Marketing to Foreign Surfers

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Marketing to Foreign Surfers.

What would you do if I told you that there are 3 million plus new surfers last year that you did not market too? You probably marketed your product or adult site to those that could read English well enough to be searching with English terms. How about the growing numbers of surfers with English as their second language?

According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, from September 2000 to 2001, Italy’s online population grew by 3,540,970 users: about one new user every ten seconds. Italy is just one of the non-English speaking countries that is coming online at lightening fast speed.

Are you relying on these surfers searching for your English keywords? Are you thinking that every language uses the words “porn and hardcore” and what about the finer niches like “bisexual and titties”? The best conversion is with newbie surfers just online for the first time and wanting to see adult sites and products. Those that have been around a while find out about the plethora of free porn. This means that websites do their best marketing with search engine placements of their main sites or feeder sites. If you are on your money, you are trying to work every engine for every related keyword. Now think of the keywords that you could be going for in all the worlds’ languages!

Do a bit of research in some of the common languages. If I was Italian and new to the net, the first place I would be searching is in an Italian search engine. Go to http://arianna.iol.it/ and search using the word porn and you will find 10 listings come up all in Italian. Not one is English. Even http://it.yahoo.com/ Yahoo Italia does NOT serve up your English porn site in its results.

So how do you get a piece of this pizza pie? You need at least a doorway written in Italian. You need to visit a site like http://www.adult-site-translation.com/ and find out how affordable it is for a doorway page that is put together by a foreign translator. Not only is the text for your doorway sites or even complete tours with the proper keywords but the graphics are redone where necessary. You really cannot rely on a text translator. We all have been on a site where it was obvious that the webmasters first language was NOT English and felt bad for their awkward use of words. This is not how to make a sale.

You need to be careful that you choose a professional service for your translating needs. You need to know that the translators are top notch and can not only translate your existing page/site keeping your marketing angles but they can also advise you on such things as proper wording and what a surfer from that culture would find erotic. Languages do not translate word for word. A service like Adult Site Translation has hired translators who also know how to market adult sites. They will tell you the search terms your page should be listed under and can assist you with foreign search engine optimization.

Remember the days where you were the only site in a category or niche? It was like being a pioneer and it was very lucrative. Do you want to be first to market to these growing pockets of millions of new surfers? There are new frontiers out there and finally sites like Adult Site Translation can assist you to conquer them successfully!

Article written by Susanna

Message Boards – Getting The Postings

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General | Response: 0

There are plenty of free scripts available on the web which will enable you to start your own online discussion forum.

However, having the most sophisticated and advanced features in a forum does not mean it will be successful by any means. It is the people who post on the forums that make them good not the scripts used to maintain them. This article is dedicated to getting people posting on your forums.

It can be really quiet on your forum especially at the beginning when there are no real discussions going on, this is because people don’t want to be the first to post. They want to see some topics that interest them already being discussed, they want to be able to read through some posts first before having to post themselves. With this in mind, you should also be aware that just because a forum doesn’t seem busy, it can in fact get thousands of hits a day. Lurkers make message boards what they are, and, for this reason alone you should act professionally and courteously when making posts on any forums, one day, you might have to do business with one of these so-called ‘lurkers’ and, if they have seen you in a bad light on a forum, the chances are they wont want to know you. So what do you do to get your message board off the ground? There are a number of things actually and, some of these are as follows.

First of all, make sure the signup process is as simplistic as possible, even better, ensure if the user doesn’t want to register, they don’t have to! To attract people to post on your boards why not get a few of your friends together and start some discussions of your own, you could even register a couple of different usernames so that your forums look busier than they actually are thus cementing the thought that your forums are active and will have worthwhile discussions taking place.

To find some current topics for your forums why not visit some of the other message boards and see what people are discussing, if a topic is receiving a lot of interest, post about it on your forums. This is especially a good idea if your forums are specific to one area after all, if your competitions forums posters are interested in this topic, your forums users will be too.

