It’s always great to see awesome companies online succeed, especially ones that you have been working with for many years. The funny thing about online companies, is that they really don’t need to do “real world advertising”, since they can do it so cost effectively and well online. An extremely well known hosting company in the internet marketing space is HostGator, and not only do they host a great majority of affiliate related sites, but they also make affiliates a massive amount of money as well! Over $400,000 is paid out to Host Gator affiliates every month! How sick is that!?
Host Gator just sent out one of their monthly mailing and it had some pretty exciting highlights for the company, which saw explosive growth in 2010. Here are just a few of their company highlights.
HostGator in the News
In 2010, HostGator grew by over 2 MILLION domains! At the beginning of 2010, the company had 2.9 million domains, and are now at nearly 5 million domains. The company has also expanded to over 500 employees, along with 64 new reps to handle customer support. But even more fun and exciting is how HostGator is making a big name for themselves in the offline world… look out GoDaddy, here comes HostGator!
The latest additions to the HostGator branding and marketing campaigns include billboards, a real NASCAR sponsorship and even being seen in an EA Sports UFC video game. Will we soon see a new celebrity sponsor for HostGator next? HostGator doesn’t just spend mad cash on ad campaigns… they’ve also donated $100,000 to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund.
I’m glad to see HostGator doing so well. Not only do they host millions of web sites, but they have also made a ton of affiliates a TON of money over the years with their amazingly successful affiliate program, which is available through their in-house affiliate program and through Commission Junction.
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I have a few servers with HostGator and you should too! Web hosting plans start as low as $4.95 a month. Another excellent perk of hosting with HostGator is they have one click install software for many applications and programs like WordPress. If you are setting up a ton of mini sites or completely clueless when it comes to installing software, HostGator makes this extremely easy to setup. Use coupon code ZACJOHNSON to get your first month of only for only 1 penny!
We hear it all the time, do something you are passionate about and the money will follow. While this may be true in some situations, it doesn’t apply to everything. However, if you are just starting a blog and have no idea where it could go, or how long you will stay interested, you might as well write something you are passionate about. This will not only provide quality content that you really know about, but you will want to stay active with your blog and it won’t die out for lack of interest. Depending on how many other people share your interest, and the success of your blog, the potential in this area can swing either way.
This one can easily fall into the “blogging for passion” category. It isn’t enough to simply watch our favorite players and teams on TV, but we also want to have our own thoughts and opinions and meet with other fans of our teams. Having a sports blog about your favorite team or player, is a great way to start a blog that makes you want to keep writing more and more content. If your sports blog gets enough attention, you may even be able to score some free game tickets, press passes or interview a few sports players. Revenue wise, sports blogs are tough because there are so many, but many sites offer affiliate programs where you can earn commissions on any referred sales for sports tickets, memorabilia, apparel and sporting goods.
A different, but very effective methods for making money with blogs, is through niche marketing, or mini sites. The concept of niche blogging is to create a blog on a small specific topic, then being one of the best blogs in that niche (mainly to rank high in search results). If you wanted to make a niche blog about “red widgets”, you would want to get an exact match domain name such as “redwidgets.com”, write specifically about red widgets, link to Amazon red widgets products you could buy, adding Google Adsense to your site and so on… Having a tight niche blog is a great way to teach yourself how to blog, while giving you the best chance for making some money in the process.
One of the biggest problems we see when trying to teach and motivate others to make money online or start their own business, is that they won’t put in the time and effort. Usually it’s because their either too lazy and not dedicated, or just expect to see immediate results…. but why should you expect immediate results? Whether you run a retail store or a web site, business is business and the same principles always apply, you need a solid structure and plan to make anything work.
Before jumping into your next ad campaign, or even starting a new web site or blog, take a step back and look at exactly who you are tying to target. We often come up with great ideas for new ad campaigns and site, then start getting excited with our ideas, without looking at the big picture and room for improvement. It’s not enough to target a niche, but it’s now more important than ever to focus on niches within niches.
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