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Newsletter Know How – A Guide To Writing Newsletters
Email newsletters are a great way to make contact with existing clients and, prospective clients which makes them a great marketing tool. The biggest bonus however, over Email newsletters rather than print ones is that you have virtually no cost involved with writing and, ultimately, mailing them out.
There is a wide variety of online newsletter on the internet. however, probably the simplest form for most webmasters is the email newsletter. Email provides you with a quick way to keep your name out there, build trust with you readers and, hopefully attract a few sales. If you archive your newsletter also this is a great way to get additional pages into the search engines and, as such, it then becomes a good traffic driver to your website regardless of the amount of subscribers you have. However one of the most important benefits of having an email newsletter sent on a regular basis is that it build brand recognition of your website or business.
Your newsletter should provide information, not just of an advertising nature but that, should also be informative to your subscribers. In doing this you are offering information of value and, ultimately, ensuring that your subscribers remain. However, remember newsletters are for promoting your area of expertise not just a vehicle for revenue generation.
One of the first things you should consider when deciding to do a newsletter is the amount of commitment you will have to put towards the project. Whether you start a monthly, weekly or, daily newsletter a great deal of commitment must be made to both the newsletter and, more importantly, your subscribers. For example, We generally spend a good 3 days researching the articles that have been submitted and trying to ensure that the details contained within them are relevant at the time of sending the email, this is not an easy task especially when the adult internet is constantly developing. If you don’t have the time to research and maintain consistency in your newsletter, then don’t even consider doing one, it isn’t for you at the present time.
Now you have decided you can make the commitment required to run a successful email newsletter what do you do next? Collect email addresses. Probably one of the easiest ways to get email subscribers to join your list is to go through your current mail clients contact list and manually add those email addresses or, further still, you may even have an opt in collection program that you have been using for a while but have never really had the time to commit to writing a newsletter worthy of sending out. Remember though, an email list is only as good as the addresses contained within it. You want to run an OPT-IN email list, any other type of list will be considered Spam and, that will do you more damage than good. Of course, if you haven’t already got an email collection program you can find one online there are literally hundreds of them floating around that you can get for free from sites like http://www.hotscripts.com.
So, you now have your emails, onto writing your newsletter. I think the greatest part of email is that it is somewhat less formal than writing for print copy. Email in fact tends to be very informal in comparison. The best way at approaching writing for an email newsletter is to write how you talk, it is more enjoyable for the reader and gives your newsletter a personality that no one else can emulate. Content wise, that depends on what you do, what would YOU like to see if you subscribed to an email list of the type you are going to be running and, more importantly, what would ensure you stay subscribed to the newsletter? Ask your friends, colleagues and, peers what they would like to see in an email newsletter, often they have been looking for information that is not readily available, this is an area where you then start to provide a service that no one else does.
So you are at the point where you are starting to realize that running a newsletter is a lot of work correct? Well, it is. However, the effort, work and, time spent in putting your newsletter together will help you build a relationship with people whom, in all actuality, you may probably not ever meet in a face to face situation and, more importantly, it can become a great income generator over time.
Article written by Lee
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Sex Toy Affiliate Programs
For the past year I’ve been playing with sex toys AND I’ve been selling them too!
Over the last couple of articles I have tried to enlighten you on secondary and third level sponsors, to supplement your site income. Another successful addition is sex toys – which are a hit in the gay market. Personally, I sell toys and videos in the secondary spots simply because the payouts are typically lower than most sponsors are – but my motto is money is money!
The basic reaction by most straight webmasters has been, I didn’t realize gay men liked sex toys, too. Well we do.
While there are a number of great toy sponsors out there, not many cater directly to gay men. That’s why I worked a deal on Gay Adult Shopping (http://store.gayadultshopping.com/partners/). I have joined others, but typically, they sell to a straight clientele. When I say market to straight, I’m referring to the packaging of their inventory. This is not a judgment call but a plain fact; I’d rather buy something that has an image of guy on it rather than a woman.
