• Converting German Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

    With the rapid development of US companies and webmasters looking to attract a larger percentage of international surfers and, wanting to make money off these surfers I thought it would be an idea to share the most prevalent niches for each of the international markets country specific surfers. In this first article we will take a look at the niches which convert best on German oriented surfer traffic.

    German Traffic – Dispelling The Myths.

    First and foremost I think it would be a good idea to let you know that, strangely enough, not all German surfers are looking for kinky, in your face sex, in fact, they pretty much have the same tendencies towards their online porn as US based surfers do, with that in mind, lets take a look at some of the niches that do convert well on German traffic.

    German Traffic – The Niches.

    As with any type of surfer the best way of getting them to convert is to start targeting them from the second they hit your site using Full Page Ads, localized text links and, consoles, over the last 3 (three) months we found that the niches which converted best on German porn surfers were as follows.

    Amateur.

    The German adult surfers we sent to several amateur sites, including live web-cam sites and paysites converted exceptionally well, it would certainly seem from the last three months of stats that German porn surfers like the ‘amateur’ porn angle when it comes to satisfying themselves online.

    Teen.

    As with the US adult surfer, it would appear that the teen niche is truly a global requisite in fact, the teen niche was one of our best converting niches across the globe when we analyzed our international traffic conversion ratios.

    Gay.

    To our surprise the little German traffic we did send to localized German gay sites converted at less than 1:75, bearing in mind that the best converting niche for us was Teen and, that the specific site we sent the teen traffic to converted overall at around 1:138 we will be targeting a lot more German gay traffic in the future.

    Fetish.

    No mystery here, when we started our filtering process we ensured that the various fetish niches were high on our filtering list, after all, everyone seems to know that German porn surfers are looking for the hard to find hardcore scene and, the general fetish niche seemed to work wonderfully.

    Ebony.

    The ebony niche was a vary profitable one for the traffic we filtered to it, in summary, my personal feelings are that it converted so well because ebony men and women in Germany are very few and far between, again the results for this niche would seem to back-up the fact that giving Germans access to something that might be ‘taboo’ in their country converts their traffic well.

    Other Niches.

    In addition to the above niches which converted above and beyond the others we used we did get a few sales to some more micro-niched paysites for example, BBW, Asian, Cumshot and General Hardcore sites had around 3-5 sales per site, per pay period. Given that we did not target this type of traffic as effectively as we could have done and, that the traffic was from TGP’s and Geo Targeted Traffic Brokers we were happy with the results we saw.

    German Adult Traffic – The Results.

    It would seem, given our results from the 3 month test we ran on our traffic that the top converting niches for German adult surfers are the Amateur, Teen and Gay niches. Although, the rest of the niches we filtered out our traffic to did not convert as we would have hoped we still saw a good rate of sales month on month from the previous pay period.

    When all is said and done, as long as you have German porn surfers on your sites you would be wise to start spreading and filtering this traffic to some niches that, perhaps you wouldn’t have ordinarily targeted after all, a sale is more money in your pocket, whether you know the niche or not.

    Article written by Le

  • Adult Search Engine Optimization

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Promotion, Search Engine Optimization | Response: 0

    Gone are the days when adult webmasters could Spam the search engines and get highly trafficked sites within a month of the search engines updating many of the search engines caught onto the adult industry very early on and started changing the way in which they indexed sites they went from meta tag optimized listings to theme indexing to almost every type of search engine optimization method in between.

    Search Engine Optimization Techniques.

    It would seem with the changing times of search engine optimization that there is no longer a single solitary way to get your adult sites listed highly in the search engines but rather a mixture of different adult seo methods being used on a single site ranging from increasing your pagerank, including relevant meta tags and page content to standard adult search engine optimization methods such as getting other popular websites linking to yours but with this comes a new challenge of its own webmasters need to get back to the basics to figure out what worked then and, what will work now so far as adult search engine optimization goes.

    Adult Search Engine Optimization Companies.

