Yesterday I spent an hour or so talking to someone who was thinking about venturing into the world of internet marketing. She wanted to know how to get started plus what plan of action she should take to give herself a better chance of success. She told me about her idea (not gambling related) plus her ideas for content, which by all account would keep her busy for some time. I was very surprised to hear that she had also done a large amount of research in regards to how she was going to generate income from her site. I’m always amazed how most new to the affiliate industry dream up great ideas for sites but give very little thought into how their sites will make money.
To me her idea would be easy to brand so as you can guess I was dismayed to hear that she was in the process of bidding a small fortune for an exact match domain. I sat her down to show her how to do a little research regarding the traffic the exact match domain would generate if she even managed to ranked top 3 for the phrase. Then we did a little more research to find out what would be required to obtain a top 3 ranking. It soon became clear to her that she was wasting her time with the domain. Even if she did manage to purchase it, unless she ranked top 3 she was going to get very little traffic. Worse still was that the key phrase of her domain was too narrow for her niche.
Why affiliates think that they need an exact match domain I will never know. Google hates affiliate sites more than ever before, plus there is now growing evidence that branded sites are more effective in regards to return visitors. A good example is one of my major sites. It is one of the biggest UK poker forums although it has neither “poker” nor “forum” in the domain name. I have I think, done a great job of branding it. Many quality poker players have been seen wearing shirts with my forum logo. The brand of the forum is easily associated with the logo, which even has been seen on TV. I generate hundreds of new visitors to my site each month simply by typing the brand name into search engines. This to me proves how creating a brand can really work for you. Brands sell!
Many new affiliates put far too much emphasis on exact match domains, when in the real world they have less power than before. For example let’s look at online bingo affiliate sites. The big players have sites such as Bingo Port, Bingo Base and Bingo Street. These affiliates know the power of a brand and have worked hard to establish their own brand.
So my tip for any new affiliate who is trying to build a long term future in the affiliate industry is to build a brand and don’t worry about exact match domain.