Now mind you, BOTH markets favor many of the products sold. I know if a straight female friend and I went into an adult store, we would look at the same dildo; and, perhaps even buy the same item regardless of the package. But when you’re surfing the net from home, it’s no holds barred. The surfer is no longer locked into the inventory of a shop on the street. He’s going to look for what HE wants. It is all perception. And, knowing that is half the battle.
Ok on to selling! I have taken three approaches in my experimenting – free sites, TGPs and memberships sites. Within a paysite, I typically didn’t SELL the store as much as I told the surfer it is there if he wants it. The real work in selling came with the free sites and galleries.
I’m a text man. I love writing copy and seeing how it works. However with the toys, I used a graphic and embellished it with text. For my free sites, I found direct eye contact shots (Images where the model is “looking out”, presumable at the surfer) were more effective than a pic of a guy playing with toys. Along with the pic, I used text like “My boyfriend and I can not get enough of them…” and “I get off watching him play…” or “The one with the most toys… Gets Off!” Other places on my free sites, I just dropped in the text link. Either worked well. I added both sets of ad links to my basic main pages. The results were good – even though I kept them to a minimum not to out sell my sponsor sites.
My TGP experiment was WORK! After my first try I found out that text alone doesn’t work well. This is definitely an approach that requires imagery. On my first pass, I offered pics and a paragraph that that sold all the things I could think of… dongs, dildos, videos and ejaculating butt plugs -You name I tried to sell it. Out of 2000 hits on that one page, I had 60 clicks into the toy store. Even though I had a sale, it wasn’t going to break the bank. But it SOLD, so I decided to try more. This time I hunted through my content for pics with toys in them and eye contact. I added banners and toned down the text somewhat. Instead of listing an inventory, I stayed in line with the text I mentioned above. I gave an overall feel of what the store had (toys, videos, lube, etc.) Then I ended it with a little tease of what delightful experiences were in store when their package arrived.
This time, it worked! On that first day, out of the 2000 hits it received, 500 clicks went into the store. I have never had that kind of click ratio off of a TGP. I was amazed. Most of the sales were for smaller priced items ($10-$20), but I had two orders that totaled over $200 dollars each. Was this a fluke? I wasn’t sure, so I tried it again. With the next few submissions the click rates were smaller, and I don’t know why. It could be that I used the same ads or something too similar to the first. BUT the click to sales ratio was about the same as my first attempt. Needless to say this has now become part of my weekly regiment.
So what did this prove? Sex toys DO sell well in the gay market even under the hard to convert traffic scenarios. I guess we like our toys just as much as anyone else =)
Selling adult products, whether on a free site, a TGP or a pay site, will bring in a few extra dollars that many webmasters didn’t even know was out there.
Article written by Gary-Alan
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Getting Webmaster Traffic To Your Design Site
Just starting in the design biz? Well you’re going to need some traffic to your design work. You need to get your name out to as many people as humanly possible. If you don’t have the contacts, then you don’t have the work. Network, communicate, and setup your portfolio. These are the 3 most important steps when starting your design company, preceding these three steps are advertising and demonstrating.
When I first started designing, I had no clue what I was doing except for designing websites. I knew I needed clients, but had no idea where to start. I met up with a ouple of other webmasters one night. I told them I had just started and was looking for some work. They took me in and taught me the trade. They showed me a few tricks in how to design things much quicker, and also subconsciously taught me to make sure as many people as possible see my work, and that they know who its from.
I worked with my friends for a few months when things started to get slow, so I took it upon myself to start my own company. I still got outsourced work from them, but now was taking on my own clients, but I had forgotten one important step. Advertising, the biggest step to forget. So I started posting on message boards to get my name in the dirt. I received a few clients, but nothing large. Then one day out of the blue a man came to me and wanted 4 pay sites designed. Wow, a real client at last. He said he saw my posts on a resource forum and decided to use me for his work.
I worked for this client for about 2 months, and more and more people were coming to me. I had been doing something good, but work started to slow and finally I realized I had been working for the same few clients and had not been getting anyone else in the door. Maybe board posting wasn’t enough? Exactly, its not, I asked around to see what I could do I had gotten a few suggestions like banner trades, recip’s, work for advertising. So I did them all. And soon enough I had more clients than I could shake a stick at.