    There are many companies currently online that can offer adult webmasters their search engine optimization services however, how do you choose an SEO company that will not only work for you but, is cost effective for your needs, the simple answer is to ask around, there are sites online presently that offer monthly memberships to gain access to their adult seo techniques in the form of articles and tutorials just as their are sites that offer no information whatsoever or, information that, while it worked three years ago, it no longer works in today’s adult seo marketplace. You need to ask for advice from customers who have used adult optimization companies in the past and see how their results improved as well as making sure that what you are actually purchasing is a service that doesn’t just guarantee you improved site rankings but actually guarantees you will see a profit from the money you spent on the optimization services.

    Adult SEO Breakdown.

    Adult search engine optimization companies have only really become apparent in the adult industry over the last 6-12 months however, many well known and respected webmasters have been working on optimizing their adult sites for years and, whilst doing so, they have also achieved a vast knowledge base on how to optimize your adult sites for the search engines, again, ask around on the message forums to find the solution that will best suit your needs and budget and you wont go far wrong, the adult search engine optimization business model is one that in all actuality should change on a regular basis however, as mentioned above some companies are still using the same optimization methods they used three or four years ago, make sure you do your background checks before parting with any money and, most importantly, use the search engines to find their sites in search terms where, if they were any good at all, they would already have first page listings.

    Article written by Lee.

  • Cell Phone Porn – Closer Than We Think?

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

    Cell Phone Porn – Closer Than We Think?

    From dialup to broadband, from standard to reality, from multiple pages to single magazine style tours, one thing is for certain adult pornography is constantly evolving and adapting to the both the marketing savvy of the surfer and, more importantly the technological advances hitting the web and, with the sudden impact of PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants) and Cell Phones able to connect to the web could cell phone porn be the next big thing? This is what we will take a brief look at in this article.

    What Is Cell Phone Porn?

    Cell phone porn is a method of displaying not only images but streaming video feeds to a surfers portable cellular phone many companies (specifically in Europe) at the present time are starting to roll out 3gsm network cell phones this means that the surfers we get to our sites may not only be using a computer or a PDA to visit our sites but, in all reality they may already be surfing our sites on their cell phones.

    Building Cell Phone Porn Sites.

    In order to profit from this newly evolving cell phone porn market we have to diversify the methods in which we build our sites for example, we need to use WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) on our sites in order for them to be readable easily by the 3G cell phones for starters and then, we need to ensure that not only do our pages flow but, they load quickly and further still, how easy is it for the surfer to fill out the required join forms in order for them to actually access the cell phone porn they are being offered?

    Cell Phone Porn Statistics.

    Currently, if you head across to http://www.google.com and type in ‘cell phone porn’ as your search query you will find a total of 173,000 pages listed in the search results, now, combine this number with the amount of cell phones currently in circulation across the globe that are able to use WAP, 743 Million, those 173,000 sites in Google have an advantage that you don’t, they are already most likely getting cell phone traffic.

    Mobile Porn – An Overview.

    Will cell phone porn become a thing of the past as quickly as it is emerging as a medium of the future? Quite possibly however, until you start attracting your share of cell phone porn surfers you will not realize the benefits to this new source of traffic, in fact, even 12 months ago when the PDA Porn was a huge thing, many webmasters neglected to cash in on the latest craze and were surprised at the figures others were reporting to them. There is one thing that will always remain constant in the adult industry, the latest fads and crazes change as quickly as the arrive and, webmasters have to be quick off the mark in order to cash in on these new crazes. Will cell Phone Porn be a craze that you cash in on?

    Article written by Lee

  • Calling Complete JavaScript’s With One Line Of HTML Code

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    We all know that some JavaScript coding can be excessive and add considerable amounts of additional coding to our pages making them both slower and less search engine friendly however, what if I told you there was a way you could call the EXACT same JavaScript functions you are calling now by using a single line of code and, in the process you would NEVER have to find a specific piece of JavaScript again as you would instantly know where it was saved.

    You would probably think the above is in fact very time consuming but, it actually takes no time at all.

    The secret is to copy and paste the JavaScript into a plain text file and save that on your server somewhere. However, instead of saving it as a .txt extension save this file as a .js extension and, to make it easier still to find, when you upload this file to your server place it in a directory called /JavaScript/.

