AP 0658: Why Do You Set Up URL Redirects for New Projects?

AskPat 658 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 658 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.

We have an awesome question today from James, but before we get to his question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is DesignCrowd.com. DesignCrowd.com helps entrepreneurs and small businesses outsource or crowdsource custom graphic, logo and web design from designers all around the world. Design Crowd has more than 500,000 designers from over 100 countries ready to help you any creative and design projects that you might have. So, check out DesignCrowd.com; it's DesignCrowd.com. To learn more and get started today with a special VIP offer just for our listeners at designcrowd.com/askpat. Again, that's designcrowd.com/askpat.

Sweet. Here's today's question from James.

James: Hey, Pat. This is James. I've noticed that most of the time when you launch a new domain like “Ebooks the Smart Way” or AskPat or willitflybook.com, that you actually just redirect to a page inside of Smart Passive Income. I'm wondering first … can you tell me, like, why you do that? Is it just because it's easier than launching a whole new site, or is there some other reason for it? Also, can you explain how to do it? I guess I'm just not super tech savvy so I'm wondering if its done on the back end or is there something within WordPress that you use. So, I'm just kind of wondering the rationale and the method behind it. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate everything that you do, as you know, and I look forward to hearing your answer. Thanks a lot.

Pat Flynn: Hey, James. Thanks so much for the question. I appreciate it. Appreciate your support, as always, thank you so much. Now, the reason I do this is because I want everybody to come back to my website. Because these things like Ebooks the Smart Way or Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way those kinds of things. They all are a part of the SPI brand, but I just am making it easier for people to get to those things. Especially with Email the Smart Way, or Ebooks the Smart Way, or Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way. When I mention those names on a video or a podcast episode, it's much easier to remember than smartpassiveincome.com/affiliate-smart-marketing-smart-way or whatever. So, that's why I do it that way.

For AskPat, it's a little bit different. AskPat could have been its own website, but you are absolutely right. It's a lot easier to just to have it live on your own website than create a whole new website from scratch and have it be another thing to manage, another server to pay for, another etcetera. So that's why I do it that way. Now the technical part of it is actually very easy. It's still going to be a little bit difficult for those starting out who don't know what to do but I'm hopefully going to help you out here.

So, you buy a new domain name on something like GoDaddy.com, which sometimes you can do for 99 cents. I would actually look up on Google “99 cents domain names GoDaddy.” Noah Kagan thought me this trick. It's not actually a trick, but it's just … they have them available if you go through the right channel. So look up '99 cents go daddy domain' and sometimes you can get it. Sometimes I've missed it for whatever reason but you might be able to check it out. You can also look up a lot of coupon codes that you could use to get these domain names for cheap as well. You buy a domain name, just the domain name. You don't need anything else. You may want to also include whois privacy if you want to keep your address that you use out of people's hands. So just keep that in mind. So that's an additional yearly cost, but it's not going to be that much.

Then, instead of actually just building a website on that domain, you go to the domain manager, and this works not just for GoDaddy but with any other hosting companies or domain name companies that really … So you go to the part where you manage the domains and from there you select the domain that you bought, that you want to forward to something else. That's the key word there, “forward.” You can forward that domain to any other website you want and you would just forward it to your own on that particular page or post that you would want everybody to land. So you can see how this works. Just go to ebooksthesmartway.com that forwards you to … actually, what does that forward you to? See, I don't even know anymore. So, ebooksthesmartway.com, and that forwards you to smartpassiveincome.com/ebooks-the-smart-way. It says “Get my Ebooks the Smart Way for free” and you can subscribe there to get it and all these other stuff, testimonials, and whatnot. Yeah, that's how it works.

These ones are pages that are just using the basic template that comes with WordPress. AskPat is a special template that was created by my team on the new redesign specifically for that podcast because there's certain things involved with it that are different from some of the other ones. So just keep that in mind. But you can just set up a page or again, it might even be a blog post. Those domains don't even have to forward to your own stuff. I've known a few people who have used those as affiliate links for other things. So you could do that but I would make sure that with whatever products you are promoting as an affiliate that you are allowed to do that. Sometimes you are not. So just keep that in my.

Once again, James, thank you for the question. I appreciate it. I believe you might already have a t-shirt. If you do, we'll figure out what to do with it later, but because we typically don't send out, or people who have a t-shirt already typically offer to gift it. We'll check with you to see what you want to do with that. Maybe you want a second one, which is fine, but we'll make sure we figure it out before we run any contests or anything with other listeners or people on Twitter like we did on the last episode, actually.

Anyway, I just want to thank you, James, for the question. I appreciate it and I appreciate your support. Thank you so much. For everybody else out there, thank you. If you have a question that you'd like to potentially featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to askpat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

I appreciate you, and here's a quote to finish off the day by Jeff Bullas. He says, “Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play. This turns possible underachievers into happy warriors.” Be warriors, everybody. Thanks so much. Maybe not a Golden State Warrior, because they lost in the finals, but anyway, thanks so much. I appreciate you and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.