Billing Solutions For International Surfers

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

We all know the lifeblood of the webmaster is to be able to accept credit cards for site access however, with the global markets emerging more and more, many webmasters still do not realize that they can accept credit cards from international countries at little or no extra cost to themselves or, their business.

Presuming you already have your sites translated into a selection of global formats you need to make sure you can process foreign transactions and, these should be handled differently than regular US based credit card users however. This is what we will approach upon in this article.

The main reason we own our businesses is to turn a profit and, from a profit making point of view is just how the details below will enable you to benefit your long term global business.

The first step you need to take in order to correctly ‘charge’ your international customers is to ensure that you are sending them to the right language, after all, over 70% of internet users can not speak English, let alone read it. This is where having some geo-scripting comes in handy on your join page, the second the surfer hits this page he (or she) will be directed to a localized version of your join page.

Now that you have the surfer on your join page you also need to ensure they have a variety of options available to them to actually finalize the purchase however, you should also ensure that, if they want to view your join page in another language, that they have this as an option too.

Some alternate payment methods for your international customs could include one or more of the following, PayPal, JCB, Mastercard, Discover, Maestro, EuroDebit, Checks and, of course, a dialer.

I would however use the dialer as a last minute option should their chosen method of payment not be accepted.

Even though you may run a ‘recurring’ based site, you might not want to have your foreign surfers recur and risk having their card declined when it comes to authorizing your charge next, for this reason you may like to add the option of a 3 month membership or perhaps a 6 month membership however, make sure you lower the cost of this membership in relation to buying a monthly membership, this might just be the clincher you need to close the international sale.

As with any purchase the after sales support is also needed, especially if you are wanting your international customer to rebill for several months and, trust me, they WILL rebill, often for in excess of 6 months. They pulled their credit or debit card out for a reason and, they will stay if you can give them more reason too.

With any type of sale a follow up is always good, many sponsors and processors send out an email automatically upon sign up, however, how many of these emails are written in the surfers native tongue?

In conclusion, when dealing with international customers you should cater to them NOT make them cater to YOU by doing this you will ensure the longevity of your international business.

Finally, if you have any type of online business you should carefully consider the global market place as it is growing a rapid rate with millions of new international surfers coming online each year this would be a bad business choice on your part if you were not to cater for them.

Article written by Lee.

Niche Marketing – What Is A Niche?

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

The first step as webmasters we must take to become successful is to discover what our niche specialty is however, many webmasters still do not realize exactly what a niche is.

In fact, from the webmasters I have spoken to it would seem that a ‘niche’ is just another word for the main topics of pornography, Teen, Asian, Fetish, Gay, Straight, the list goes on and, whilst this list is never ending they are all niches in themselves however, you need to look beyond the top level niche and start to develop a feel, a stance of your own as to what niche you will work on for example, Asian Midgets, you probably cant get more niche than that in this day and age however, realistically, the chances of you a) being able to find the content for this niche and b) Being able to find a sponsor are remarkably thin.

That said, if you can find a niche that you like personally, whether that be she-male, midgets, straight or, gay, this will give you a solid foundation to market your sites on especially if you build on your already vast knowledge of what turns you on.

Now, onto breaking down the niche you are comfortable working in..

Lets say for arguments sake that you have chosen to concentrate on the ‘Gay’ market,, within this market (as with any other) there is a remarkable amount of ‘sub-niches’ and, these are what you need to build your business around whether you want to or not, the ‘sub-niches’ of any given adult market is where the $$$ can be earned.

Now using the gay market as an example the first few niches that come to mind are:

Twink’s – Young looking hairless 18 – 20 year olds.
Bear’s – Hairy men over the age of 20.
Hunk’s – Muscular looking guys in the age group of 20 – 30 .
Straight Guys – Yes, that’s right, gay men get off on looking at straight guys.

As you can see from the above four examples we can now start targeting our market audience a lot better.

