AP 0170: What Happens When You Have an Inactive Domain?

AskPat 170 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, hey. What's up. everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 170 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you, again, to all of you who listen to the show. We just passed 2 million downloads. Sounds like I'm in Austin Powers there: “1 billion dollars.” No, we've just passed 2 million downloads, and it's only been seven months. This is incredible! A lot of you are talking about, how you love this show. Some of you even love it better than the Smart Passive Income podcast, and I just think that's so cool. So, thank you again so much for listening.

Also, thank you to our sponsors today, an awesome company I've been using a lot of lately. That is Lynda.com: l-y-n-d-a.com. This is a site, for those of you that don't know, that you can go to to get educated and watch incredibly, professionally done videos on anything, from business, to photography, to, I mean, there's just so many amazing things and great tools. Very easy to follow, and you can also learn on the go with the mobile apps on Lynda.com. One monthly low price gives you unlimited access to over 100,000 tutorials. And you can get a seven-day free trial right now if you go to Lynda.com. Again, that's l-y-n-d-a.com/askpat. Again, seven-day free trial, if you check that out.

Cool. Now, let's get to today's question from Michael.

Michael: Hi, Pat. Michael here. Thank you for all that you do. I really appreciate it. My doubt is about domains. Based on some of your posts in SPI and previous answers here on AskPat, you made it clear to us the importance of having good domains and securing them for the purposes of our branding. As we work on our site, we come up with different ideas and products that could be brandable and fit into a bigger brand, just like you've done with AskPat, which fits into Smart Passive Income. So, it's important to register those domains as soon as possible. But we might not be able to launch or implement that idea just yet. So, my question is, what happens to a domain we've registered but aren't using right away? And do you have any suggestions on how to use those domains while they sit idle? Thank you. I really appreciate all that you do. Take care. Have a good one.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Michael. Thank you for listening to the show and my other show too; it's so cool. Now, to answer your question, I'm going to first start with why domains are important. For those of you out there, who are listening, who might not understand, where this question is coming from. In previous episodes of AskPat and Smart Passive Income podcast, and many of the blog posts on SmartPassiveIncome.com as well, you could see that I actually use a lot of actual domain names. Not just the root domain and then some other word but, actually, the root domain is a totally brand-new, registered domain that I use within my brand. For example, when you go to AskPat.com, it actually redirects you to the AskPat page on SmartPassiveIncome.com. If you go to, let's see what else, EbookstheSmartWay.com, which is the title of my free giveaway for my ebook, it takes you to a page on SmartPassiveIncome.com, SmartPassiveIncome.com/ebooks-the-smart-way, and that's the landing page for that, where you can sign up for that book and get that for free. And you can see right there why I do it. It's so much easier to say, “Oh, go to EbookstheSmartWay.com” as opposed to eBooks-smart-, or whatever it is, right? It's so much easier. It's even easier for me to say then the long ones. Yes, there are tools out there that can make it easy to do something like SmartPassiveIncome.com/book. That's using a WordPress plugin called Pretty Link, which, there's a free version and then a paid version. The free version is actually the one I use, and that works really well. But, for your most important stuff, getting a domain name, actually buying a completely brand new domain name that then forwards to a particular page on your site or some other thing that you have. You might even purchase that for a future project. Like, you were saying, Michael, that you might not be able to implement right now.

So, to answer your question, “Well, what do you do with those when you don't actually have the resource to use them?” Maybe it's something that you're planning to use in the future, but you don't have the resources yet to implement those, or, you're being smart and you're focusing on what you need to focus on now, although you are also planning ahead for the future. I think this is a great question. There's a lot of things you can do with that page. You could redirect it to a page on your site. You can have it forward and, if you buy your domain through something like … or wherever you buy your domain, you can always forward it to another page.