Network.
Talk to people, people that are in the biz. Webmasters and designers. Talk to anyone you possibly can that could further spread your name of even bring work to you. If you do not network, then don’t plan on anything coming your way.Communicate.
Get on boards, ICQ, AIM, MSN, whatever. Just make sure that people see you and know you are there. Send them emails with different offers, not spam, but personal emails. Take it upon yourself to try and get your name into the field.Portfolio.
If you do not have one of these, then you might as well try to sell a spider to an arachnophobe. Design some fakes sites if you don’t have anything to show. Do some banners, tours, anything that shows the potential of your work. Make sure you present it as efficiently as possible. People do not want to root around not knowing what they are looking at.Advertise.
Make banners, buttons, links, ads, and anything that you can stick your name on. Get listed on any and all Webmaster resource sites, and design sites. This will help you establish a name base and let people know you are around.Demonstrate.
Write articles for resource sites, create different tutorials also, this will let people know you know what your doing. The more people that like your ideas, the more they will like you. Therefore the more likely you will get work.Follow these steps as I did and you will be on your way to having clients beating down your door. Also, make sure you really have something to offer before trying to sell your work. Be unique in what you design and how you present it. Clients love it when their sites are different from others, obviously.
Article written by John
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Cascading Billing – Using Multiple Payment Processors For More Profit
‘Cascading Billing’ has been somewhat of a buzz word of late in the online industry however, there seems to be some confusion as to what this billing process actually involves or even does other than ‘process payments’ this is what we will take a look at in this brief article.
Cascading Billing – The Basics.
Simply put, Cascading Billing is a method to enable your surfers to buy membership to your site or, products utilizing multiple third party credit card processors and, other payment options. The process used, as its name suggests, is that of a ‘cascading’ feature meaning that, if you have multiple processors set up on your site and a surfers credit card is declined on your primary processor, the details will then be passed onto a secondary credit card processor where, they will either be accepted or declined and, if declined, the details can then be passed onto yet another credit card processor or, some alternate payment solution.Cascading Billing – The Benefits.
From the initial reaction this new payment process has received in the online community it would appear that this new solution actually does work and, work well. Many companies who are adopting the ‘Cascading Billing’ process are reporting an increase in sales, some reporting upto a 20% increase over the normal procedures they used. This increase in sales also enables affiliate programs to pass the new found benefits onto the webmasters themselves through raised payouts and better sign-up ratios.Cascading Billing – The Options.
As with any type of online payment processor or, payment system, you need to evaluate what your individual needs are and, using a cascading billing program is no different. With many solutions currently available and in development stages the choices for webmasters and program owners are growing and growing.However, that said, first and foremost you need to choose which processors or, billing solutions you will use to begin your cascading billing. In an ideal world, you should choose two of the more reputable third party payment processors as your primary and secondary processor in addition to a tertiary payment option or, perhaps even a custom dialer solution. Generally speaking, this will give you the best way to monetize your own and, your webmasters traffic.
Cascading Payment Solutions – Overview.
When all is said and done, cascading billing offers webmasters and online e-business owners ample opportunity to increase their profits through minimal outlay either by renting the scripting that will allow you to utilize the cascading billing option (costs from $300 a month) or, having such a solution custom coded which, you can have done from as little as US$5000. Either way i am certain we will start to see many more of the top online companies offering this type of payment solution in the near future and, with some of the larger online companies already adopting this method, it is sure to start happening soon.Article written by Lee
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Building Your Own Opt In Mailing List
Despite the constant launch of ‘new and improved’ email collection programs one of the more popular emails I receive each month ask how webmasters can actually start their own opt-in email list for surfers. Surprisingly enough, this is a fairly simple process and, should only realistically take a webmaster 10-15 minutes to have an opt-in email script installed.
