Multi-level marketing is a huge industry with endless opportunities to fit your passion and lifestyle. Many people make a full or part-time living through MLM. In recent years, the Internet has made this even easier and most MLM companies provide their people with their own websites.

The Problem

As useful as these websites are for both promoting your MLM business and increasing your sales through online retail, they do involve a couple of inherent issues with regards to both marketing your business and the image of your business.

Most, if not all, multi-level marketing companies will provide you with your own website, whose address is simply a sub-directory of their primary website. Some examples of this are:

www.supervitamins.comm/johndoevitaminworld
www.sellcosmetics.com/megansmithcosmetics

The issue is that you must using these web site addresses to promote your business. As a general rule of business, your website should appear on all print materials and online postings, including business cards, brochures, blog posts, etc.

These sorts of addresses are:

• long and difficult to remember
• promote the primary companie’s brand more than your own
• look less professional that your own domain

Now, consider the issue of email. Email has become the communication medium of business. While phone calls are still prevalent, many users turn to email as a way of connecting with yoru company and asking questions.

When you are running a multi-level marketing business, you generally have two options: use an email address provided by the company, which uses their domain name, or use your personal email account, which for many people, means a free, online email service such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.

For years I have told my clients that relying on these sorts of services for you business is a less than desirable solution, if you can avoid it. Users are more trustworthy of a business that appears “solid”. That means it has its own web address and its own brand. Free email accounts make your business appear part-time and less professional. (Even if your business IS part time, we always want to give the impression of a full-time professional company)

So, as we have seen, relying on website and email addresses that are not taylored to your business, reduces your appearance of professionalism and credibility and makes targeted marketing more difficult. So what’s the answer?

The $30 Solution

Thanks to our friends at GoDaddy.com, the solution to this problem becomes simple and very cost effective.

Before going further, I should explain that I have no affiliation with GoDaddy.com, other than being a customer, myself. I am not part of an affiliate program or making money in any way by promoting them. I do think they offer an incredible group of services for a very good price. With that out of the way…

The first thing you need to do is register your own domain name with GoDaddy. As of the time of writing this article, a 1-year registration currently costs $10.69 a year.

Navigate to GoDaddy.com and use their simple domain search to see if your desired web address is available. Some basic rules about domains:

• They can not contain spaces or special characters other than a dash “-”.
• Shorter is better. Consider abbreviating or re-working if you have a long name. For example, instead of using megansmithcosmetics.com you want to try makeupbymegan.com. Or, instead of davidjoneshealthdrinks.com, you might try davidjoneshealth.com
• Even these days, .COM is still the preferred domain extension. That does not mean you should not go with a .NET or, if you a non-profit, a .ORG. It just means you should try to find something here, first.
• As a personal preference, I stay away from incorporating dashes in my domains. This is simply because we tend to say domain names as they sound. I might say “Check out my website, John Doe Health dot com.” However, if my domain is actually john-doe-health.com, the user won’t hear that unless I point out the dashes, specifically, which makes the domain harder to recall, later on.

Once you have your domain name, you will also want an email address for your shiny new domain. GoDaddy provides some very affordable email hosting services. If you are the only “employee” of your MLM operation, you can get a single email address with 1GB of storage for $1.19 a month (or $14.28 a year).

If you need multiple addresses, either for multiple distinct users or perhaps because you want separate emails for info and billing, then you can get up to 5 addresses with 2GB of storage for $1.67 a month (or $20.04 a year).

GoDaddy makes setting up your email easy, especially if you have also bought your domain through them.

So you have your domain and your email address. How do you get it to work with the website your MLM provider has given you? Thankfully, this is easy and will take only a couple of minutes.

Simply login to your GoDaddy.com account and then go to Domains>My Domains on their navigation bar. This will open a new browser window with your domain management control panel. Click on your domain name in the list, which will bring up the properties for your domain.

Among the various options and settings, you will see one called “Forwarding” whose current status will be “Off”. Click on the blue “Manage” link to the right to change this.

A popup will appear and ask you to enter the web address you want to forward this domain name to. enter your current web address (Example: www.supervitamins.comm/johndoevitaminworld) Then, click on the “Show Advanced Options” link, which will give you some more choices. Click on “Forward With Masking” This will not only forward everyone visiting your domain to your original site, but will keep your domain displayed in the browser’s address bar so that they won’t even realize they have been re-directed.

There are some optional fields you can fill out that deal with your website’s title, keywords, etc. These are not required, but are a good idea to fill in since they could help your website’s position in search engine rankings.

Once you are all set, click “OK” and you are done! Generally, the change will take about an hour or so before you notice it. So, after a while try entering your new web address into your browser and watch in amazement as your new, personalized, website is available.

So, $10.69 for your domain and $20.04 for your email (less, if you go for the single address option). For just about $30, you now have your own website address that you can, and should, include on all of your marketing materials and promote widely. Not only will it improve the image of your multi-level marketing venture, but it will make it easier for people to remember your website address and find you in the future.

Hosting · MLM · Website Marketing