The next thing we need to do now that we have found the niche and the sub-niche we will be working is to look for a sponsor that complements the niche of our choice, this is the hard part. Many webmasters will go directly to the highest paying sponsor and throw links up to their ‘sub-niche’ pay site not even looking at the sites tour or members area. This is a huge mistake, the first thing you NEED to do is to look over the sponsors paysites and, more importantly, the sponsors site tour AND members area. What point is there sending your surfers who are after Twink’s if, your sponsors tour has images of a load of guys over the Twink age bracket?

From this point on and, after you have chosen a suitable tour to send your traffic to you need to build up a flow of ‘niche’ traffic the chances are, if you submit your TGP gallery to an ‘all gay’ TGP that you will receive a substantial amount of unfiltered traffic making your hard work in choosing your sponsors tour worthless.

So how do you choose a traffic source that is right for you? Simple, you need to experiment, start of with your niche TGP’s, Top Lists, Links Lists etc and see what happens, how much traffic are you being sent from your chosen traffic source and, more importantly, how much of this traffic is actually clicking through to your sponsors tour. Once you can get an idea of what traffic you are being sent from what traffic source you have won more than half of the battle already.

Record EVERY possible detail about your traffic sources that you can, how much traffic they send a day, how many visits your sponsor gets, how many sales you made, what content you were using etc, etc.

Once you have a working list of data to use you can start to abuse and filter your traffic like you would have not thought imaginable, if one of your sponsors has a higher payout on Bear traffic, then you instantly know what traffic source gives you traffic for that niche and, you can utilize that information to your benefit.

The most important thing to remember however when marketing a niche is that you need to have patience, you need to use a process of trial and error and, more importantly, you need to experiment, just because TGP A sends you 100,000 hits of Twink traffic one day, it doesn’t mean you will get the same quantity of niche traffic the next.

Article written by Le

What On Earth Is CGI?

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

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

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

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

Some of the more common uses of CGI include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some important things to remember about CGI routines:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article written by Lee

Typography Know How

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

Our web sites are nothing without content, and most content is comprised of simple text. Many web designers neglect to pay attention to their typography, and it shows. Proper typography varies based on where the text is and what purpose it serves. Although there are no rules etched in stone, there are a few general techniques that should be followed. Although some of these tips may seem elementary, many of them are not followed.

Headings.

Clearly, headings should be larger, by 1 or 2 font sizes, than your body text. You may consider bold, but be cognizant of the letter width. Arial Black, for example, may create letters too fat for your taste. When using colors, be sure the colors contrast well with the background color of your site. Black and dark gray do not contrast well, while black and white (or light gray) work quite well. Sometimes, even a simple color change can create useful headings.

Also be sure to cascade your headings. A main heading, for example, would be larger than subheadings. This effect creates a sense of emphasis and flow to the information.

Do not italicize your headings. Italics are meant to underscore particular content, but since the text is a heading and of larger size anyway, italics are redundant and often make the text difficult to read.

Fonts.

The default is Times New Roman, which works fine, but many think it is boring. I have experimented with Arial, Georgia and Verdana, and have found Verdana the most readable font face available. This is a personal preference, but fonts should be restricted to the above four to ensure compatibility between all users of your web site. If your user’s browser does not support your font choice, their browser will revert to its default. Since browsers have increased support for CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, whenever possible, use CSS to define your fonts, rather than HTML’s <font> tag. Also, be sure to keep your font sizes large enough for visitors of all ages and eyesight’s.

Stress Styles.

Avoid using all capital letters within your text, as it makes it difficult to read and implies you are shouting at the reader.

To stress words within your body text, decide on a format and stick with it. Some choose bold, while others choose italics or underline. My personal favorite is italics, but any of these can work well. Be careful when using underline, however, as it can be mistaken for a link. In addition, do not overuse these stress styles.