However, the second type of email I get from webmasters who have already installed one of these scripts is asking how they can ensure that surfers sign up to their lists this is what I will approach in this article.
One of the easiest ways to make sure surfers join your opt0in list is to offer them a financial gain by doing so, I don’t mean you should literally pay them for their email address but, why not offer them something for free? A daily picture by email, free porn site access etc etc.
The next biggest mistake I find are that webmasters simply place a collection box saying something like ‘enter your email address here for our newsletter’ and, lets be honest, it isn’t very enticing. Ideally you need to have a ‘headline’ that will catch the surfers attention and actually ‘make’ them want to join your list. Be specific yet be vague (bit hard I know) and you’ll soon see your list grow from one new subscriber a week to hundreds of them!
The next thing you need to take into consideration is how quickly, not only your site, but the page with your collection box loads, if you are using a pop-up console, make sure it is heavy in text not graphics with the first words at the top not saying ‘free porn’ but a similar meaning text, everyone and their dog has seen the words ‘free porn’ on countless other porn sites. Yours NEEDS to stand out!
You should use an effective title if you are going to be using pop-up windows for your email collection. in the title bar don’t have the window called ‘pop-up’ have it named appropriately for the niche you are trying to collect the surfers email address from. Make it relevant, make it concise.
Balance the collection page, any type of page you build for your site should at least be appealing to the eye. Meaning that your fonts, colors and actual text need to contrast together perfectly. If you do use images on this page try to have them prominent yet not overbearing to the surfer.
Offer a way to close a pop-up if this is what you are using to collect the emails after all, they (the surfer) may decide they don’t want to give you their email until they have seen what your site can offer. In the same way, make sure you have a link from your sites to your collection page so, if a surfer decides they do want to give you their email address they can do it without the need of closing your site and reloading it afresh.
Overall however, the best rule you can follow is to keep to the point and keep it simple. This way you will gain the surfers attention quickly and easily and, the surfer will not be distracted from the main purpose of having them on your site – getting to your sponsor.
Hopefully the information above will enable you to start having some more success with your traffic and, once you have the surfers email address make sure you treat it with the respect you would want your own to be treat with, an email address is a sacred thing to most surfers, if you Spam them daily they will leave your opt-in list quickly however, if you send them a ‘newsletter’ once a week / month filled with relevant information you will soon find your list growing exponentially.
Article written by Lee.
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Traffic Filtering – Country Specific Redirects
To some, actually marketing to foreign surfers is a waste of time rather than a business practice. Unfortunately, they are missing out on additional revenue. We are already beginning to see some of the major sponsors in the adult industry embracing these foreign markets and, not just by utilizing dialers.
However, filtering your traffic base is often the hardest part of this money making equation. That is where the following piece of PHP coding can come in handy.
PHP FILTERING CODE
<?
$user_lan = $HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE;if($user_lan==’de’) {
## German
$redir_url = “http://www.germanlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’fr’) {
## French
$redir_url = “http://www.frenchlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’it’) {
## Italian
$redir_url = “http://www.italianlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’es’) {
## Spain
$redir_url = “http://www.spanishlanguagepageurl.com”;## US traffic or Rest of world not defined above
} else {
$redir_url = “http://www.yourmainpageurl.com”;}
header(“Location: $redir_url”);
exit;?>
So, we know that the above piece of coding can redirect surfers based on their country of origin however, in order for you to maximize this to its full potential you will need to know the country specific codes (Also called ISO 639 codes) for each of the main browser languages. Some of these are as follows.
da | Danish
de | German
en | English
es | Spanish
fi | Finnish
fr | French
it | Italian
jp | JapaneseThe problem you now have is finding where to send your filtered country specific surfers to. Of course, there is always the dialer option however, this is not going to be as lucrative to your wallet as what most people will have you believe.
In fact, I very rarely use a dialer on my foreign traffic instead, I tend to send them to a language specific tour page from one of the big sponsors and, if they do not sign up to that sponsors site, this is the point where I throw a dialer at them and, if the dialer still doesn’t make any money off the surfer I then recycle the surfer for a fresh one through a toplist or banner exchange heavy page.
