Marketing Campaigns – Testing Your Variables

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Irrespective of the medium, an online advertising campaign needs to be tested and optimized constantly in order to provide you with the optimum results. This is where advertising testing can play an important role in your marketing strategy. Despite the advantages to testing your online marketing campaigns, relatively few companies actually go out of their way to see what what works, what doesn’t and, more importantly, why.

Steps To Testing Your Ad Campaign.

1) Set expectations as to how you envisage your campaign to perform. This in itself will guide you’re optimization methods. An example of this is, if you expect your ad medium to get a 15% click thru rate or a, 10% conversion rate, you have justification in making adjustments to your campaign if the creative you are using does not perform to your level of expectation.

2) Don’t get tied into a campaign, If you are going to be purchasing an advertising campaign on a resource site, ensure you have an ‘out clause’. This out clause will enable you to terminate the campaign as long as it has run for a set amount of time, usually, many resources will be happy to give you an out clause especially, if after testing your marketing materials, the results you were hoping for have still not shown themselves.

3) Consider the variables in your ad campaign, usually, webmasters only think of the one variable in their advertising campaign – Price. However, there are many more variables to be looked at for example, if you are doing a mail drop, the subject line of the email, format and, copy text of the email body itself, all of these things can have a drastic effect on any given advertising campaign, at any given time and often, these can, and most probably will, fluctuate from site to site where you are purchasing ad space.

4) Stats tracking, tracking your campaign makes it easier to test and review how your advertising medium is working for you, many sites offer live stats for your ad campaigns however, some still do not, where this isn’t a problem in itself as, most companies you choose to advertise with will be more than happy to provide you with statistics as and when you need them after all, you are paying for their services and support.

5) Pull the plug on campaigns that are not performing, however, ensure you have changed your creative several times before doing so, often, you will find a simple change such as a new creative can drastically increase your marketing efforts. Also, do not just pull advertising as you feel like it, if your campaign has only been active for a week, don’t expect hundred / thousands of hits instantly, often it takes webmasters a while to realize there are new ad mediums running on the sites they visit so often.

Online Advertising – Review.

By constantly assessing and testing your advertising campaigns you can pull some interesting figures which can help you long term however, don’t rush into pulling campaigns that you have only just started. Give it a few days, change your copy text and creatives and, if that doesn’t work talk to the company, they will be able to offer you advice and help on improving your sales from your advertising medium after all, they want to keep your business.

Article written by Lee

Obscenity – Put It To The Test

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

Regardless of how long any of us have been an adult webmaster we all need to be
aware of obscenity laws and, in particular how they affect our businesses
whether we think a hardcore photoset is ‘obscene’ or not ultimately, if you get
taken to court on obscenity charges the one thing you should be aware of is how
the courts will decide whether the images you are using will be classified as
obscene or not.

Testing Obscenity – The Miller Test.

The Miller test was developed in the 1973 court case of Miller vs. California
and in comprises of three parts ALL of which MUST be satisfied on order for
something to be deemed obscene by the courts. The Miller test is the ‘official’
method used by the United States Supreme Court for determining whether an
expression or a speech can be determined as obscene and, if deemed obscene, it
is not protected under the First Amendment and is therefore prohibited by law.

The Miller Test – Part One.

Part one of The Miller Test states something may be obscene if ‘the average
person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find that the
work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest’ In essence, this
means that if the ‘average’ person on a jury or on the bench finds the work to
be deemed obscene then, it is. However for the court to rule something as
obscene it also has to be deemed obscene by the standards set in part two and
part three below.

The Miller Test – Part Two.

Part two of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene is
‘the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would
find that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual
conduct’. Basically this is saying that if the images or speech is something
which is not practiced in a manner befitting your local community standards
then again, it may be obscene. However, as with part one of The Miller Test for
a court to find something obscene it needs to fall below the standards in part
three below.

The Miller Test – Part Three.