So, if it makes sense for … Say you have this project in mind, in the future, that's going to utilize this domain name, which is really nice, but you also talk about it on other pages on your site too. You can temporarily forward it to those pages on your site that already exists about that topic. Then, if you were to mention it in passing, whether in a podcast, or an interview, or youtube channel, or say, “Hey, guys, I'm going to get something ready for you in the future. In the meantime, go to this domain name,” which kind of gets them ready, gets them listen … you know, hearing that domain name, so that when it comes in the future, it's already implanted in their heads. You could do that. You could, again, link to a temporary article or blog post about that topic that you're going to be then creating a website for or redirecting to a new landing page for in the future. You could also do something like, if you are planning on coming out with something in the future and you're not quite there yet but, you can spend a little bit of time and, with a lot of tools out there, it's even very little time to put up a landing page. You could use a tool like Leadpages, which I mentioned a lot here on the show. If you go to AskPat.com/Leadpages, you could check out that software, which makes it incredibly easy to create any sort of landing page. There's a whole bunch of templates there. I'm actually an advisor for the company, but I'm not going to try and pitch it to you here, but that is my feeling. Link, AskPat.com/Leadpages, if you're interested in it. And you can have that domain become a lead page, where you can just collect emails in anticipation for what you're going to do in the future. What's cool with Leadpages is you can actually have it host; you can have your lead page hosted on Leadpages. So, you just simply redirect to that lead page with that url.

And, again, you're sort of having that up there temporarily, but it's actually serving a purpose. It's actually there to collect, to build hype, build buzz and excitement. But, also, get people primed and have them prescribe to a list where then you can keep in contact with them as you move forward with that project. Or, whenever it's ready, you can then have a list already there to drive people back to that page. Or you can just do what, I even do this, I just let some of those sit there. I'm using most of the ones I have, but I do have some domain names for a future project that just aren't ready yet. Either I haven't gotten to the Leadpage, or it's just doesn't fit in my branding yet, but I have it there just in case, and they're just sitting there. They're just sitting there, and if … the thing is, when you're just letting your domain sit there, you are going to have to pay every year. However, to me, it's worth it for those domain names that I do have.

Now, you can go a little bit overboard. I know a number of people who have hundreds of domain names, and they're paying yearly for those. You know, just a little tip, if you are buying hundreds of domain names that are just sitting there, you might benefit from contacting the company you are buying those domain from, whether it's GoDaddy or your hosting company. You might be able to get a discount. I know GoDaddy, for example, has special discounts for bulk domain purchasing and upgrading and things like that. So, you know, you can save a little bit of money that way as well. You can also save money if you're buying domain names in the future by going through something like GoDaddy. Again, just for your domain name, you could still host on another company. But, GoDaddy has these 99-cent domains, or they have, you know, you could do searches for coupons for that month. If it's September 2014, you could type in “GoDaddy September 2014 coupon” and you might be able to get a domain name for just a couple of bucks.

And, actually, here's a great tip: If you are going through GoDaddy, which makes it a little bit harder, 'cause if it's not tied to your hosting, the easiest thing to do is to say, “Hey.” For example, if you're on Bluehost, which is the hosting company I recommend if you're just getting started out, you can add domain names, unlimited domain names to your hosting account. However, you will have to pay 10 bucks a year. The thing is about that, it's just really easy. It's on your host already, and it's there, and you could start working with it; you could start forwarding right away and building off of that if it's something you want to build off of. But, if you want to save a lot more money, you can go to Google, type in “GoDaddy” in the search, not in the url, but in the search, and then, when the search comes up, you'll notice these links under the link for GoDaddy. There's like, sort of sub-links. There's one that says “99-cent domain names.” And you can check that out. Oftentimes, you can get your new .com, or new .net, or .orgs there for 99 cents, only for the first year. Then, of course, if you have that domain, over time you have to keep paying for it. I, for example, have my kids names for a domain and I don't have any landing page. There's no reason to collect email addresses on my kids names right now. But they're there for when they're ready to use them, and that's a great tip if you're a parent, and you have a kid, and you want to just hook your kid up in the future with a domain name. Go ahead and grab it now, if possible.

Cool. So, I hope that answers your question, Michael. There's a lot of different things you could do beyond just letting it sit there and you having to pay for it. Like I said, landing pages or redirecting to pages on your site that are relevant to it. So, thank you so much for your question, Michael, and an AskPat T-shirt is headed your way. You'll get a email from my assistant very soon about that. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page.

I also want to thank today's amazing sponsor, which is Lynda.com. Seriously, education doesn't stop after you stop school. It's a lifelong thing. For education online, today the best platform, I feel, is Lynda.com. Going through a couple of courses right now, a couple business-related courses, but also one in photography that is teaching me how to use my DSLR camera on modes other than automatic, if you know what I mean. There's new courses added daily. Like I said, incredibly high quality. You can learn on the go and unlimited access for one low monthly price. You can get a seven-day free trial. Seven days for free. Check it out. Go to Lynda.com/askpat.

Awesome. Thanks so much, and, as always, I'd like to end with a quote. Today's quote is from Damon Richards, and he says, “Your customer doesn't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.