Entire body text should not be bold. Bold, like italics, is used to emphasis words, and usually an entire body of copy should speak for itself in regularly styled text. I like to use CSS to space my body text out a little to increase readability.

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

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

Making Money From Adult Webmaster Referrals

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

One method of income generation that is very rarely talked about in the industry is that of the webmaster, from the new webmasters to the adult industry right up to those who have been in the biz some time.

One of the easiest ways to generate ‘long term’ income is by referring webmasters to programs using your own linking (referral) codes.

However, this is for some a huge step out of their everyday site building even though it shouldn’t be.

This is what we will investigate in this article.

By now we should at least have a fair few sites online and getting surfer traffic but, how many of us get traffic from other webmasters and don’t even know about it?

The chances are, if you submit a site to ANYWHERE you will at least get one webmaster hit to it regardless of whether it is a webmaster of a TGP, Links List, Dmoz Editor etc these are all potential money makers for you.

One of the easiest ways to make money from other webmasters is to simply have a link on each and every site you build in text that says ‘webmasters’ this should be linked to a single page on your domain with a listing of various affiliate programs you use or can recommend.

Often placing a button or a banner on this page for each of the referral programs will work much better for you as the webmaster can actually see a little more information about the sponsor you are trying to make them join.

We all know of some of the big sponsors like ARS, Topbucks, Sic Cash etc etc but, what about the smaller programs that, perhaps not many webmasters know about, these would be the ideal types of sponsor to use on your webmaster page.

However, in addition to the affiliate programs you could also recommend hosting companies, content providers etc etc for example, the following companies have referral programs that you could use on this page:

Content Providers:

http://content.xphotography.com
http://matrixcontent.com
http://pixmasters.com

Hosting Providers:

http://webair.com

Message Forums:

http://arsresources.com/forum/
http://xnations.com

Traffic Generation:

http://adultbuttonexchange.com
http://pornclient.com

As you can see from the small list above, you could have more than one way for webmasters to make you some additional profits in the form of either, cold hard cash or, from some of the places, additional traffic to your sites.

Hopefully list brief article will have given you some ideas as to how you can make some additional money from webmasters visiting your site and, don’t forget, once you have the page linked on your site, it will, inevitably get into the search engines, so keyword the page up and you might start generating more webmaster traffic than you could imagine.

Article written by Lee.

Designing Your Site With Link Popularity In Mind

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic, WebDesign | Response: 0

To get good traffic, your website needs to be popular, to be popular, your website needs links, to get links, your website needs to be popular. Annoying isn’t it

Almost everyone agrees that link popularity is critical for your website’s visibility, traffic, and thus successfulness. It is something you need to have. As I pondered the ways of establishing and improving one’s “popularity”, eventually all come back to one central issue, your website must be designed to be popular.

Link popularity is a basically the measure of links pointing to your website and is meant to be a measure of the best websites. Theoretically those websites that have the most links pointing to them must be important and thus worth the visit. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks out there that have created programs to “boost” your popularity artificially and all they have done is create Spam and muddy the overall picture. The search engines and directories are keeping a close eye on these programs.

Design: When getting a request or thinking about making one for a link exchange with a website, look thoroughly over the website first. The website’s theme or topic and general layout is the first thing to look at. Sites with themes or topics that are related to or compliment yours should be your main link partners. You do this to get targeted traffic.

Just as you evaluated someone’s website, others will be doing the same to yours. Make sure you know what your theme or topic is and that it clearly encompasses the whole website. Stay focused; do not try to cover everything.

Next, check out the links page or resource area. If they do have one, is it easy to find within the site? Does it seem to be part of the site or just a page off to the side? Are their linking rules available, clear, and easy to follow? Do they accept links from any website or are they choosy? Being part of someone’s well constructed links program, no mater what size, can be a very beneficial thing indeed.

Again, the same goes for your website. You want to let other webmasters know that you want to exchange links and which type of website you will accept requests from. Make it easy for others to link with you.

