Month: July 2009

Save Money on Website Hosting with Add-on Domains

Do you have more than one website?  Want to add a blog with its own domain name?  Want to create several niche websites? 

Website hosting isn’t expensive.  As a matter of fact, there are hosting companies that are downright cheap.  But the best deal of all is the hosting company that will allow you to host multiple domains with one account and pay one low price.

I operate multiple domains.  And except for one domain, which includes my shopping cart and costs me $14.95 per month, all my other domains are hosted at one hosting company for a price of $7.95 per month.  The number of domains that I can add for this one low price is unlimited.

How does this work?  My hosting company’s cpanel (actually the administration page for my hosting panel) has a section called “add on domains”.  When I click on that, I can add a domain which will appear as it’s own url.  There’s even a short tutorial that explains exactly how to do it.

Once you have the domain added, you will need to have the company that registered your domain name change the nameservers to point to your hosting company. 

And the company that I use and highly recommend is:  Hostgator.  Click on Hostgator  and check it out.  It’s inexpensive.  It’s easy to use.  And I never recommend a company that I don’t use myself.

And, for another reason to use this hosting company.  If you want to have a blog, Hostgator has Fantasico which is one fo the easiest ways possible to add wordpress to a website.

An interesting concept on how to use Free Gifts

Everyone loves free!  A great way to market your business is to give away a free gift–either with an order, to potential customers, to existing customers, at events, or whereever you meet the public.  But, consider a uniquely different concept. 

How about having someone else give away your free gift? 
How?  Why?  REID ON. . .

If you have created an ebook or some other printed material of value, you could create a smaller version using excerpts from the original book and have another company in a compatable market within your genre distribute either a print copy of the small version or coupons directing the recipient to a website where it can be downloaded.  Of course, you would include marketing for the compete book or your other products within the smaller edition.

For example, in our industry, you could create an ebook about “Corporate Gift Giving — What Determines Success”  or “How to Choose the Perfect Gift” or “The Dos and Don’ts of International Gifting” or any other number of topics.  Joint venture with a local or internet business to distribute the excerpts from the book or a coupon to your website where it can be downloaded. 

Why would you want to do this?

  • Your free smaller copy of the ebook serves the same purpose as  the previews to the upcoming movies that you see in the theatre.  It gives them a taste of what they will find in the full edition and, if done correctly, will make them want to see more.
  • It doesn’t cost your joint venture partner anything to have a product that they can distribute for free.
  • It’s like a referral from your joint venture partner when they give your product to their customers.
  • If the recipient of the free gift likes the product enough to visit your website, you have the opportunity to add them to your email list (if, once again, it is done correctly).
  • It’s a three-way win-win.  You get the opportunity to advertise with your smaller ebook and possibly increase the traffic to your website.  Your joint venture partner gets something free, but with value,  to give to his customers.  And the customer gets valuable free information.
  • The prospect of having the recipient visit your website is much higher when he is given a free gift than when he is given a flyer, brochure, or business card.

No ebook and don’t want to write one?  You could do something similar with a small gift or private labeled product that you would provide to a joint venture partner to give to his clients.  When choosing such a product, you would want to make sure that it advertises your business while providing value to both your joint venture partner and to his clients. 

If you try this idea, track the results to be sure that you are receiving value as well.  And, let me know what you use and how it works for you.