    That’s pretty much it, easy huh?

    Now comes the part of actually getting the JavaScript to work on your web pages, what you need to do instead of using the complete JavaScript coding that you usually would if you wanted to make a pop-up console appear is to use the following coding placed between your <head> and </head> tags:

    <script language=”JavaScript” src=”../JavaScript/popup.js”></script>

    That will now call the popup.js file or whatever it was you called it from your server and make the JavaScript function work for your surfers with JavaScript enabled in their browser.

    As you can see, not only does using this method save you a considerable amount of time but, it will also make your pages more search engine friendly as spiders will not have to work their way through a lot of heavily JavaScript before they get to your SE content.

  • 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.

    HTML Code Browser View HTML Code Browser View HTML Code Browser View HTML Code Browser View
    &copy; © &#33; ! &#95; _ &#157; 
    &reg; ® &#34; &#96; ` &#158; ž
    &nbsp; &#35; ` &#97; a &#159; Ÿ
    &quot; &#36; $ &#98; b &#160;
    &amp; & &#37; % &#99; c &#161; ¡
    &lt; < &#38; & &#100; d &#162; ¢
    &gt; > &#39; &#101; e &#163; £
    &Agrave; À &#40; ( &#102; f &#164; ¤
    &Aacute; Á &#41; ) &#103; g &#165; ¥
    &Acirc; Â &#42; * &#104; h &#166; ¦
    &Atilde; Ã &#43; + &#105; i &#167; §
    &Auml; Ä &#44; , &#106; j &#168; ¨
    &Aring; Å &#45; &#107; k &#169; ©
    &AElig; Æ &#46; . &#108; l &#170; ª
    &Ccedil; Ç &#47; / &#109; m &#171; «
    &Egrave; È &#48; 0 &#110; n &#172; ¬
    &Eacute; É &#49; 1 &#111; o &#173; ­
    &Ecirc; Ê &#50; 2 &#112; p &#174; ®
    &Euml; Ë &#51; 3 &#113; q &#175; ¯
    &Igrave; Ì &#52; 4 &#114; r &#176; °
    &Iacute; Í &#53; 5 &#115; s &#177; ±
    &Icirc; Î &#54; 6 &#116; t &#178; ²
    &Iuml; Ï &#55; 7 &#117; u &#179; ³
    &ETH; Ð &#56; 8 &#118; v &#180; ´
    &Ntilde; Ñ &#57; 9 &#119; w &#181; µ
    &Otilde; Õ &#58; : &#120; x &#182;
    &Ouml; Ö &#59; ; &#121; y &#183; ·
    &Oslash; Ø &#60; < &#122; z &#184; ¸
    &Ugrave; Ù &#61; = &#123; { &#185; ¹
    &Uacute; Ú &#62; > &#124; | &#186; º
    &Ucirc; Û &#63; ? &#125; } &#187; »
    &Uuml; Ü &#64; @ &#126; ~ &#188; ¼
    &Yacute; Ý &#65; A &#127; ? &#189; ½
    &THORN; Þ &#66; B &#128; &#190; ¾
    &szlig; ß &#67; C &#129;  &#191; ¿
    &agrave; à &#68; D &#130; &#192; À
    &aacute; á &#69; E &#131; ƒ &#193; Á
    &aring; å &#70; F &#132; &#194; Â
    &aelig; æ &#71; G &#133; &#195; Ã
    &ccedil; ç &#72; H &#134; &#196; Ä
    &egrave; è &#73; I &#135; &#197; Å
    &eacute; é &#74; J &#136; ˆ &#198; Æ
    &ecirc; ê &#75; K &#137; &#199; Ç
    &euml; ë &#76; L &#138; Š &#200; È
    &igrave; ì &#77; M &#139; &#201; É
    &iacute; í &#78; N &#140; Œ &#202; ?
    &icirc; î &#79; O &#141;  &#203; Ë
    &iuml; ï &#80; P &#142; Ž &#204; Ì
    &eth; ð &#81; Q &#143;  &#205; Í
    &ntilde; ñ &#82; R &#144;  &#206; Î
    &ograve; ò &#83; S &#145; &#207; Ï
    &oacute; ó &#84; T &#146; &#208; Ð
    &ocirc; ô &#85; U &#147; &#209; Ñ
    &otilde; õ &#86; V &#148; &#210; Ò
    &ouml; ö &#87; W &#149; &#211; Ó
    &oslash; ø &#88; X &#150; &#212; Ô
    &ugrave; ù &#89; Y &#151; &#213; Õ
    &uacute; ú &#90; Z &#152; ˜ &#214; Ö
    &ucirc; û &#91; [ &#153; &#215; ×
    &yacute; ý &#92; \ &#154; š &#216; Ø
    &thorn; þ &#93; ] &#155; &#217; Ù
    &yuml; ÿ &#94; ^ &#156; œ &#218; Ú