The last set of questions to ask yourself about any website is:

Is it easy to navigate
Does it have too many graphics (slow loading)
Is it pleasant to the eye
Does the information seem to be organized in a logical fashion

What has been covered so far deals with what the visitors see; if visiting the website is a pleasant experience then people will stay and look and possibly come back. The final area to cover is what the search engines see.

The underside (the source code) of the website is just as critical when designing or linking with a website. The search engines are the ones that read this and if it is not done properly then the website can not succeed. Below are a few things you need to consider in your source code and any potential site that has asked to be linked by you.

Does the website contain frames
Does it use the headers, titles, meta-tags, and alt tags properly
Do the keyword location(s) and density seem appropriate and “optimized”

The latter two issues mentioned above are critical, for they are the backbone to traffic production.

Content: The information you have is just as important as how you set it up on your website. The more popular websites or the ones with good link popularity are those that have valuable information or resource(s) for its audience after all, they fill a niche! People will visit, stay, return, and recommend a website if it has the content they want or need.

“Content is king.” A well-designed and organized website might look good but if it does not deliver anything of value, it will not be successful. Whatever subject matter you have on your site, make sure you have something of interest and importance to add to the subject, if you do and you promote it well, you and your site will be successful. In this context, it (content) does not just refer to images, why not add some stories or interesting links to news articles to improve your sites ‘popularity’.

In addition to information, resources like mailing lists, surveys, polls, classified ads, forums, etc. are all things if used appropriately can add value and fresh content to your website which, in turn will assist you in interacting with your sites visitors.

In conclusion: Take the time to design and optimize your website properly for the search engines. Make sure you have something of value or importance to add to whatever area your website is in. Provide resources and other tools, which your visitors could use and will make them come back. Be proactive and interact with your visitors. Websites that are dynamic and active are the best ones. All of this might take a little more time to get your website up and running, but it will be worth it.

For yours or any website to be popular, it needs the links and to get the links, it needs to show the other webmasters that it is worthy of a link. It seems everyone today has a website, but not everyone has put together a website that adds value to the Internet community. Take a critical look at your website and any website you might link to and ask yourself…………….

Would you bookmark it?

Article written by Lee

Online Adult Laws – Privacy Policies

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General | Response: 0

To many webmasters and companies working online the fundamental basics of their business is to turn a profit through effective online marketing campaigns and promotions however, within all of this profit making there is a side of business that is so often overlooked or, forgotten entirely, what is this business practice? The law.

In this brief article we will take a look at one such law that comes into effect in California on the 1st July 2004 namely, that all ‘web sites that collect any personal information from consumers to post a privacy policy’. Whilst this in itself is the first law of its kind in the United States it is worth mentioning that this is only a State law that affects California however, that said, where one state starts, others are sure to follow especially considering the huge potential left for the growth of the internet.

Privacy Policies – How Does This Effect You?

The main factor that you must take into consideration with this new law from California is that, because the Internet is truly global, you have no way of telling where one of your surfers are coming from thus, a surfer entering your site from California, may be making you break the law by not displaying a privacy policy should you collect their information. Incidentally, this new privacy policy law does not state what ‘collected’ information requires you to post a policy however, it would seem that personal information such as addresses, phone numbers and email addresses would be the primary target of this new Californian online law.

Privacy Policies – The Basics.

So what is a privacy policy, in essence, it is a document informing your site visitors / customers that any information you collect from them, including user submitted information will be used in a specific way, this might be a case of solely being used by yourself or, specifically if you rent out this information you need to tell your surfers / customers exactly who you are renting this information to.

Privacy Policies – Overview.

Whether you collect personal information from you site visitors or not the one thing that makes sense is to have a page created ready for the 1st July 2004 so that you can have it online for when you need it, perhaps storing this page on a central domain and linking to that page from all of your other web sites would be the best method to go as far as ensuring you are covered from prosecution or, perhaps creating a keyword rich privacy policy which you can get listed in the search engines is the way to go after all, just because this will become a legal requirement for you it does not mean that you cant profit from the potential traffic going to that page.

