Domain Redirects

When you are doing affiliate marketing one of the most helpful techniques you can use is the Domain redirect.

Here's how it works.

You have an affiliate program that you want to promote. While you could use the long, ugly affiliate link, it's much better to use a "cloaked" or disguised link. Not only does it look better and fit better into an email, but it is less likely to be "hijacked" by someone who replaces your affiliate ID with theirs.

Cloaked links are fine for online promotions. After all, someone is just clicking on them, so they don't need to be easy to read or pronounce.

However, you sometimes have affiliate links that you promote when you speak in front of an audience or on a teleseminar or webinar. When this is the case, you want the link to be easy to say and easy to remember. That's when you want to use a domain redirect.

You first purchase a domain that you can remember easily and that can be readily understood by your listeners. Plus it needs to relate to the topic of the link. For example, I recently purchased MySecretCopywriter.com to point to a copywriter who will write $97 sales letters. Now that's a secret!

Next you log into your domain registrar and choose to forward the domain name. Now you have a choice of a 301 or a 302 redirect. A 302 redirect is a temporary change. You might use it if you're building a new site and want to temporarily send traffic somewhere else in the meantime.

The 301 redirect is considered "permanent" and tells the search engines to go to the site from now on. Naturally you can change it. But if the affiliate program is paying well, you probably will keep it. So the 301 redirect should be your choice for a domain redirect.

Regardless of the type of redirect you choose, you also have the option to "mask" your destination. That means that instead of the ugly affiliate URL or the product's actual site showing in the browser's address bar, your domain name will show there. The visitor doesn't know there's another site behind there. Plus you get to add the page title, keywords and description to the masked domain, which is likely to result in better search engine positioning.

It takes less than a minute to redirect and mask a domain. It may take another 20 to 30 minutes for it to "resolve" across the Internet. So if you're planning to use one on a live program, plan to make the change at least an hour ahead of time.

Start today to use domain redirects for your affiliate marketing and watch the ease with which you refer visitors to paying links. You can watch a video of the process as well.