In doing this I find it is often more productive than ‘regular’ English speaking traffic as, if you give the surfer something they are looking for, they will be more inclined to buy.
Hopefully this article has given you some insight into filtering and using your foreign traffic as oppose to just sending them off to a dialer program.
Article written by Lee
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10 Ways To Promote Your Site
As we all know, getting productive traffic to your site can be a long and tedious task of course, there are ways to generate ‘optimized’ traffic at very little cost and time involvement. Below are just a few suggestions about how you can increase traffic to your
site and, inevitably, there are hundreds of different variations of these that will work for your site, I think the key to getting a successful traffic source is dependant on how much effort you put into it and, if you work hard and play little, you will reap the benefits tenfold.1. Create an email discussion list. The list should be related to your web site’s subject. Place your ad on all posts and it will remind people to visit your site.
2. Prove your site is a bargain. Add a lot of free stuff to your offer or, if you’ve sold the product for a higher price before, show them the difference or, show them how much your competitors charge.
3. Make your web site more useful. Sell ad space, generate hot leads, answer visitor questions, offer free content, be news friendly, etc.
4. Make the most of each visitor. Sometimes your price is to high. You should provide a variety of similar products at different price ranges.
5. Test and redesign your banner ads till you get your desired click through rate. Once you do, join many banner exchanges and buy ad space.
6. Use holidays as a reason to get free publicity. Write a press release or article about the current holiday. It’ll have a high chance of being published.
7. Utilize the free content on the internet. Publish one article on a single web page and your main web site link then upload it as a doorway page.
8. Test your new products on the bottom of your home page. You don’t want to take away hits from your best selling products until others are proven.
9. Make commissions without joining an affiliate program. Just propose a joint venture offer to web sites that don’t have affiliate programs.
10. Persuade other web sites to link to yours. It can improve your search engine ranking. Just offer them something of value in return.
Article written by Lee.
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Gay Adult Marketing 101
There is a myth out there that gay traffic is hard to convert because a gay surfer is reluctant to buy. This isn’t so. Conversions come down to two things:
- The gay surfer is discriminating; a membership to a site that has exactly what we want
- The gay surfer is loyal; I, believe, this comes from our experience as a community. When a Gay surfer decides to purchase a membership, it’s typically for a longer period of time.
This is evident with the better Gay Pay Sites; conversions may be lower than a straight hardcore site however, membership tend to be longer than the industry average. The gay surfer is discriminating; we look for a long-term membership with a site that has we want whether it’s teens, bears, amateurs, etc.
With that idea, I always advocate that age-old niche free site philosophy use a variety of sponsor programs on your sites. Typically, my free sites will have one main sponsor (I use Quality Males) then I’ll break my other banner slots down one Teen site, a Twink site and maybe a product like Viagra. But this will vary depending on the “flavor” or “personality” of your site – if you have a gay leather site, my main sponsor will be a Leather sponsor or product, with a variety of other sponsors (one mega site, a teen site, and maybe an adult toy store).
One marketing option, I tend to see working well is the full-page ad vs. only banners. I, honestly, do not know whether it’s a quality issue, a larger ad or the surfer’s disgust with banner ads, but it works well in our market.
One thing that experience has proven to me, it makes no difference whether you’re a webmaster to gay or straight traffic, you need to analyze your traffic. If you’re sending traffic out to sponsors and your not seeing the conversions, maybe you need to really look who your surfers are. If you’re lucky enough to know who your surfers are, then look for a specialty sponsor (whether partnership or click-thru program). It’s all a matter of finding the right sponsor programs and tweaking your site (and we all know how that can be). Don’t be afraid to experiment. It’s the long term that we need to be looking at. Remember that this isn’t “Who wants to be a Millionaire is 30 days or less”.
Gay traffic isn’t difficult to manage as many people think. It’s a matter of patience and understanding your market. And the best way to understand that market, is to ask a successful webmaster in the gay adult market..
Article written by Gary-Alan
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So That’s What It Means!