Part three of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene if,
‘a reasonable person would find that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious
literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.’ This is pretty much where
you could potentially come unstuck after all, everyone has different sexual
tastes and because of this, just because something that may be widespread such
as ‘bare backing’ (to use as an example) could potentially be considered as
obscene if you happen to have a jury who are devout practicers of safe sex.

The Miller Test – Overview.

In essence The Miller Test is a useful guideline for webmasters when it comes
to operating our sites and specifically, when it comes to choosing the types of
content we utilize on them however, for the most part The Miller Test itself is
outdated. Since the early 70’s when this test was devised there have been many
sexual practices that were once deemed obscene that have become more a part of
everyday life and accepted in to society as whole thus, what once would (or
could) have been deemed obscene would no longer be in the same sense as
something that may be deemed obscene today could be found not to be in 5 years
time.

Article written by Lee

Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 8 – Final Stage

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

Ok people we have hit the final stage in our surfer trap, Stage 8.

All we are really going to do in this stage is a brief recap over what we have done so far along with checking that our trap is working properly.

In order for us to check our trap is working properly we need to upload it to our server if we haven’t already done so, therefore, you should do this now.

Once the surfer trap has been uploaded we now need to go to the first page, the Multi-Site FPA.

Depending on how you set up your Multi-Site FPA you should either get a pop up or not.

You should also have a counter AND a banner exchange code loading at the bottom of the page below your ‘no thanks’ link.

If this works how you want it to then this stage is working ok.

The next thing we need to check is that ALL of the links off this Multi-Site FPA are working so expect to get a lot of pop-ups while we check this.

You should click on each of the Single-Site FPA’s in turn ensuring that for every one you have a pop-up console appear.

In addition to checking the Single-Site FPA links you should now click on the ‘no thanks’ link along with the counter code and the banner exchange code on your Multi-Site and Single-Site FPA’s.

If these all load fine then this stage of the checking is complete.

Next, we need to close down any and all of the FPA’s we may have open including the Multi-Site FPA.

You should now be left with a couple of consoles, again, follow the links on your consoles including any to the counter you chose along with any banner exchange code you utilized on your consoles.

Again if these work how you expected them to, this section of the checking process is now complete.

For the next step, you need to log into your counter AND banner exchange account, you want to make sure that you have gained additional impressions and rankings from your banner and counter impressions and clicks.

Be aware however, that some counters and banner exchanges will not count multiple views and click from the same IP address so you may only show one or two additional clicks, impressions, or rankings. This is perfectly normal.

If your accounts have gained additional ranks, impressions, and clicks then this stage is completed.

Close down your consoles, you should now get the blur consoles that you created (if you used them) again, as before, check that all of the links from this consoles work.

If they do then you now have a fully complete Surfer Trap to use.

So, what next? Well there are a couple of options, you can mirror this surfer trap to experiment with your sponsors different tour pages, link your first mirror to the second tour page, your third to console free tour pages, etc.

Another good thing that you can do is to create additional Multi-Site FPA’s however, this time, create them by niche so where we have a general Multi-Site FPA at the moment you could use this same method for a Gay, Asian, Teen, etc Multi-Site FPA using the same methods we did when we created this trap.

You should always sign up for a new counter and banner exchange code for each variation of your surfer trap. This way, you get to see performance based on a new working model enabling you to decide which version of the trap works best for you.

I hope this tutorial has given you some insight into how we can generate, filter and trade traffic whilst marketing our sites effectively and, that it has given you some ideas on how you can implement even the simplest item provided to you by your sponsor to generate sales.

For those of you who have been following this tutorial I would like to thank you and wish you all the best with your new found marketing skills.

If you have any questions as always, feel free to post on the forums and we will endeavor to help you out.

Article written by Lee.