Article written by Lee

Adding Images To Your Web Pages

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

The Basics

Adding Images To Your Web Pages – The Basics.

So you have just got into the online adult business but don’t know your ass from your elbow, you have the simplistic stuff relating to HTML down but, you want to find out how you can start adding banners and images to your pages here is a quick guide to help you on your way.

What Is An Image?

The answer, is, believe it or not simple, An image is a picture on a page of your website. There are however, many way to display images on your site from the size of it to the overall effect you want the image to have on your HTML page and from borders around the image and many other things.

However, I don’t want to blind you with information at the moment considering you need to actually know the basics of adding images before you can start using fancy styles and the likes.

Adding A Basic Image.

The HTML code to add an image on any HTML based page is a straight forward one however, before you can use this HTML tag you need to know where on your page you want the image to appear.

Now that you have decided where you want your image to display you need to use the image tag, the HTML coding to place an image on your page should be IMG. Also, you will need to tell your page where you want the image to come from or, in other words, you need to tell it the source of the image you want to use the HTML tag to do this is SRC.

For example, lets say you have an image called porn.gif (you need to include the extension in your SRC coding) you would display this image on your page using the following code:

<IMG SRC=”porn.gif”>

Simple huh?

Well, actually, maybe not, for example, what do you put if the images you are linking to is NOT in the same location as the page you want it to appear on? That’s not a problem, all you need to do is use the FULL location of the image in your IMG HTML tag like this:

<IMG SRC=”http://www.domain.com/images/porn.gif”>

You should now be able to include images on your pages without any problems.

Image Sizes.

Ok we can now include an image on our pages but, what if we want to make this image fit the feel of the rest of our page / site, how do you manipulate the graphic to ‘look’ right?

There are a number of ways images can be manipulated for example, if you want the image to be 100 pixels wide by 100 pixels high you can add the WIDTH and the HEIGHT tag to your HTML coding like this:

<IMG SRC=”http://www.domain.com/images/porn.gif” WIDTH=”100″ HEIGHT=”100″>

That will now resize your image into a square that is 100 pixels wide and high.

Now we have the image on our page in the right size we require what else can we do with it? Read on..

Borders + Colors.

In addition to placing the image and resizing the image on our pages we can also add a border and, a border color to the mage to make it stand out if needed for example:

<IMG SRC=”http://www.domain.com/images/porn.gif” WIDTH=”100″ HEIGHT=”100″ BORDER=”2″ BORDERCOLOR=”FF0000″>

As you can see we have now added the two tags ‘BORDER’ and ‘BORDERCOLOR’. The first ‘BORDER’ tag tells your HTML what size of border you want around your image and, this can be any size you want to make the image stand out on your page. The second ‘BORDERCOLOR’ tag tells your HTML code what color you want the border to be again, this can be any color you like to match the rest of your sites pages.

Linking An Image.

In addition to resizing, adding borders and colors we can also link our image to a specific URL (the most common form of this is with banner advertising) and, if you want to link your image to a URL you would use the following coding:

<A HREF=”http://www.sponsorsurl.com”><IMG SRC=”http://www.domain.com/images/porn.gif” BORDER=”2″ WIDTH=”100″ HEIGHT=”100″ BORDERCOLOR=”FF0000″>

This will create an image that is 100×100 pixels in size, with a border size of 2 pixels in the color FF0000 that is linked to http://www.sponsorsurl.com

Also, the order of the HTML tags we use is not important however, you should try to get used to arranging them in a certain way to make your work easier if it ever comes to editing your images.

Hopefully this has been of use to you and you can now see that adding banners and images to your sites isn’t as daunting as you first thought.

Article written by Lee.