Traffic Filtering – Country Specific Redirects

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

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 | Japanese

The 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

Why Cant I Get Indexed By The Search Engines?

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

Unfortunately, this is an all too common question. If it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only one frustrated about the length of time it takes to be indexed, or the many pitfalls involved. It often takes anywhere from two days to as much as six months to be listed on a search engine. For example, last month Excite finally updated its index for the first time since last August! Luckily, Excite is the most extreme case lately, but waiting several weeks to a month can also be extremely frustrating especially when your livelihood depends partly on these search engines.

The Web Position Submitter report will give you current time estimates for each engine so you’ll know what to expect. However, an engine at any time could choose to delay their indexing beyond the “norm” for maintenance or other reasons. On the flip side, you could get lucky and submit just a couple days before an engine does a complete refresh of their database. Therefore, submission times can never be an exact science since we’re all ultimately at the mercy of the engine.

If you’ve submitted your site and have waited the estimated time to be indexed and there’s still no listing, what do you do now?

Here are 16 tips that should help you solve this problem:

1. First, be sure you’re not already indexed but just don’t know it. Unfortunately, none of the major engines are kind enough to e-mail or notify you as to if and when you’ve been indexed.

The method to determine if a page or domain has been indexed varies from one engine to another, and in many cases, it’s difficult to tell for sure. Never assume that you’re not indexed just because you searched for a bunch of keywords and you never came up in the first few pages of results. You could be in there but buried near the bottom.

In addition, it’s not very practical to check the status of a number of pages on each major engine each week. Fortunately, Web Position has a URL verification feature in the Reporter that makes this process much easier. Each time you run a mission, it will report which URLs exist and do not exist in each engine. If you’re using Web Position and are not finding your URLs after submitting, be sure to see this page for common pitfalls to watch out for:

http://www.webposition.com/urlnotfoundhelp.htm

2. Make sure you have uploaded the pages to your site before submitting them. This one seems obvious, but submitting a page that does not exist or submitting with a subtle typo in the URL is a goof we might all make at one time or another. If you’re using Web Position’s Submitter, there’s a checkbox on tab 2 that forces Web Position to verify that all your URLs are valid before submitting them.

3. If you have information inside frames, that can cause problems with submissions. It’s best if you can create non-framed versions of your pages. You should then submit the non-frames versions of your pages which can of course point to your framed Web site. Alternatively, you can enter your relevant text within the NOFRAMES area of a framed page which most search engine spiders will read.

4. Search engine spiders cannot index sites that require any kind of registration or password. A spider cannot fill out a form of any kind. The same rule applies regarding indexing of content from a searchable database, because the spider cannot fill out a form to query that database. The solution is to create static pages that the engines will be able to find.

5. Dynamic pages often block spiders. In fact, any URL containing special symbols like a question mark (?) or an ampersand (&) will be ignored by many engines.

6. Most engines cannot index text that is embedded in graphics. Text that appears in multimedia files (audio and video) cannot be indexed by most engines. Information that is generated by Java applets or in XML coding cannot be indexed by most engines.

7. If your site has a slow connection or the pages are very complex and take a long time to load, it might time out before the spider can index all the text. For the benefit of your visitors and the search engines, limit your page size to less than 60K. In fact, most Webmasters recommend that your page size plus the size of all your graphics should not exceed 50K-70K. If it does, many people on dial up connections will leave before the page fully loads.

8. If you submit just your home page, don’t expect a search engine to travel more than one or two links away from the home page or the page that you submitted. Over time they may venture deeper into your site, but don’t count on it. You’ll often need to submit pages individually that appear further down into your site or have no link from the home page.

9. If your Web site fails to respond when the search engine spider pays a visit, you will not be indexed. Even worse, if you are indexed and they pay a visit when your site is down, you’ll often be removed from their database! Therefore, it pays to have a reliable hosting service that is up 99.5% of the time. However, at some point a spider is going to hit that other 0.5% and end up yanking your pages by mistake. Therefore, it pays to keep a close eye on your listings.

10. If you have ever used any questionable techniques that might be considered an overt attempt at spamming (i.e., excessive repetition of keywords, same color text as background, or other things that the Web Position Page Critic warns you about), an engine may ignore or reject your submissions. If you’re having trouble getting indexed in the expected amount of time, make sure your site is spam-free.