SEO Pyramid Scheme

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Search Engine Optimization | Response: 0

I thought i would spend a little time to let you guys in on a little something i like to call the SEO Pyramid Scheme

Basically, we all know the importance of targeting specific keywords and phrases however, this isn’t necessarily the easiest of things to do until now…

Lets take a simple free site as our example, We know we have to have Meta Tags, Descriptions, Alt Texts and Body text on our site but how do we keep this all in within the theme of our site and, more importantly, how do we make sure we target as much of our niche traffic as needed? Actually the process itself is a simple one that has been around for many years however, very few people make good use of it.

So we have our free site all ready and waiting to be optimized for the search engines the first thing we need to do is take a look at our sites content (read as images) and make a short mental description of them so for example, if we have a teen site the pictures may be of a ‘blonde sexy teen model wearing stockings’.

That description is the basis for our keyword pyramid.

We now have to construct our pyramid based on that brief description so we start o break it down word by word for example:

Blonde
Sexy
Teen
Model
Stockings

That is our primary layer in the pyramid already completed, not so hard really was it

Now comes our second level in our SEO pyramid:

Blonde Sexy
Sexy Teen
Teen Model
Model Stockings

As you can see from this we now have our secondary layer of the pyramid all worked out onto our tertiary layer:

Blonde Sexy Teen
Sexy Teen Model
Teen Model Stockings

Now we have our tertiary layer for our pyramid we can continue this for further layer like this:

Blonde Sexy Teen Model
Sexy Teen Model Stockings

Again, we can break this down one more level like this:

Blonde Sexy Teen Model Stockings

We now have 5 layers to our pyramid.

The next stage is to incorporate these layers into both your Meta Tags and, more importantly you body text.

Take each layer in turn and, where possible include one line from each later into each portion of our HTML code from the Meta Tags, Alt Tags, Main Body Text, Hyperlink Text and, Image File Names.

By working through each layer of this SEO pyramid at a time you will not only discover keyword rich phrases that you could otherwise be missing out on in the search engines but, you will give your sites a theme making your chances of being listed for the correct search terms even better.

Article written by Le

Fonts – Everything You Wanted To Know

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

All web browsers use standard fonts. Mostly two types, one for proportional, one for mono spaced fonts. Proportional (or variable width) characters adapt in width, an “m” uses more space than an “i”. Mono spaced (or fixed width) characters are all equal in width, typewriter style.

Most browsers use “Times” for proportional fonts. This font was originally developed by the London Times news paper. “Courier” is used for mono spaced. This was a very popular font used for mechanical typewriters. Both are normally set to 12 points (1/72nd of an inch).

Serif And Sans Serif.

Both these fonts are so called serif fonts. The French word serif indicates the little strokes at the outer ends of the characters. They are very old, you see them in old gothic handwriting, or Greek and Roman buildings. Partly used for ornamental reasons, partly because the characters are easier distinguished.
It’s a little odd they are used on computer screens. These are by nature quite coarse, which makes serif characters quite grainy and ugly. Sans serif characters generally display a lot better on screens. Sans serif literally translates to “without stroke”. Probably the most popular sans serif font is Helvetica or derivatives like Windows’ Arial.

<FONT FACE=”Arial”>…</FONT>

The FONT Tag.

The html tag for fonts is a somewhat crude instrument. Most word processors let you use any font you like, as long as it’s on your system. And that’s the first big problem in web browsers. You have no control over other systems’ fonts. So you will have to choose a font which is likely to be on any system out there.

<FONT FACE=”Arial,Helvetica,Sansserif”>…</FONT>

Typeface.

The font tag accommodates this by letting you specify several fonts in the FACE attribute. If the first one is not available, the second is used, and so on. The set above is often used. Arial is on all Windows systems, Helvetica on Macintosh, Sans serif on UNIX. The same is true for mono spaced fonts in the line below.

<FONT FACE=”Courier New,Courier,Mono”>…</FONT>

Size.

Word processors let you specify font sizes in points exactly. No such luck in web browsers. There are seven sizes to choose from, denoted 1 (smallest) through 7 (largest). If this SIZE attribute is not used it defaults to 3. I think the default 12 point size is a bit big, so I use 2 for size, which gives you about a 10 point character. Some browsers let you set the overall font size smaller or larger. Which makes this issue even more awkward.