    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

  • Pop Up Consoles Work – To A Point

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

    As webmasters we are constantly thinking up new ways to generate sales to our sponsors however, the one medium to generating sales that has been and most likely will remain to be popular is the method of using consoles on our sites. Whether these are exit consoles, blur consoles or, on entry consoles one thing holds true, the more consoles you use, the more you annoy your surfer.

    Marketing Console Numbers.

    Through some research of my own i have noticed that a trend appears when the use of consoles on our sites takes effect this trend is that anything after the first console you use actually cuts your chances of making a sale in half, thus, the maximum amount of pop up consoles we should use on our sites, in my humble opinion should be two or three at the very most.

    Console Sales Figures.

    Okay lets take a look at some average (signups per month divided by days in the month) sales figures based on a three month period (sending roughly 10,000 hits per month).

    Average signups to sponsor (A) = 113
    Sales From Console (1) to sponsor (A) = 11
    Sales From Console (2) to sponsor (A) = 2

    The setup above uses pop up consoles in the following manner, on entering the site you get a Blur Console which hides itself behind the current page you are viewing, once you close the current page you see the blur console, once you close the blur console you see a smaller console, once you close the smaller console, the browser window closes altogether.

    Evaluating The Figures.

    From the above figures we can see an immediate pattern, namely that console (1) makes up roughly 10% of our total sales and also that console (2) makes up roughly 20% of console (1) sales. Putting these figures into practice across further consoles will show you that by utilizing any more than 3 consoles on your sites really does not amount to any significant raise in sales unless you send a higher amount of traffic to your sites in the first instance.

    Console Sales – Recap.

    We have now seen that from a steady flow of traffic over a monthly period we can influence the potency of specific consoles within our exit chains and, by analyzing the figures we get from these consoles we can almost certain figure out firstly, the correct (or comfortable) amount of consoles we use on our sites and secondly, that the more consoles we add to our sites, the lower the potential sales figures will be from each subsequent console.

    I will be the first person to admit that overall pop up consoles are an excellent marketing tool however, the figures above show that the more consoles we use, the less chance we have of making a sale further down the chain, use consoles wisely and they will benefit you however, abuse the use of pop up consoles on your sites and not only will be wasting bandwidth, youll be wasting a surfer too.

    Article written by Lee

  • Using Full Page Ad’s

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion, Traffic | Response: 0

    Full page ad’s can be used for more than just ‘adverts’ in fact, there is a wide and varied range of uses for them, below I have detailed some of the uses that I have tried in the past and from my experience, they seem to work well enough.
    Creating A ‘Hub’ Site – By interlinking FPA’s together in a range of niches and, offering your surfers a money bar linking to other FPA’s in different niches, you can actually get some good rankings in the SE’s and, if you utilize banner exchanges or counters on your FPA ‘hub’ site you can also ensure you get a fair amount of additional traffic. One thing I like to do with my FPA hub is use it as the ‘exit’ page when a surfer leaves one of my sites. This ensures that I am getting optimum traffic for my time spent a) building sites and B) building my hub.

    A lot of people I have spoken to about ‘hub’ sites simply forget about them once they have been built, personally, I do not see the point in doing this, if you build something like this why not send your exit, top list, counter, banner exchange traffic to the first page of your ‘hub’?