11. If your site contains redirects or meta refresh tags these things can sometimes cause the engines to have trouble indexing your site. Generally they will index the page that it is redirecting TO, but if it thinks you are trying to “trick” the engine by using “cloaking” or IP redirection technology, there’s a chance that it may not index the site at all.

12. If you’re submitting to a directory site like Yahoo, Open Directory, NBCI.com, LookSmart, or others, then a human being will review your site. They must decide the site is of sufficient “quality” before they will list it. I recommend you read the submission guide on the directory tab of the WebPosition Submitter. It contains tips to improve your chances of obtaining a good listing on these directories.

13. A number of engines no longer index pages residing on many common free web hosting services. The common complaint from the engines is that they get too many “junk” or low-quality submissions from free web site domains. Therefore, they often choose not to index anyone from those domains or they limit submissions from them. It’s always best to buy your own domain name (very important) and place it on a respected, paid hosting service to avoid being discriminated against.

14. Some engines have been known to drop pages that cannot be traveled to from the home page. HotBot has been rumored to do this. You may want to consider submitting your home page that links either directly or indirectly to your doorway pages.

15. Make sure you’re submitting within the recommended limits. Some engines do not like more than a certain number of submissions per day for the same domain. If you exceed the limit, you may find that all your submissions are ignored. Fortunately, WebPosition’s submitter will warn you regarding current limits and recommend you stay within them. Some submission consultants feel it is dangerous to submit more than ONE page a day to a engine for a given Web site. For those who wish to be ultra-conservative in their approach, the Web Position Submitter includes a checkbox to limit submissions to one URL per day per engine.

16. Last but not least, sometimes the engines just lose submissions at random through technical errors and bugs. Therefore, some people like to resubmit once or twice a month for good merit in case they do lose a submission. Certainly if you’ve followed all the “rules” and are still not listed, re-submit! Sometimes a little persistence is all that’s needed.

If any of the above scenarios apply to your submission, you should make the necessary adjustments and re-submit. If that still does not work, you should consider e-mailing or calling the search engine and asking them politely why you have not been indexed yet. Sometimes they will reply back with “Sorry, there was a problem with our system and I’ve now made sure you’ll be indexed within the next couple days.” Or, sometimes they’ll tell you why you were not indexed. In other cases, they will ignore your e-mail and you’ll have to keep e-mailing or calling them until they respond. Still, it’s definitely worth the effort to get your site listed with the major engines assuming you also take the time to optimize your pages so you’ll achieve top rankings.

Article written by Lee

Getting Webmaster Traffic To Your Design Site

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

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

Personality Plus

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

I have been selling to the gay market now for 5 years. And one trend I have noticed that works best in ANY marketing attempt is to make it personal as possible. Now this is true in any marketing venue; however, the same tactics of Personality I have used in the straight market were not enough for the gay market.

The gay market is better served when the surfer BELIEVES, not just feels, you know him and know what he wants. This goes back to my previous comments on knowing your niche.

I really believe that the “1 to 1 dialogue” you can have with your surfers is more important than just high traffic averages when making sales. Giving him the sense that he matters to you, a sense of community, a sense that you are here just for him is all accomplished by adding your own personality to your work.

In many avenues I have said “talk to the surfer”. I have said it so much you are all probably sick of hearing it. But it WORKS. With many of my straight sites, I attempt to speak quickly and to the point, because while I know straight people I don’t know what is going to fly all the time. In those cases, though, instead of saying, “Click Here for Great Sex Sites” I will probably phrase it as “The best site on the net and Cheaper than a six pack of beer”. Am I being heterophobic with my lack of enthusiasm? Maybe. It is how I approach it and it does work.

On my side of the fence, I would talk the talk, differently. While the basics remain the same, “talk to the surfer”, I approach it in a more personal manner… Again, instead of using “Click Here”, I would go with “Hmm, Hmm … I followed this yummy thing to Absolutely Male. I have to tell you, I had more fun here than anywhere else on the net. Made my toes curl and then some…” Enough of that now, huh? = )

I do not stop at just the marketing. I do the same thing when it comes to the body of my sites. I will add statements that include a recent trip to the local gay watering hole, the men I saw on the beach, my own experience with a man in uniform, and so on depending on the theme of the site. And, yes since I’m not a total sex fiend, I do make things up as I go along ; )

Recently, I have received letters from webmaster who have worked the personality approach. They have found a lot of success. However their bigger complaint was they now had a lot more bookmarkers than before. That’s great, as far as I’m concerned. This means they have been to glean a following of loyal surfers. And if you can work it, it is that loyalty that can make a HUGE difference. I think I will save how to work that loyalty factor for a future article or post.