Another great way to get people to start talking on your discussion forums is to use a contest. For example, currently on European Webmasters we have a content giveaway whereby for each post you make you gain a point and, once you have reached a certain level of points you will be able to download exclusive content sets. If you are going to start a competition then make sure people are aware of it, post some information about it online and get something to giveaway that everyone wants.

One other method to get additional posts is to put up subject lines and links to the topic threads from your main website page. Again, if you publish articles on your site create a link to your discussion forums and invite people to openly discuss the articles in question, not only will you get people posting on your message board but, you will also gain invaluable information from your user as to what they look for and want in articles you write.

If you publish a newsletter, again, this is another great way to build interest in your message board. Simply ask them to post, tell them you are building up a great resource and, you need their help as much as you need theirs to make this happen. If you have provided them with high quality information in your newsletter the chances are they will repay you by posting on your message board.

In conclusion, you should basically try and plug your message board wherever you can by doing the above, create banners for it and display them on your website, place a note in your signature file encouraging people to visit and post if they require assistance with anything. Its hard work but, once you have a few regular posters it will take off.

Article Written By Lee

Using .htaccess Effectively

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

The .htaccess file is an ASCII text document that can be placed in any directory on your site. It can be used to control access to files and directories, and customize some server operation in your site. A .htaccess file can be created in any word processor but must be saved as text only. You must use FTP software in ASCII mode to upload or edit your .htaccess file. For the examples provided here, place the .htaccess file in your root directory.

There are a variety of functions that you can control using .htaccess some of the more useful of these are explained below:

Custom Error Messages.

Add the following to the .htaccess file::

ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html

After “ErrorDocument” specify the error code, followed by a space, and then the path and filename of the .html file you would like to be displayed when the specified error is generated, each specific error code is detailed below with the recommended codes to be used in the .htaccess file in bold :

200 OK
206 Partial content
301 Document moved permanently
302 Document found elsewhere
304 Not modified since last retrieval
400 Bad request
403 Access forbidden
404 Document not found
408 Request timeout
500 Internal server error
501 Request type not supported

Using the codes above your error section of the .htaccess file should look like this:

ErrorDocument 301 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 400 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 403 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 500 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 501 /notfound.html

Redirect to a Different Folder.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/oldfolder(.*)$ /newfolder/$1 [R]

This redirects the user from /oldfolder/anyfile.html to /newfolder/anyfile.html, when the .htaccess file is uploaded to the otherwise empty “/oldfolder” directory.

Denying User Access.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

<Limit GET>
order allow,deny
deny from 000.00.00.
deny from 000.000.000.000
allow from all
</Limit>

This is an example of a .htaccess file that will block access to your site to anyone who is coming from any IP address beginning with 000.00.00 and from the specific IP address 000.000.000.000 . By specifying only part of an IP address, and ending the partial IP address with a period, all sub-addresses coming from the specified IP address block will be blocked. You must use the IP addresses to block access, use of domain names is not supported

Redirect a Machine Name.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
# Rewrite Rule for machine.domain-name.net
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} machine.domain-name.net $
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !machine/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ machine/$1

This will redirect requests for the machine name machine.domain-name.net to the directory machine on the site domain-name.net.

Different Default Home Page.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

DirectoryIndex filename.html

Then a request for http://domain-name.net/ would return http://domain-name.net/filename.html if it exists, or would list the directory if it did not exist.

To automatically run a cgi script, add the following to the .htaccess file:

DirectoryIndex /cgi-local/index.pl

This would cause the CGI script /cgi-bin/index.pl to be executed.

If you place your .htaccess file containing the DirectoryIndex specification in the root directory of your site, it will apply for all sub-directories at your site.

Preventing Hot Linking.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

# Rewrite Rule for images
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} <URL of page accessing your domain>
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://<same as above URL>

You would replace the <URL of page accessing your domain> above with the domain name and path of the page that is referring to your domain. For example: www.theirdomain.com/users/mypage/

The RewriteCond directive states that if the {HTTP_REFERER} matches the URL that follows, then use the RewriteRule directive. The RewriteRule directive will redirect any reference back to the referring web page.

