyword crazy, either.  AntiMalwareRemoveSpywareFromMyComputer.com isn’t going to look trustworthy to many people.
• If you’re doing SEO, domain name takes on a whole new level of importance.  Pick a main root keyword and make sure it is in your domain name.
• If you are having trouble finding domain names, use a site like DotoMator.com to help simplify the process.  You can enter in two columns of words and then it will match them up in every permutation and show you which are available for purchase.  I have saved countless hours using DotoMator.com.
• Use a good host that protects your domain name once you own it.  HostGator is one highly reputable company you can choose to host a large number of domains for a single low monthly cost.

Feel free to comment with any additional tips you might have!

As a new affiliate marketer, your hosting needs are pretty simple.  You need a quality shared hosting solution and a responsive hosting provider to work with.  If you have a big ad budget (which few newbies do), your needs might be more demanding, but for the vast majority, a shared hosting plan is more than sufficient.  Eventually, you will be driving more traffic and need a dedicated server, but there’s no need to complicate your life like that initially.

Above all, look for a hosting company with good reviews from other marketers.  Some hosting companies are suspicious of marketers or they don’t like to work with new webmasters, so you want to avoid those types of companies wherever possible.

Hostgator is a great example of a company that’s large enough to have their act together, but not so large that it’s impossible to get assistance.  They get great reviews from bloggers and other web marketers, and packages start as low as $4.95/month.  Click here to get unlimited websites on your hosting plan.

Something else that can prove invaluable is working with a company that has a large user base.  When you’re working late into the night, it isn’t always possible to get a support rep.  If the company you’re using has a big user base, though, you can usually find the information you need by Googling it.

If you don’t already have a basic hosting account, check out Hostgator and get started today.  It’s far simpler than you might be expecting, and it brings you one step closer to your successful affiliate marketing career.

One of the latest trends among affiliates seems to be a desire to get away from merely being an affiliate.  Although it’s great to be an affiliate because you miss out on a lot of the headaches that plague actual merchants, it’s also very limiting.  Commissions are not always as high as you might like them to be, and companies like Google are making it harder and harder to be successful as an affiliate.  Whether you want to focus entirely on being a merchant, or you just want to diversity, finding a product can be a great step in your business.

Not a lot of products focus on stepping away from the traditional affiliate arrangement, but that’s exactly what Resale Rights Hosting does.  You get access to 411 information products you can sell as your own, along with full hosting and support.  They manage your tracking, your autoresponders, and your security.  You focus on what you as a marketer do best – the promotion.

Resale Rights Hosting is also good for new affiliates who don’t have a complete handle on all the technical aspects of affiliate marketing.  With their system, you can focus on mastering marketing first, then learning technical skills later as you move on to other projects.

To learn more about Resale Rights Hosting, check out their videos.  They do a great job of clearing up any questions you might have about what it means to get resale rights, or how the system itself works.

How did you choose your hosting?  Did you go for the first site you found?  Did you just randomly pick one based on an ad you saw?  Did you pick the one that was cheapest?  Most people fall into one of these categories, but you shouldn’t be one of them.

Why?  As an affiliate marketer, your hosting is a vital part of your business.  You absolutely must make sure that your hosting fits your marketing style.  If you’re going to be serving ads from your hosting, you need a high bandwidth plan.  If you are an emailer, you’ll need to make sure that your hosting company is understanding of spam complaints and that they check with you and give you a chance to defend yourself before shutting you off and killing your profits.

Although there are plenty of good hosts out there, HostGator is one that I like to highlight because they offer extremely affordable unlimited bandwidth plans.  Now, if you’re doing tens of thousands of visitors daily, you may still need to opt for a dedicated server plan to get top speed and performance – but for most of us, it’s more than sufficient to get started.

If you want to learn more about HostGator, you can click here to visit their site and view special offers for unlimited bandwidth.  If you haven’t given much thought to your hosting before, now is a great time to do it.