    Doorway Pages.

    FPA’s also make exceptional SE doorway pages, by optimizing your image names, meta tags and text on the individual FPA’s you are not only ensuring they WILL get ranked by the SE’s but, if you ‘hub’ them together as explained above you will also get some premium listings from them.

    Filter Pages.

    What I learnt to do early on is rather than send my surfers directly to the sponsors using the ‘standard’ linking codes is to send them first to an FPA with a money bar (or table ad) on it, this way, if they click the link in error and not realize that they are going to a pay site, you can give them an option, not only to use their ‘back’ button but also, to go to a different niche or, to continue into the sponsors tour. Now that you can link directly to a specific tour page on ARS sites, this method is a good way to give your surfers a ‘fresh’ tour front page.

    PPC Listings.

    An FPA is an ideal way to get sites listed in the PPC engines, not only do you show the surfers EXACTLY what is in the site they have just clicked on but, you also have the added option of being able to utilize blur consoles and exit consoles on them.

    One other thing that I will mention, is that often, you will find that FPA’s that you have made yourself, no matter how ‘amateur’ looking they are will work better than the ‘pretty’ sponsor built FPA’s.

    Hopefully, this article has given you some ideas on how you can better utilize FPA’s and not just use them in the same manner as every other adult site on the internet. If you have some good results from using FPA’s in this manner feel free to post about it on the ARSR Support forums and likewise, if you can think of any additional uses that have not been mentioned here let us know on the forums.

    Article written by Lee

  • Cross Selling – Offer Your Surfers An Alternative

    Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

    As webmasters our primary goal is to make money from our surfers in order to be successful at business, however, in order to make money from our surfers we need to constantly change the way in which we sell products and services to them.

    One such method of selling products to surfers is by using cross selling or, up selling as it is sometimes referred to in the industry. So what exactly is cross selling and, more importantly, what benefit does it give your business model? This is what we shall take a look at in this article.

    Cross Selling – The Basics.

    Cross selling is a method used by marketers to make the maximum amount of money out of a single sales lead at any given time regardless of whether you are working online or, in a bricks and mortar store cross selling is something that almost every sales person does from offering an extended warranty on a new television purchase to offering an affiliate product from inside your sites secure area.

    Cross Selling – How To.

    One of the easiest ways to initiate the cross selling process is simple to provide your site visitors with a selection of links going to a multitude of individual products, this may be a dating site, a software package or, something else, either way, by placing a selection of links on your main selling pages you have already initiated the cross selling process and, by doing so, have already increased your chance at making a sale.

    Cross Selling – New Customers.

    One method of cross selling that is becoming more and more prevalent on the internet is that of cross selling or, up-selling new customers immediately after they have made a purchase, this in itself is not a bad thing after all, you know they have money to spend so, why not use this fact to garner additional sales.

    One good way of offering cross sales to new customers is to give the an option on the actual shopping cart page immediately when they hit it, this may be for a site that complements the product they are making a purchase to already or, something completely different either way, by having this already on the order page waiting for your customer you might just make additional money from them.

    Cross Selling – Old Customers.

    So what happens when a customer leaves your site after making a purchase? Well there are two routes you can take with thee customers, one, is to leave them alone and hope that they return to buy from your site again whilst, the other, my personal preference, is to send these customers a regular follow up letter offering them a product they may be interested in based on their initial purchase after all, if they purchased a copy of Adobe Photoshop, the chances are they may also be interested in something such as Paint Shop Pro, why not give the surfer this as an option by placing a link in the follow up letter taking them to that specific area on your site.

    Cross Selling – Overview.

    When all is said and done, cross selling whether you agree with it or not is a very powerful sales tool, not only can it increase the revenue potentials from new clients but, can also enable any business a method of gaining further incomes from older customers, the one thing that you should all be doing on a regular basis is ensuring that you have a good cross selling strategy in place, regardless of whether you actually are selling memberships to sites, warranties on televisions or, mouse pads for new pc owners.