Often you will hear other webmaster talking about things such as unique hits, banner exchanges and, AVS systems. The article below is a simplified glossary of those and many other terms that you will begin to hear day in and day out of your working life as an adult webmaster.
AVS (Adult Verification System)
The protection system that was designed to prevent minors from accessing adult sites. AVS services usually also have a large network of sites that adult surfers can access with one password. You can find a list of Age Verification Systems at Adult Sponsor ProgramsAVS Site
A site that uses an AVS system.Banner Exchange
A program that enables an exchange of traffic between a whole variety of adult sites. They provide you with some coding which you put in your HTML in order to get additional visitors to your adult site. You can visit: Porn Client for a highly respected Banner Exchange System.Blind Links
When you place a misleading link on a site that will encourage the surfer to click on it. They will be sent to a new site that has nothing to do with what they expected to see. For example, if you had a text link saying ‘Free Porn’ and they get sent to a paysite when they click on the link.Browser
A program that displays and navigates web pages you are using a browser now to view this page.Chargeback
A chargeback is what happens when a surfer changes their mind or decides they don’t like the site or service they signed up for and tells their credit card company they will not pay the fee for your sponsor or paysite charges. Chargebacks are bad for everyone concerned because do you not only lose income for the sale, penalties are applied and sometimes they are applied to you.Click-Thru Program
A sponsorship program that pays you an amount of money for each and every single visitor you send to their site. You can also find a list of per click sponsors at Adult Sponsor Programs.Content Provider
A company that offer adults pictures, video clips for sale or lease. For a complete list of the best content providers head over to http://www.adult-content-providers.com.Dead Or Broken Link
A link that is no longer valid or isn’t working. When you click on the link you get a page not found error.E-Zine
An E-Zine is in simplified terms and online magazine.FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
You need to upload (FTP) your web pages from your computer on to the web for everyone to see. One of the most well known FTP clients is Cute FTP.Hits
Number of times your page was viewed over a specific period of time.Hit Counter
Tool used to track the number of surfers that click onto your adult site. A good hit counter can be found at: http://www.sextracker.comHot-Linking
When someone links to an image on your server to display it on their site instead of linking to the image on their own server. You can prevent Hot-Linking by having a .htaccess file on your server.HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
This is the language used to write web pages. This page is written in HTML.ISP
Your internet service provider. AOL is a well known ISP.Java
A programming language used by programmers to build and create programs. Not to be confused with JavaScript (see below).JavaScript
A scripting language you can directly insert into HTML documents. They only work with surfers that have Java enabled on their browser.Legal Content
Adult content for which you have rights to display on your site.Model Release
Document that a model signs at the time the photographs of them are taken.Message Board
A message board is a place where you can ask and offer advice about the industry or just generally chat with other adult webmasters for example the message board at: http://www.europeanwebmasters.com.Newbie
A new adult webmaster.Partnership, Sponsor or, Affiliate Program
A revenue program that pays you a percentage or fixed price for every member you send to your sponsor’s site.Pay Site
An adult website where surfers have to pay a fee for access.Pic Post
A site where you can submit a picture and your ad on a daily basis.Plug In
A plug in is a ready-made type of web “CONTENT”. Many plug in providers will even host the content on their servers and allow you to change colors, Fonts and, add a logo graphic, so the plug in matches your site. Plug In content is generally more expensive than image content.Ratio
A ratio like this refers to click throughs and actual sales made from them. When a webmaster says they got a 1:250 ratio, they mean that out of 250 people who clicked on his sponsor banner, one of the surfers paid for memberships.Signup Ratio
The amount of surfers that paid to view your adult site (See the example above headed RATIO).Spamming
Promoting a site or service to newsgroups or e-mail addresses that have not given you permission to do so. Spamming can also mean posting your referral codes on message boards constantly inn order to get other webmasters to sign up beneath you.TGP (Thumbnail Gallery Post)
A site where you can submit your gallery pages. They in return put up your gallery and send you additional traffic.Thumbnail
A smaller version of an image used to link to a larger version of the same image.Turnkey Site
An adult site that is already designed and finished with logos, content, billing solutions and, hosting. All you have to do is maintain the site. Newbies often make the mistake of buying a turnkey site before they properly know how to market them.Traffic
The term used to refer to the amount of visitors to your adult website over a specific period of time.Uniques
Number of visitors to your site. If 10 surfers visit your site on any given day and 2 of them click onto your site 3 times the same day, it will be referred to as 8 unique visitors for that day.URL
A web address. Actual address to a page would be a URL. For example: http://www.adultwebmasternewsletter.com is the URL to our Adult Webmaster Newsletter Site.Warning or Entry Page
The page before a surfer sees the main content of your site.Web Host
A company that will provide you with a hosting account so that you may upload your website on their server so that surfers may see your site. For a reputable host you might like to try http://www.webair.com.Article written by Lee
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Straight From The Horses Mouth – Get Googlized
Many webmasters wonder how to ensure their sites will be included in Google’s index of web sites. Although Google crawls more than a billion pages, it’s inevitable some sites will be missed. When Google does miss a site, it’s frequently for one of these reasons:
* The site is not well connected through multiple links to others on the web.