The gay adult net has gone full circle. In the beginning, personality was the KEY to success. Then we followed suit with most of the adult web and moved away from it to a “here’s some porn now buy something” attitude. Right now, when the going seems to be getting tough, our surfers are looking for the exact thing that made us different to begin personality and community.

Article written by Gary-Alan

How To Become A Gay Porn Star

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Employment, General | Response: 0

A quick look across the gay side of the adult industry will show it is lacking in one thing that its straight counterpart has in an abundance, amateur male models with their own adult porn sites. With that said, if you wanted to tap into this market how could you go about doing so and, more importantly, could you make money from working on the other side of the camera for a change? This is what we will look at in this article.

Becoming A Porn Star – The Basics.

Any web cam model will tell you, to have your own porn site will take a lot of persistence, time and, more importantly, personality, not least from the webmaster side of the industry however, in my opinion I think the pressure that a webmaster may face breaking into the gay male porn side of the adult industry might just be a bit harsher than what the bubbly web cam girls have to contend with, not only because as a male you will be appearing in content but, because your primary traffic base, whether you like it or not, will be a mixture of women and gay males.

Male Amateur Sites – Getting Ready.

Before you start to even put your first ideas down on paper you need to do one thing, spend some time to research what is needed in order to start your own amateur porn site. In doing so, you will see that not only is everything in the two paragraphs above true but, you will also learn a little about yourself and, more importantly, about other webmasters and your surfers. Now you have the fundamental questions you need to ask yourself these are, What equipment do you need to run a male amateur site? What amount of investment in both time and money do you need to put into building your site? How much will you charge your surfers for access to your site? and, Is this going to be a long term commitment from yourself that could be possibly better spent elsewhere? Answer those questions as honestly as you can before proceeding and furthermore, think long and hard about the answers.

Gay Amateur Web Sites – The Alternatives.

So lets stop for a moment and consider that you have realized you do not want to build and maintain your own male amateur site but, you would still like to be male porn material, where do you go from here? Well there are companies who can put you on their books and give you work from time to time such as http://www.redbagproductions.com a male modeling agency for the adult industry, this will in all likelihood be the place for you to start your search, find out how many places there are that can get you talent work and, what type of modeling work you will be required to do.

Becoming A Gay Porn Star – An Overview.

With sites online such as Every Stag and the slew of other male modeling agencies finding a medium to start your modeling career wont be hard but, with this career comes uncertain hours, hard work (in more ways than one) and, to some extent, fame amongst the gay adult porn surfer. If this is something that you feel you can devote the time and energy towards and, are able to cope with the voyeuristic side of your personality then go for it, if however, you are still unsure after reading this brief article, perhaps becoming a gay pornstar isn’t for you?

Article written by Lee

The Ins and Outs of European Domain Name Registration

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Domain Names | Response: 0

A domain name is more than just your online adult business address; it’s a crucial aspect of your online adult business. It is closely linked to the way a surfer thinks of and, more importantly, remembers your site. In many European countries, domain names that end with a country code carry more weight with the Internet-surfing public than dot.com domain names. So, if you want to have of a chance of selling to a foreign adult surfer in a European country you might consider registering a European country code top-level domain name (ccTLD) for your site.

Obtaining a ccTLD could potentially:

• Increase your chance of getting listed on a national search engine. Many national search engines require a company to be local, however that may be defined, to be listed with them.
• Get you a higher ranking with a local search engine.
• Make your business more accessible to customers and vendors in a specific country.
• Make your business seem more local and thus help overcome any fear local customers might have of buying from a non-European outfit.

What Is a ccTLD, Anyway?

Generic top-level domains (TLDs) are not linked to any geographic area. They include the well-known and familiar .com, .org, and .net domain names. In contrast to these generic TLDs, there are ccTLDs: Each country and territory in the world has its own TLD. They include, for example, .at for Austria, .be for Belgium, and so on.

