Everybody’s Going Gay

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

The past few months in the online adult industry have seen some rather dramatic changes happen from Visa charging additional fees to accept their credit cards online, Paypal no longer processing adult and, several large companies going out of business. However, one thing that also seems to be changing for the better is the amount of webmasters looking at new niches to promote. Surprisingly, the one niche that many webmasters are looking at is that of the gay niche.

Where The Money’s At.

For years, the adult webmaster community has been split amongst themselves, those that are only focused on straight niches and, those that focus on gay niches however. As of late, more and more of those webmasters from the first group are looking to make additional income from the gay niche. With this inevitable surge in gay adult sites coming online, there are bound to be some knock-on effects, and those webmasters just starting to look at the gay niche, will return to what they know. However, for most, i think this is going to be a fruitful encounter with one of the industry less socially accepted markets. Many of the webmasters who have been concentrating solely on the straight market for their income are going to realize just how much money they have been losing out on for all these years. And with this realization, comes its own set of problems for the industry as a whole.

The Gay Market.

Whether you are a straight webmaster or a gay webmaster the one thing that will become apparent is that your sites are going to reflect you in both, how they look and, the marketing techniques you use. More importantly, the attitude you have towards your gay surfers will in fact show through. Many of the straight webmasters whom, perhaps are not as tolerant towards this niche will, almost certainly fail before they can really get going. Marketing gay adult sites is far different than marketing straight adult sites. You have to know the surfer, understand what they want and, more importantly, know the terminology in the gay market. Many times a post can be seen on various message boards belittling those webmasters who are openly gay – often accompanied by terms such as ‘fag’, ‘queer’, ‘homo’, etc along with with images being posted that, quite frankly, would turn most people’s stomach.

The gay niche is much more than just a single online market, it is a whole lifestyle unto itself. While this lifestyle is affluent (having an abundance of readily available money to spend) it will take a lot of work and perseverance to ensure you get your share of this market.

Starting Points.

As I mentioned above, the main thing many webmasters are going to have to learn are the terms of the gay market, what is a twink? A bear? A cub? What products work well on gay sites? Despite what most people think, you cant just throw up some banners with naked men on them and turn a profit. Match your content to a niche and then, match your advertising to your content, what use is it having bears on a site if, the paysite you are promoting features Teens ‘n’ Twinks?

Similarly, your text links, ‘Click Here For Hot Gay Action’ might get you a few clicks but, by targeting your surfers even more, you will see how some of the gay niches can really turn a profit. The trick is this, get the surfer to your site and actually give them something that you think will suit their desires. This may mean making a 10% commission on a sex toy sale as oppose to a $35 commission on a pay site membership. And so be it. Those 10%’ers start to add up after a few sales.

In Summary.

To summarize, the gay niche will make you money however, to make money you will need to invest something that, perhaps isn’t for everyone – a lot of time and understanding. Marketing the gay niche isn’t for everyone, we have seen this too many times. However for those who are, spending time adding a gay market portfolio to there straight, with a little time increase your overall income significantly.

Article written by Le

Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards.

With so many ways for webmasters marketing straight sites in the adult industry to network I started to look at the various alternatives available to those webmasters who market gay sites to network and, although there are a few different ones about, they still seem to be few and far between.

So What Boards Are There For Gay Webmasters?

Presently, to my knowledge there are four dedicated gay boards that webmasters can utilize for networking purposes in the adult industry with several straight orientated resource sites having a gay board also these are as follows:

The Gay Boards:

Rock Me Hard
Triple X Gay
Gay Webmaster Chat
Gay Wide Webmasters

The Straight Sites With Gay Boards:

Ynot Gay Board
Xbiz Gay Board

Obviously my favorite is The Gay Board at Gay Wide Webmasters but i am slightly biased towards that seeing as its one that we own privately however, the other boards are almost certainly worth a visit in addition to the GWW community forums.

So what do these gay boards offer those marketing to the gay surfer that the straight boards cant? Simply put, it can offer you a place to network without fear of ridicule from your colleagues and peers in addition you will find that a lot of these gay boards have a wealth of information about the gay market being posted on them on an almost daily basis.