<FONT SIZE=”2″>…</FONT>

There is a nasty bug in some browsers. When using a block of text with size 1, the last line skips a line. This bug can be squashed by putting a <BR> tag immediately after the block of text. If your browser has this bug it will show in the second text below.

There is a nasty bug in some browsers. When using a block of text with size 1, the last line skips a line. This bug can be squashed by putting a <BR> tag immediately after the block of text (with break).

Color.

Fonts can have any color you like, much like the colors in the body tag. Keep readability always in mind, avoid clashing colors and little contrast. You can create nice shading effects. But don’t make a Christmas tree out of your page by using too many colors.

<FONT COLOR=”red”>…</FONT>

Style Sheets.

There is a chance all this soon will be replaced by style sheets. They do let you specify exact point sizes, even use downloadable fonts. But for now I would advise against that, since not all current browsers understand them. You could however use a combination of both, should you want to.

Article written by Lee

Promo Material – Make The Most Of Your Marketing

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Penis Enlargement Pills

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Sponsors | Response: 0

Well if you’re a guy who had to shower after gym class, or woman with a boring husband or a gay man looking for Mr. Right we all know SIZE Matters!

Do I a have your attention? Good! Now, let’s get on with it!

Like many people, I have always experimented with secondary or even tertiary sponsors for my free sites. In my case most of them do not only pertain to a site membership. I have found success with things like, Viagra online; security programs to remove you net affairs; sex toys and videos; and, today’s’ latest a greatest is penis enlargement remedies.

I’m finding some astonishing success with these herbal penis enlargement products. I’m SELLING it not USING it! LOL. Some of us don’t need it <wink>. But I’m finding lots of my surfers do need it, or at least want it.

A couple of months ago after seeing an influx of email to Gay Wide Webmasters for hints on selling penis enlargement medications, I decided it would only benefit my member and myself to experiment. I used a sponsor on Gay Wide Webmasters, Albion Medical who boasted great returns and high payouts. Well what I was in store for was BETTER than I expected. By the way, here’s a little secret; I do sign up for my own sponsors but under my real name, so unless they really look hard, they do not know it’s me. I don’t go boasting with out proper backup = )

Amid my salesmanship attempts for surfers to “Sign Up!” I sprinkled my secondary ads for Penis Growth among the pics with lines like “Become Mr. Right – turn your dick into a DONG” or “Make your manhood massive… Even straight guys will look!” And to my surprise, it worked wonders. I know there is an attitude in the gay male community to seek perfection physical most of all. And it definitely came clearer to me with the number of sales.

It’s funny how many different ways you can approach selling things that will enhance a person. To me, telling me I need something to make me better pisses me off. Don’t try selling something to me by TELLING ME I’m not right. Or what I have is wrong. I’m definitely a person who marches to the beat of his own drum. And then there are people who NEED to be told they are not everything society expects them to be. That they are doing or have something wrong but it can be fix and you have the solution.

Like the examples above, “Become Mr. Right…” I took the effect that I was letting the surfer make up his own mind. Does he have an issue? It was entirely up to him to decide. Let me tell you, it works well on gay traffic. Let the gay surfer decide yes or no.

NOW, I tried a different approach and gauged the success/failure. I popped in text links like “Aren’t you upset by how small your penis is?” “Remember the guys making fun of you in the showers after gym?” or “Are you sick that you don’t fill up you the front of your briefs?” Well let me tell you the number of Emails I rec’d was “enlarged”! For the most part I was getting mail from men who felt I was exploiting them, even making fun of them. I made them feel inadequate and they lost their hard-on. My site was meant to entertain not disdain them. All I could say was WOW! I didn’t expect that kind of response. I will tell you that I was very happy that I didn’t do it across all of my sites and only a few. So I moved everything back to my “Let him decide” campaigns.

The affect of the sales on the “insulting ads” was evident. According to my traffic program it was apparent that these ads were NOT getting clicks. Instead the surfers clicked on my email link to voice their disgust.