    Article written by Lee

  • European Surfers – Gold Waiting To Be Harvested

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion, Traffic | Response: 0

    80% Of the internets content is English. 40% of internet surfers cant even read English, let alone understand it. Out of all the countries in the world, German internet users spend an average of 59.2 minutes looking at porn a month closely followed by Norwegian surfers who looked at it 55.4 minutes every month, how many of you have sites catering to this market? Not one of you… I would bet!

    Most webmasters that I know of automatically assume, European surfers = Freeloading Bestiality Loving Sicko’s. That’s bullshit! In fact, a larger and larger percentage of European surfers are looking for porn. Sure, they can find it by the bucket load but, lets be honest, Herman from Munich who cant speak a word of English is going to be making a lot more from this industry than Jason in Miami.. WHY? Because Herman has a captive audience, most of his surfers are German speaking after all, that’s the language he makes his sites in, that’s the language of the sponsors he uses and, like it or not, German surfers are proven to be avid porn surfers and, more importantly, Credit Card spenders!
    But Wait…

    Hang on a second, Credit Card spenders? But I thought the best way of milking $$$ out of foreign surfers was to send them off to a dialer program? hmmm…. perhaps I’m missing something??

    You are! there are a lot of sponsors that don’t have any sites in English, Germany has a load of high converting AVS sites, why is this? Because they are written completely in German, Spain has a lot of good quality sponsor that work wonders, Why? Again because they are written in Spanish.

    You have a lot of AVS, TGP and free sites that don’t make as much as they could, WHY? because you haven’t considered the global market! Let’s be honest here, the big sponsors of this world you use, how many of them say in their terms and conditions, they don’t allow access to German, Spanish, Ukrainian, Russian surfers? Ill bet at least 50% or more of them right? that’s money you have just lost! Sure, you can ship them off to a dialer program and hope they download it, most wont, sure you can send them to an opt-in email program and hope to make some money from them long term, you wont, In fact, European surfers detest having to give any information about them out. Its a privacy thing, they don’t want you to know who they are, so you cant tell their governments who they are, it sounds harsh but, its true.

    So How Do I Do It??

    The best way to milk money from the European surfers is to treat them EXACTLY the same as American surfers, but, with one major difference… You need to build for their language, get this right and you’ll be laughing all the way to the Bundesbank :)

    But, where do you start, how can you build a site in a language you know nothing about? Simple, do some research, there are places out there that cater to European based webmasters, go to the forums, ask for help, you wont be laughed at, you wont be ridiculed and, who knows, you may just learn something in the process!

    Sign up to a foreign sponsor, you can find a lot on our site, most of, if not all of these foreign sponsor will gladly help you out, they have email support in a variety of languages themselves, drop them a line, tell them you need help, Ask for it… It will come.

    Now you have the help you need what next? use it, ask everyday if you have to, there are some good translation services available on the net, spend $50 to get an existing site you have that’s working well translated into a foreign language, I guarantee you, its money well spent! Once you have this translated ‘template’ site use it time and time again, tweak it until you find the best converting site you can, submit it to all the foreign search engines around, you’ll soon pick up that its not much different to working your ‘standard’ sites except, you’ll have trapped a larger percentage of internet porn surfers and, what’s more, this is a percentage that YOUR competitors wont have!

    Integration..

    Is it possible to build foreign sites and English site to work together? YES but, its hard, you have to mimic the responses you have learnt from the trial you did with the first translated site, once you start to see trends happening, build on them, if something doesn’t work, swap it out, put something in its place, even if.. Its a US sponsor. You have the framework, the surfer is in your site, they know what its about, that’s the time to start introducing the foreign (to them) sponsors ads.

    The Results..

    The results of your trial will speak for themselves, you will have tapped into an as yet untamed market, You will have more scope of growth for your business, You will have established a new traffic source, You will be able to reap the benefits. Of course, you need to work for it, don’t expect magic overnight, it just isn’t gonna happen! Remember when you first started webmastering? it was hard work, tapping into the European market is even harder, its like starting all over again from scratch then, realizing you know what your doing but you have been doing it wrong all these years.

    Article written by Lee

  • 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

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