It is also worth mentioning however that just with the numerous straight orientated message boards, the gay boards do have their own individual feel to them, for example, Rock Me Hard is what I would personally classify as a ‘fun’ board and Shelmal does a great job keeping the spirit of the board going likewise, Gay Webmaster Chat is more a board geared towards webmasters who operate traffic sites such as TGP’s and Link Lists which becomes apparent after reading a few threads. Gay Wide Webmasters is more a board with a wide reach but, primarily, it is a business orientated gay webmaster community and Triple X Gay, because it is fairly new is still, imho, trying to identify the direction it wants to take but non the less, a lot of the forum members posting there also post on GWW.

The Gay Board – An Overview.

When all is said and done, no matter whether you are gay, straight, black, white or any other demographic, focusing your attention to one type of board can become counter productive after a while, I mean how often can you hear from the same people over and over again before being given the same information again and again? Diversify your posting activities to include some of the gay market community forums and at the same time, you will also diversify your business knowledge which, im sure you will agree, is good for everyone, especially you and your bank account.

Article written by Lee

Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 7

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

Here we go with Stage 7 in this Surfer Trap tutorial.

We should by now have a rather complex looking surfer trap, pop up consoles and blur consoles on all of the pages within it, all of these same pages interlinking each other indefinitely.

So, we are starting to get some traffic to this beauty from our existing sites and the counters we implemented but, how can we get some more traffic for FREE?

What I suggest we do next to this little baby is to add a banner exchange code to EACH of the FPA’s we have and also, onto the larger table console we created.

You should sign up for one banner exchange code for this trap, you might like to search around for a banner exchange that lets you have a decent ratio of impressions.

Once you have signed up for your banner exchange code, you now need to copy this coding into the BOTTOM of all of your FPA HTML pages including the Multi-Site FPA.

Now you have the banner exchange code on your site you are earning credits. Your account may not be activated for a day or so but, what this means is you are earning credits the entire time you are showing banners on your Surfer Trap.

Now we have the banner exchange code on our sites we only have one further step to take in order for this project to be completed.

Making sure it works how it is supposed too along with fine tuning this little beast.

If you have any further questions or comments please post on the forums here and one of us will be able to help you.

Article written by Lee.

Online Billing Alternatives – Token Payment Systems

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

In this article we will continue our look at the various payment solutions that are available to webmasters for use on a global scale and, this time we will look at the ‘Token’ system of generating income to our sites.

Token Payments – What Are They?

Token payments, as they name suggests is a way by which your surfers can access your members area by using pre-purchased tokens as a cash alternative. These tokens are available in a variety of values ranging from US$1 to US$5 and above.

Token Payments – What Are The Costs?

The cost to the surfer (as mentioned above) can vary from solution to solution however, on average the tokens which are redeemed for payment are bought in amounts ranging from US$1 to US$5 and above, these tokens then grant the surfer access to any of the sites that uses the specific token system the surfer purchased ‘credits’ for.

Token Payments – Price Comparisons.

Okay so based on our previous articles we will again say that access to your members area costs an average of US$30 for a months access, now, using the token payment method, you are now able to set certain ‘restrictions’ immediately on the level of ‘access’ your new member can have although, the reality of it is, these restrictions are set by the token provider themselves.

Lets say a surfer has gained access to your site using a US$5 token, what can they get actually have access too – not a lot. Your surfer only has access to as much of the content in your site that his ‘credits’ or ‘tokens’ will allow him to, in fact, the token system itself is much like the current pay-per-view model only, IMHO, not as satisfying to the surfer.

back to the issue at hand, how much will you make from this surfer with the US$5 token who has just accessed your site, well, if your members area is good and you have enough content to keep the surfer there until their tokens run out of credit, then, you will make upto 95% of the initial US$5 token purchase.

The good thing about this payment solution from a webmasters perspective however, is that YOU can actually set how much time each token will last on your site. Therefore, the reality of it is, you could have a surfer join your site with a US$5 token and only see one movie file whereas, a surfer who joined with a Credit card for 30 days access, could in effect strip your site of its content and move onto the next paysite.

Token Payments – Overview.