The bottom line of all this? With the proper motivation, the right marketing approach, surfers enjoy the seclusion of buying penis enlargement aids online. It is a great addition to your web site income among other avenues.

Article written by Gary-Alan

What On Earth Is CGI?

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Let’s unlock a little bit of the mystery about something called CGI. If it helps any, CGI means Common Gateway Interface.

This is a method which is used to swap data between the server (the hardware and software that actually allows you to get to your web site) and a web client (your browser). CGI is actually a set of standards where a program or script (a series of commands) can send data back to the web server where it can be processed.

Typically, you use standard HTML tags to get data from a person, then pass that data to a CGI routine. The CGI routine then performs some action with the data.

Some of the more common uses of CGI include:

Guest books – The CGI routine is responsible for accepting the data, ensuring it is valid, sending an email acknowledgement back to the writer, perhaps sending an email to the webmaster, and creating the guest book entry itself.

Email Forms – A simple CGI forms routine just formats the data into an email and sends it back to the webmaster. More complicated routines can maintain a database, send an acknowledgement and validate data.

Mailing List Maintenance – These routines allow visitors to subscribe and unsubscribe from a mailing list. In this case, the CGI routine maintains a database of email addresses, and the better ones send acknowledgements back to the visitor and webmaster.

A CGI routine can be anything which understands the CGI standard. A popular CGI language is called PERL, which is simple to understand and use (well, compared to other languages). PERL is a scripting language, which means each time a PERL routine is executed the web server must examine the PERL commands to determine what to do. In contrast, a compiled language such as C++ or Visual Basic can be directly executed, which is faster and more efficient.

Okay, in a nutshell (and greatly simplified), here’s how it works:

1) You (the webmaster) specify a form tag which includes the name of the CGI routine.

2) You create HTML tags which retrieves data from your visitors.

3) Each of the input tags includes a variable name. The data which is retrieved from the visitor (or directly set if the tag includes the “hidden” qualifier) is placed in the variable name.

4) When the visitor presses the “submit” button, the CGI routine which was specified in the form tag is executed. At this time, the CGI routine “takes control”, meaning the browser essentially is waiting for it to complete.

5) This CGI routine can get data from variable names. It retrieves the data and does whatever action is required.

6) When the CGI routine finishes, it returns control back to the browser.

Some important things to remember about CGI routines:

You can install CGI routines on your own site if your host allows it http://www.webair.com is an example of a web host which allows for CGI routines. Some web hosts do not allow you to install your own routines but do provide some pre-written ones to you. If these are not sufficient for your needs, you can find a remote hosting service to provide the necessary functions.

Generally, if you install your own routines they must be installed in the cgi-bin directory of your site. This is a special location which allows scripts and programs to be executed.

CGI routines work best on Apache-style servers. Windows NT and Windows 2000 does support CGI, but it tends to be slow and problematic.

If you use a remote hosting service, you must remember that although they appear to be giving you this for free, you are actually paying a price. Usually they want to display advertisements, although some of them actually take visitors away from your site.

When you write a CGI routine, you have the choice of a scripting language like PERL or a compiled language such as C++ or Visual Basic. Anything which can execute on the web server is acceptable.

I hope this short introduction to CGI has cleared up some of the mystery.

Article written by Lee

Saving Time Online – Shortcut Keys

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

The one thing that i have started to do just lately is use shortcut keys. These are actually very easy to get used to and, will save you a lot of effort over a period of time.

Below you will find a list of the more common shortcut keys in both Windows and Internet Explorer.

Even if you get used to using one or two of these shortcut keys you will notice the time you start save over a week, hell, i don’t even type the whole domain into my IE address bar anymore!

