Last Tuesday night the Connecticut chapter of APLD hosted a webinar in which I presented How to Build a Presence Online Without a Traditional Website.

This is a favorite topic of mine because as a landscape designer or landscape architect, you don't necessarily have to have a traditional company website.

There are many other options available Online that enable us to get our "message" (services, portfolio, our design process, etc) to the masses just as a traditional website would. These other options are less expensive, require less time in creating and offer a very appealing and professional presentation.

These solutions are terrific for designers who are in the beginning stages of their careers, designers working for others as well as students.

You can watch the replay of the webinar in its entirety here and learn about the resources I'm referring to.

What I want to touch on in this week's Profit Tip is the last thing I discussed in the webinar. And that is how to forward a domain.

Let me illustrate this with an example. When I first started writing The Little Green Book I registered the domain www.Lil-Green-Book.com (It's the best I could get). Just because I own that domain name does not mean I have to have a website. Instead, I forward www.Lil-Green-Book.com to this longer URL:

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/public/264.cfm

This is just a single page on LandscapeLeadership.com where people can buy the book. I'm sure you can see why I do this. It's much easier to use the shorter URL in marketing my book. It's pretty obvious which one I would put on my business card.

I suggest doing the same if you are using one of these other resources that I discuss in the webinar.

For instance, if you utilize a Facebook Page (or "Fan Page") in marketing your business, your URL may look like this:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Traverse-City-MI/Landscapes-R-Us/102236191331?ref=mf

That's an awfully long URL to share with someone. Instead, you could register the domain www.Landscapes-R-Us.com and forward it to the above URL.

I've done the same with my VisualCV: www.ChrisHeiler.com forwards to http://www.visualcv.com/chrisheiler.

This just looks a lot more professional.

This is simple to do. The only cost involved is registering your domain name if you haven't already. I use GoDaddy.com for registering and forwarding domains. In the video below, I walk you through the process:

To your success,

Chris Heiler

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