Using the above you should, safely be able to publish your sites on the internet knowing that you will not be privy to bandwidth thieves via hotlinking and also, that you will not lose any traffic through pages that are ‘not found’.

Article Written By Lee

Mirroring Adult Sites – Stage Two

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion, Tutorials | Response: 0

Ok, in stage 1 of this tutorial we learnt the basic ‘setup’ for our multisite generation now we have to start putting the rest of our puzzle together.

At this stage in the tutorial we should now have a 50 pic free site, all of the images are in the appropriate folder on our HD along with the HTML in their own folder. If you have not already done so, you need to ensure that when you add/added the links to your individual HTML pages that you call the images like this:

/FreeSite/Images/pic1.jpg

The Thumbnails like this:

/FreeSite/Images/Thumbs/thumb1.jpg

The gallery links like this:

/FreeSite/Galleries/gallery1.html

And the FPA from the warning page like this:

/FreeSite/FPA/fpa.html

Why are we calling the links like this and not like, http://www.mydomain.com/FreeSite/Galleries/gallery1.html I hear you ask, well the answer is simple, in order to use this site TEMPLATE over and over again, we need to ensure that there is a standard way of calling the links, this way, once we decide duplicate this site on a different domain, all we do is upload the folder to our server with a different set of images and we have another set of sites built.

Ok, we now have our free site but, we have some empty folders that need filling up, here is how we are going to achieve that.

What we now have to do is re-open the Gallery Pages, DO NOT change the image calls or the thumbnail calls however, what you will need to do is select 15 TGP’s that you would like to submit to, download the recip buttons for these TGP’s and save them in the /FreeSite/Images/Recips/ folder.

Now we have the gallery pages open we need to modify them like this..

Take the top text link that you created and replace that with a 3 cell table. In this table for the first gallery, you need to call the first 3 recip links for the TGP’s you want to submit to and link them to the appropriate recip url for each of the TGP’s again, calling the recip images like this, /FreeSite/Recips/recip1.gif. Also, you will need to modify the text link at the bottom of your gallery pages, I would suggest creating an 8 cell table, containing 8 niche text links, four of which should go to your Single-Site FPA’s (as created for the surfer trap) and the remaining 4 text links should go directly to your sponsors site tour page.

Now save this newly created page as tgp1.html in the /FreeSite/TGP/ folder. Do the above again for the remaining 4 gallery pages but calling a different set of recip links each time. each time you modify a gallery page save it in the /FreeSite/TGP/ folder so gallery2.html would be renamed to tgp2.html, Gallery 3 would be called tgp3.html and so on.

What you should now have is a single 50 pic free site with 5 galleries of 10 pics, all pics going to the larger image on a HTML page and, 5 TGP galleries.

This is as far as we go with the tutorial today however, in the next stage we will continue to fill in the rest of the puzzle pieces.

Article written by Lee

Sample Adult Model Release Form

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Forms & Contracts | Response: 0

For many webmasters the option of being able to shoot their own content is a wholly viable one as such, you should ensure that the models you are using sign a suitable release form. Below we have set together a pretty industry standard model release form which you may duplicate if you so wish. European Webmasters would however, recommend that you get professional legal advice in respect of this matter and that this is no substitution for proper legal advice.

I, (Please Print) ____________________ (Model), for good and valuable consideration, the receipt of which is acknowledged, give to [INSERT YOUR LEGAL NAME HERE] (Photographer), his legal representatives, successors, and all persons or corporations acting with his permission, unrestricted permission to copyright and/or use, and/or publish photographic portraits or pictures of me, and the negatives, transparencies, prints, or digital information pertaining to them, in still, single, multiple, moving or video format, or in which I may be included in whole or in part, or composite, or distorted in form, or reproductions thereof, in color or otherwise, made through any media in his studio or elsewhere for art, or any other lawful purpose.