Essentially the domain name policies regulate who can register what type of a domain. In principle, nearly anyone can register a generic TLD.

It is important to keep in mind that you might lose a domain name you recently registered in Europe if another company can prove in court that the name is rightfully theirs. If the court decides that the plaintiff has a right to it, you will lose that domain name however, I am assuming that nobody reading this is going to be considering registering ccTLD’s for the purpose of cyber squatting.

Each country or region has its own rules, policies, and regulations about who can register a ccTLD, and how. Common restrictions include the requirement to be a local registered company or to have registered the company and/or company name as a national trademark in a specific country. However, some countries are less strict about who can register. As always, it depends on the country and its particular rules.

The table below is meant to give you easy access to the information you will need when you are ready to register a European domain name for your site.

Here is an explanation of the categories used in the domain registration table:

• Country: Name of the country you might want to obtain a domain name for your business in.
• Name of domain: The ccTLD (a two-letter abbreviation).
• Must be local: This can mean that your business presence, your company’s physical presence, or your trademarks must be local.
• More domains possible: Some countries limit the number of domains that you can register.
• Same name as owner: Some countries require that the registered name be the same name as the owner’s company name or trademark.
• Signed contract: Some domain name registration agencies demand a written, signed declaration or contract to be sent in. If in doubt, read up on specific rules relative to the specific domain name registrars you will be using.

Now you can see the possibilities available in respect of registering more than just dot.com addresses perhaps you might like to find a country you would want to gain some extra traffic from and see about registering a ccTLD and developing it.

Also, you could improve your chances of gaining additional traffic to your new ccTLD domain by having some country specific language on that domain, again, how your site comes across to the surfer is just as important than the domain and, there are plenty of Adult Site Translation companies out there who can assist you with this part of the ccTLD development.

There are, of course, other ways to gain additional foreign surfers other than just registering a ccTLD for example, on European Webmasters we have a domain name registration section that will allow you to translate specific text in order to gain type in foreign traffic on dot.com TLDs perhaps, if you don’t want to or, cant register a ccTLD in the country of your choice you might like to take this approach at gaining additional foreign traffic to your sites.

I hope this article has given you a little insight into the varieties of domain names available in and around Europe and that you might just register a domain and see for yourself how profitable the European markets are.

Article written by Lee

International Billing Alternatives – Premium Phone Billing

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

In the last article i wrote in respect of international billing options we took a closer look at the SMS Billing method and its pitfalls and benefits when charging our surfers for access to our sites. In this article we will take a look at another option we can offer our international surfer base – Phone Billing.

Phone Billing – What Is It?

Phone billing, as the name would suggest is a method of applying a ‘charge’ to a surfers normal land-line telephone. This charge is often around the cost of $35 (US).

Once the surfer has called the premium rate number displayed on your websites join page, they are given a code to enter into a form, again, this form could be on your join page or on a separate site.

Phone Billing – What Are The Costs.

To be perfectly honest with you this is all dependant on to many variable factors to give you a good solid answer. However, as mentioned above the standard cost would seem to be in the region of $35 (US) but, this can often vary depending on factors such as the country in which the surfer is calling the premium rate line from, How much the surfers telephone company charges for a call, How much the paysite charges for access, How much the premium rate phone line provider charges, etc etc.

Generally speaking however, the cost to the surfer is almost always made into profit in your pocket, if a call costs $35(US) you will almost certainly make $35(US) from that surfer minus a small percentage (depending on the provider) again however, this figure may vary slightly.

Phone Billing – Overview.

As with SMS Billing, Premium Rate Phone Billing offers a good alternative for your international surfers to access a paysite however, this doesn’t come without its drawbacks. Unless your members area is updated regularly and is of high quality you are going to make $35(US) approximately of each surfer unless, that is, they decide to call the premium rate number again for access to your site for another month.

That said, if you do not want to offer your foreign surfers the option of having credit card or debit card access to your sites Premium Phone Billing would almost certainly be my second choice to make money from them at the present time.

Article written by Lee

Cascading Billing – Using Multiple Payment Processors For More Profit

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

‘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

Why Have More Than One Index Page?