* The site launched after Google’s last crawl was completed.
* The design of the site makes it difficult for Google to effectively crawl its content (excessive frames, tables, etc).Google’s intent is to represent the content of the Internet fairly and accurately. To help make that goal a reality, we offer this guide to building a “crawler-friendly” site. There are no guarantees a site will be found by our crawler, but following these guidelines should increase the probability that your site will show up in Google search results.
Do…
Provide high-quality content on your page – especially your home page.
If you follow only one tip from this page, this should be it. Our crawler indexes web pages by analyzing the content of the pages themselves. Google will index your site better if your pages contain useful information. Plus, your site has a better chance of becoming a favorite among web surfers and being linked to by others if the information it contains is relevant and useful.Submit your site to the appropriate category in a web directory.
Listing your site in the Open Directory Project http://www.dmoz.org/ or Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com/ increases the likelihood it will be seen by robot crawlers and web surfers.Pay attention to HTML conventions.
Make sure that your <TITLE> and <ALT> tags are accurate and descriptive. Also, check your <A HREF> tags for errors since broken or improperly formatted links can prevent Google from indexing your page.
Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server.
This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it’s current for your site so that you don’t accidentally block our crawler. Visit: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html for a FAQ answering questions regarding robots and how to control them once they visit your site.Ensure that your site is accessible through HTML hyperlinks.
Generally, your site is crawlable if the pages are connected to each other with ordinary HTML links. If certain areas are not linked, you may be excluding older browsers, differently-abled users, and Google. Google can crawl content from a database or other dynamically generated content as long as it can be found by following links. If you have many unlinked pages, you may want to create a jump page from which the crawler can find all of your pages.Build your site with a logical link structure.
A hierarchical link structure is not only beneficial to you, but also to Google. More of your site can be crawled if it is laid out in with a clear architecture.Don’t…
Fill your page with lists of keywords, attempt to “cloak” pages, or put up “crawler only” pages.
If your site contains pages, links or text that you do not intend visitors to see, Google considers them deceptive and may ignore your site.Feel obligated to purchase a search optimization service.
Some companies “guarantee” your site a place near the top of a results page. While legitimate consulting firms can improve your site’s flow and content, others employ deceptive tactics to try and fool search engines. Be careful – if your domain is affiliated with one of these services, it could be permanently banned from our index, we have found search engine optimization software like Web Position Gold works best but, again use it in moderation.Use images to display important names, content or links.
Our crawler does not recognize text contained in graphics.
Use ALT tags if the main content and key words on your page cannot be formatted in regular HTML.Provide multiple copies of a page under different URLs
Many sites offer text-only or printer-friendly versions of pages that contain the same content as the graphic-enriched version of the page. While Google crawls these pages, duplicates are removed from our index. In order to ensure that we have the desired version of your page, place the other versions in separate directories and use the robots.txt file to block our crawler.Article written by a Google employee
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