If you’re like me, you’re registering domain names all the time.  Except for a couple of domains that are scattered at GoDaddy and another domain name registrar (who’s service is less than spectacular, so I’m going to pass on naming them), I have all my domains at Namecheap.

The discount code/coupon code for Namecheap for January is: WINTERFEVER

The code will cut your registration cost from $9.29 to $8.41.

It won’t make or break the bank for most affiliate marketers out there, but if you save a couple of hundred dollars, that translates into a couple hundred more clicks for you to do testing.

As the new year starts up, I’m hitting the ground running with a new campaign and got a bunch of domains yesterday.

If you’re new at this,  here’re a couple of domain strategies to think about:

• Domain names can be split tested like anything else. At $8-10 a pop, they don’t require as much effort as some of the other variables you might test. Split testing two similar domain names might mean the difference between a 1% and a 5% clickthrough rate (which is huge).
• Go for a benefit-laden domain as these get visitors intrigued, curious and ultimately, motivated to click. Marketing guru Dan Kennedy had to come up with the product name for a new insect killer, his choice “Kills Bugs Dead”. The result? Sales went through the roof…Nuff said.
• Adverbs in your domain name need to be in line with the mindset of your prospects. If you’re selling a high ticket item, you’d want to avoid “free”, “cheap” or “discount” and look at “Quality” or “Best” instead.
• Go for a 1-year registration and if it’s a winner, you can renew it next year. Even if a “2 year registration costs just $1 more”, you’ll probably want to do more tweaking before settling on a domain. I prefer having a whole bunch of 1-year domains to test with.

If you need a hosting account to go with your domains, look for webhosting providers which host a large number of domains. In some cases the hosting account will host an unlimited number of domains.

You might like to check out:

–> Hostmonster

–> Bluehost (slightly higher grade)

They’re both brands/corporate entities owned by the CEO Matt Heaton and are based in Orem, Utah.

• domain names
• 2 Comments

Since I started my Internet Marketing journey, I’ve been looking for the perfect web host.

I soon discovered “Perfect” wasn’t something that could easily be found.

This was after my experience of paying about $200 a year for hosting one domain name.

Industry insider told me that I should be paying less than $10 a month for a shared hosting account, and less than $20 for reseller hosting (with the ability to host unlimited domain names).

After much searching, I decided to go with Bluehost, especially since the Bluehost CEO Matt Heaton maintains a personal blog and he adopts an open approach in dealing with customers and the public, even going to the extent of talking about the problems he’s had with the 800 lb gorilla of domain names GoDaddy.

When I first signed up, Bluehost offered domain hosting for 6 domain names, 50 MySQL databases (one database is required for each forum, blog or content management solution you install).

I learned to appreciate Bluehost’s service when my other webhosting account crashed the other day. In the midst of a soft-launch for a new product too.

I guess I’m used to Bluehost proactively sending out emails to affected customers if their accounts are temporarily unavailable due to maintenance or service outages.

With my other webhost, I only found out that the account was down because customers sent me email saying the sales pages was inaccessible.

And yes, the “other” web host doesn’t have procedures to inform you that the system has gone down. You are directed to some cryptic page to check the status of the servers. I guess I realize that I should be refreshing the server status page every couple of hours in the midst of a product launch. Silly me…

Anyway, I don’t plan to renew that hosting plan when it expires in a few months time.

So having a good webhost (not necessarily the cheapest) will ultimately protect you in the pocket.

But back to Bluehost, I was pleasantly surprised that their new plan provides (more…)

• Web Hosting
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