All in all, i strongly feel that there is a place in todays adult industry for the token payment solution after all, webmasters have to limit access to the amount of content surfers are able to see for free (or cheaply) and start to ‘educate’ todays sufer that they need to spend some money in order to access ‘the good stuff’.

By allowing webmasters to control the content and value of the token payments on their sites this payment solution could, somewhat start this education process for the surfers. Whether this will be a good or, a bad thing however, will depend entirely on the amount of use these relatively new payment solutions get from both webmasters and, ultimately, surfers.

Article written by Lee

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

Unspoken Secrets

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

here is a belief among new webmasters that there is a set of golden rules among those of us whom have been at this business for many years to making money well guess what, these are those unspoken secrets….

Secret #1.

There are no secrets to becoming an adult webmaster. One of the most common reasons why so many new webmasters give up in this business is because they hear about the money that the big guys make, submit two TGP galleries to The Hun, get a $200 hosting bill and no signups. They then figure that the affiliate they are using is rubbish and then spend the next 2 months surfing the Net looking for the “be all and end all” of affiliate programs which is going to net them $2 million within the next 6 months. The fact of the matter is, that genie in the lamp you are looking for doesn’t exist. It all comes down to hard work, perseverance and common sense this is a business venture you have started like it or not and, it needs to be treated as one.

Secret #2

Don’t give up. You need to treat what your doing as a business. Of course, you can have fun with it but, at the same time you need to be making continual business plans for your development in much the same way as if you were self employed. Which, of course as soon as you start to make some money you will be.

Secret #3

Stay focused. There are a million and one ways to make money in the industry. You could build free sites, TGP galleries, AVS sites, pay sites, search engine pages, the list goes on. There are many different avenues to drive traffic. The key is to try everything. Eventually you will find the one venue that your are very good at. Continue with this until you know this in your sleep – work it so often and well that you master it. One other thing to remember, it wont make you money overnight, if you think it will, your starting out for the wrong reasons, putting it simply, Adult web mastering isn’t for you.

Secret #4

Build it and, it (And they) will come, don’t spend time worrying about your keywords, meta tags, the amount of images you are using, just because someone tells you this is what is required of your sites. Just build a site or gallery submit it, forget about it and get started on building your next, and the next, and the next site after that. Just keep on moving forward, if you forgot to do something on one of your sites don’t worry, add it to the next site that you build.

Secret #5

Start to network. Other webmasters are great for bouncing new ideas off, a group of webmasters who start at the same time all communicating with each other are going to develop more than a sole webmaster on their own. Networking is a big part of any successful webmasters daily routine. Make the most of the people you meet on the boards or aim or icq, it will benefit you long term.

Secret #6

This one you will probably hear day in, day out for the rest of your business life. “It’s too late for newbies to make money” I am sorry to be the one to tell you this but, this is rubbish. As long as you follow the basic rules above and work at it, you can and will make money in this still thriving industry.

Now you have heard the “secrets” you have wanted to know its up to you to put them to good use.

Article written by Lee

Displaying Special Characters On Your HTML Pag

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

In order to display certain characters within your HTML pages, you must use a special code. The codes below display the HTML code and the character when displayed on your web page. To use any of the characters displayed within the chart, copy & paste the HTML code to the left of the character you would like to use.

Whilst the above list is by no means complete, it should contain the most useful characters and codes for you to build your sites using the special characters with ease.

Article written by Lee

European Surfers – Porn High On The List!

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

Adult web sites were visited by 3.8 million home Internet users in the UK in June 2001, according to Internet monitoring company Net Value. This accounts for more than a quarter of the entire UK home Internet population.

UK visitors to adult websites spent more than 45 minutes on these sites each in June. Adult sites make up 41.2 per cent of all the sites visited in the UK with a significant audience. Students (23.2 per cent), manual workers (15 per cent), and professionals (12.8 per cent) are the largest groups of UK visitors to adult sites.

However Germany has the largest audience for online porn in Europe with more than 5.3 million Germans visiting an adult site in June. They also spent more time on these type of sites than any other nationality – each German visitor spent almost an hour on adult sites in June. Net Value data also showed that more than half (52.3 per cent) the websites visited in June by a significant number of German users were of an adult orientated nature.

