Many network marketers are able to sign up for an affiliate website with the company they distribute for. This means that while the main company website might be www . companyx . com, Joe Blow can pay $20 a month and get the site joeblow . companyx . com. Then his Contact page and other similar pages would be customized with his information, while pages like the product information section would have the same information that everyone else's site.
Many of those same entrepreneurs are affiliated with multiple distributors. So they often times end up with other sites as well, like joeblow . anothercompany . com, www . yetanothercompany . net / joeblow and so on. Some people may have as many as ten websites, paying anywhere from $10 - $30 a month. Then, as anyone would, they list their websites on their business card. But with so many websites, their card can be cluttered.
Maybe you're one of the people in that second category. Unfortunately, when you give people that cluttered card, you convey unprofessionalism. There's nothing to differentiate you from someone who signs up as an affiliate one day, and is gone with the money the next. Instead, consider getting your own domain and setting up a gateway page.
A gateway page is a simple, one-page site that links to all of the other sites. So instead of having a cluttered business card with all of your websites on it, you'll have one simple, easy to remember domain name on there. Not only that, but you can also set up an email address with your domain, lending yourself even more credibility.
Perhaps best of all, you can then drop all your other affiliate sites. Unless their accounts also have tools like a calendar and auto-responders, there's no real need to keep your account with them. This could potentially save hundreds of dollars per month.
So do yourself a favor. Set up a gateway site. Become more professional and save yourself some money doing so.
Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.