I hereby waive any right that I may have to inspect and approve the finished product or copy that may be used in connection with an image that the Photographer has taken of me, or the use to which it may be applied.

I further release the Photographer, or others for whom he is acting, from any claims for remuneration associated with any form of damage, foreseen or unforeseen, associated with the proper commercial or artistic use of these images unless it can be shown that said reproduction was maliciously caused, produced and published for the sole purpose of subjecting me to conspicuous ridicule, scandal, reproach, scorn and indignity.

I acknowledge that the photography session was conducted in a completely proper and highly professional manner, and this release was willingly signed at its termination.

I certify that I am not a minor under the laws where I live, and am free and able to give such consent.

Model’s signature:_________________________ day___/month___/year_____ Address:___________________________________ City:______________________________________ State/Province:______________________________ Country:___________________________________
Zip/Postal Code:_____________________________
Country area code and home telephone number:(______)____________________________
Witness (non family member):___________________________________
Witness (non family member):___________________________________
This form will be retained with the negatives, transparencies, digital media, and/or contact sheets. day___/month___/year_____ {INSERT YOUR LEGAL NAME HERE}.

The above model release form is to be used as a mere example form and, when entering into any contractual agreement with any model for photographic / video work you should always seek proper legal advice.

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

Pop Up Consoles Work – To A Point

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

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

Marketing Console Numbers.

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

Console Sales Figures.

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

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

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

Evaluating The Figures.

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

Console Sales – Recap.

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

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

Article written by Lee

10 Ways To Promote Your Site

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

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.

Direct Debit Payment Explained

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

Something that is very rarely spoken about as a means of payment is Direct Debit, this is a popular payment method across Europe and, especially in the United Kingdom. Direct Debit can offer your surfers a cost effective, easy way to pay for products and services from your site especially, if they have a ‘recurring’ cost associated with them.

Direct Debit – What Is It?

Direct Debit is quite possibly one of the simplest ways to collect funds from your surfers basically, a form is filled out by the surfer, where they enter their bank payment details, account number, name, sort code. Then, the form is signed either electronically or, in person by the customer, in this case, electronically by the surfer.

Once you have the direct form filled in by your surfer, you may continue to deduct funds from the bank account on the Direct Debit form until such a time whereas the surfer cancels the Direct Debit agreement.

At the present time, around 45% of the population in the UK currently choose to pay their utility bills online by Direct Debit and, around 75% of the total population in the UK have used Direct Debit at least once in addition Direct Debit is also an alternative method of payment in the vast majority of European countries and, it is also used (although not as much) in Australia.

Direct Debit – What Are The Cost?

Direct Debit payments cost around $0.5 for you as a merchant to process, however, this charge, rather than happening on the processors side of the transaction, happens when the Direct Debit request hits your banking account.

This in itself is god news after all, you now ensure that if a membership or product costs $35 per month, you will get virtually the full cost of that membership until such a time when the surfer cancels the direct debit at their bank.

Direct Debit – An Overview.

All in all, Direct Debit is probably one of the only payment solutions that allow you to collect the full price from your surfer at the point of sale and, furthermore, because the Direct Debit method of payment is trusted, this offers your surfers something that no other form of payment can – Peace of mind. There is however one major drawback to this method of payment, it is very hard to find processors that will allow you to utilize Direct Debit on your sites in fact, to date, the main use for the Direct Debit payment method has been payments of utility bills, Gas, Electricity, Water Supply, etc however, many financial institutes will let you pay for goods and services using Direct Debit on ‘credit’ terms which can vary from 1 day to a year interest free or, not as the case so often is.

I strongly feel that within the next 12 months this method of payment could become advantageous to the adult webmaster however, the current online payment processors need to be pushed in order for this to become as widespread as credit and debit card processing is. That said, there are a few online adult companies already accepting Direct Debit as a form of payment so, at least the ‘DD’ revolution has already started.

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