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

The first thing you should do when you start designing a web site is to create an index page. You would think that this is a basic knowledge in web design, but I still encounter web sites that are lacking in this.

If there’s no index page, and if the web host server has not set a directory access limitation, any visitor will see a directory listing of all the images, html pages, CGI-scripts, and other files in the directory. Everything will then be accessible for reading and downloading, and the CGI-scripts will also be executable!

So, for a basic security it is most important to have an index page in all your directories, whether they contain only pictures or garbage. In the directories that are private or containing things other then HTML pages, the index pages need only to print out a text like “access forbidden” or something in that spirit. In the directories containing one or more HTML pages, one of the pages must be named “index.html,” whether it is a page with real content or for security reason.

If you have a directory specifically for CGI-scripts, it will run a higher security risk, because most of the times these directories are called CGI-bin, or a variant of that, and anyone who is after your scripts is undoubtedly familiar with this and can access the directory by typing the directory name in the targeted site’s URL, if it’s not properly protected by an index page. Imagine the horror when someone uses your mailing list program to Spam all your subscribers or decides to sell your email list. It’s quite a big business in selling email lists. A large email list is worth thousands of US dollars nowadays.

I could have done all these things if I had any bad intentions when I accidentally bumped into an unprotected site. Actually, I bumped into two unprotected, huge subscribers lists in the last two months, which prompted me to write this article. But of course, I did the proper thing and emailed the web sites’ webmasters about their oversight. You would think that these professional looking and operating web sites with email lists of respectively 8,000 and 15,000 subscribers would know better.

Even if your site is made by a web design company, make sure all your directories are protected. In fact, one of the two unfortunate web sites I uncovered is a web design company. So, check out your site for this unnecessary security gap, right now.

Article written by Lee

Think Fresh – Work Smarter

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

We have all experienced it at some point in our webmaster career, more often than not though, we hear about it all the time. What is it? Wanting to give in when we hit that proverbial brick wall.

Hopefully this article can offer you some help and advice when it comes to getting your sales back on track or, even getting them started at all.

Ask For Help.

The one thing that amazes me about this industry is that despite the fact we are all business competitors we are all (mostly) willing to help other webmasters out for little or nothing in return. if you hit that brick wall then imply ask for some help.

As webmasters we have a barrage of free tools readily available to us for asking the advice of others whether it is in email from your sponsors support reps, icq or even on the many industry related chat boards, by actually spending sometime to help yourself by asking others you can often see things from a new perspective and, get advice as to why thing that should be working are not.

Start Over.

So you have been doing this webmaster job for the last few months submitting to the TGP’s, building free and AVS sites but you still haven’t made a dime, something is wrong somewhere but how do you pinpoint the error? By far the easiest way to find out what is wrong is to start afresh. Head over to one of the webmaster resource sites and see what others are doing ask for advice and feedback on your sites and learn from the experiences they tell you about. Just because you might have heard the same information before doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask about it, often one webmaster will be able to tell you an alternate way of doing something that another webmaster is. One of the best ways to get a grasp on this learning curve is to read articles and tutorials, there are thousands of them on the net from HTML to Programming and everything in-between emulate the information contained in these articles and adjust that same information to suit your needs.

Don’t Stagnate.

If you are not having success at the AVS side of the business try something else, you already have a good base for building free sites and even TGP’s just because you have never tried using these sources of traffic and income doesn’t mean you wont be any good at them.

If traffic is your problem as mentioned above, ask others where they get their traffic from and how they built it up, learn to start small and grow instead of running head first into millions of hits a month that are being wasted.

Research The Industry.

If you are thinking of quitting, before you do spend a day or two just doing a little background research in the industry, its no secret that webmasters who join the online industry today have to work two or three times harder than our peers who joined several years ago, this is and always has been true in any business. By researching the industry you should be able to find out how others that joined before you failed and, more importantly, WHY they failed, learn from those experiences.

Finally.

No matter how hard and meaningless you find the work stick at it, just because you are not making any sales it doesn’t mean you wont make any sales tomorrow or even next week / month / year. Keep turning those sites out and, soon enough, when you least expect it you’ll make a sale and, you know what… the euphoric feeling you will get will be more than enough to make you realize that you HAVE been doing something right all along.

Article written by Lee