Here are the shortcuts for Windows along with the description of what they do:

Alt + F – File menu options in current program.
Alt + E – Edit options in current program
F1 – Universal Help.
Ctrl + A – Select all text.
Ctrl + X – Cut selected item.
Shift + Del – Cut selected item.
Ctrl + C – Copy selected item.
Ctrl + Ins – Copy selected item
Ctrl + V – Paste
Shift + Ins – Paste
Home – Goes to beginning of current line.
Ctrl + Home – Goes to beginning of document.
End – Goes to end of current line.
Ctrl + End – Goes to end of document.
Shift + Home – Highlights from current position to beginning of line.
Shift + End – Highlights from current position to end of line.
Ctrl + Left – Moves one word to the left at a time.
Ctrl + Right – Moves one word to the right at a time.
Ctrl + Backspace – Delete word to the left of cursor.
Ctrl + Del – Delete word to the right of cursor.
Alt + Tab – Switch between open applications.
Alt + Shift + Tab – Switch backwards between open applications.
Ctrl + Esc – Bring Up start button.
Alt + Esc – Switch Between open applications on taskbar.
F2 – Renames selected Icon
F3 – Starts find from desktop
F4 – Opens the drive selection when browsing.
F5 – Refresh Contents
Alt + F4 – Closes Current open program.
Ctrl + F4 – Closes Window in Program
Alt + Enter – Opens properties window of Selected icon or program.
Shift + F10 – Simulates right click on selected item.
Shift + Del – Delete programs/files without throwing into the recycle bin.
Holding Shift – Boot safe mode or by pass system files.
Holding Shift – When putting in an audio cd will prevent CD Player from playing.

The following list are shortcut keys when using Internet Explorer:

Alt + Left – Back a page.
Alt + Right – Forward a page.
F5 – Refresh current page / frame.
Esc – Stop page or download from loading.
Ctrl + Enter – Quickly complete an address.
Ctrl + N – Open New browser window.
Ctrl + P – Print current page / frame.

Hopefully this list of shortcut keys will get you saving some time even if its just a few minutes a day. After all, we all know the one thing webmasters need more of is time.

Article written by Lee

Networking – Not Just For Computers

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General, Promotion | Response: 0

Networking – Not Just For Computers.

“Networking” is a buzz word today. Everybody talks about it. Everybody hears about it. Everybody wants to do it more effectively. But why? Why do people network, and what do they hope to accomplish?

Primarily, networking is the process of meeting new people, either through a contact that you initiate, or through an introduction by a third party.

Networking allows you to meet, and establish a relationship with, people who may not have heard of you and your business through any other method.

For most professionals, networking is done to increase revenues. Sometimes new clients are found, sometimes suppliers and, sometimes new ways of doing things that increase your bottom line are found through networking.

When networking you should work towards these common goals:

To exchange business ideas.
To get better service.
To develop your business skills.
To potentially increase your revenues.
To establish long term friendships.

This means that networking is an essential part of building up strong business relationships. We need each other to buy from us, sell to us and, brainstorm with us in order to progress in our fields. In order for us to do these things we must give something back in return, its all about give and take.

we must be willing to hone our relationship building skills. We must be great listeners. We must be willing to give before we receive. We must get into networking mode in our own minds before we ask the same of others. This must be constant.

Through consistent contact with others, you will, instinctively start to put 2 and 2 together. When you begin speaking with someone your mind will automatically start searching the inner most recesses of your brain to remember people, places, even products, that will assist the person you are networking for and, at the same time, you will also be thinking of what they can do for you in return.

This Is Networking.

This is the state of mind you should be in whenever you are talking to someone in your industry, to get your mind in this state takes a while but, once you have focus and determination, you will immediately see how you can help others and, how they can benefit you in return whilst listening to them. this is the first step in getting them to help you.

Networking, as its name would suggest is WORK, hard work, the process is also a learned skill, its not something that we are all born with or, can all do. It can often be frustrating when you have a goal in mind but, your networking functions are not achieving that goal. All in all, networking is the building block of many a business venture, it can make and it can break you. Take some time to consider this fact the next time you are posting on a board or go to one of the tradeshows, you might just come away with more than you hoped for.

Article Written By Lee