Spain has the greatest proportion of visitors to pornographic sites – 40 per cent of Spanish home Internet users visiting a pornography site in June 2001.

“Pornography has become a lucrative online business, with many companies now recognizing it as a valuable additional revenue stream,” Net Value’s Alki Manias said. “And this would seem to be a stable business area – the popularity of online pornography continues unchecked.”

Adult sites are also popular amongst the earliest adopters of the Internet. People who first got online at home before 1997 account for 18.5 per cent of visitors to adult sites, though they only make up 14.1 per cent of the whole UK online population.

In the UK, Lastminute.com has just introduced an auction for adult toys and aids, whilst in Germany, Freenet.de and T-Online are also moving into the adult business.

The following charts detail various demographics relating to European surfers usage of adult sites:

Number of adult websites visited, June 2001

* Sites with a significant reach

UK visitors to adult websites by occupation, June 2001

As you can now see, we, as adult webmasters, have a considerable chunk of the online adult industry sitting in our laps and, we should concentrate on tapping into this market as more and more American companies are realizing the importance of these figures we will inevitably reach a stage where the European market will be passed across to our US counterparts.

Blogging For Traffic – An Alternate View

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Blogging | Response: 0

Just recently the adult industry seems to have gone ‘blog’ crazy in fact, it is almost a daily occurrence that webmasters mention a blog of some description on several message forums however, when it comes down to it, does blogging really matter at all? This is what we will take a look at in this article.

What Is A Weblog Or Blog?

A Weblog, or ‘Blog’ for short, is a kind of website or a part of a website. It is usually, but not always, run by a single person and they publish bits of writing on the Weblog. These bits of writing, called ‘entries’ or ‘posts,’ generally appear on the front page of the weblog in reverse chronological order, that is, with the newest entry at the top of the page, with older entries progressively further down.

So How Can Blogging Help Me?

Quite honestly, I don’t think it can. Think about it for a moment, you spend an hour or so a day writing a page in your online journal only for it to be erased or archived at a later date, doesn’t that seem strange to you? Instead of blogging why don’t you actually do something constructive such as making a .html page out of the text you were going to use for your blog, keyword it up and upload that directly onto your server? After all this in itself will benefit you in the long term much more than a quick page that will eventually disappear from existence. Of course there will always be those people who do successfully use blogs as a part of their marketing strategy and, kudos to them however, looking at the bigger picture, it makes much more sense to have a fresh HTML page which will remain indefinitely on your site that you can keyword and SEO for the search engines rather than something that is going to become relatively short lived.

Blogging – Overview.

To be perfectly honest with you, all of this talk of creating a blog to get additional traffic is, in itself just ‘hype’ unless you have a source of blog owners to link back to your blog or, an hour or so to kill each day wasting your time writing your blog your time really would be much better served coding HTML pages. After all, HTML pages have worked for the last 30 years, why all of a sudden have webmasters stopped using them?

Article written by Lee.

What’s A CHMOD?

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Hosting, WebDesign | Response: 0

CHMOD is another name for setting the permissions of files on your server.

All UNIX based web servers understand the concept of permissions. these are broken down into three distinct areas.

Permissions for the person who OWNS the file.
Permissions for the group (all users are members of one or more groups).
Permissions for everyone else.

Permissions are listed one of two ways either using numbers such as 755 or, using letters such as rwx-xr-x however they both mean the same thing.

The first number or first group of three letters stands for the permissions of the owner (IE 7 or rwx).
The second number or second group of letters stands for the permissions of the group (IE 5 or xr).
The third number or third group of letters stands for the permissions of everyone else (IE 5 or x).

The way the system works is as follows:

1 = x = you are able to execute (run) this program.
2 = w = you are able to write to this file.
4 = r = you are able to read the contents of this file.

so if you add it up rwx = 7.

So, in the example given above (755 or rwx-xr-x) the owner is allowed to read and write the file AND execute it.
The group is allowed to execute and write to the file.
Everyone else can execute the file.

We hope this gives you a little more insight to how CHMOD’ing or, setting the permissions on your server can affect how files act.

Article written by Lee