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

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

Pay Per Click Traffic – More Than One Use

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Paid Traffic | Response: 0

We all know the stigma surrounding getting traffic to our sites and, this is no different with that of the PPC traffic sources. We have all heard varying stories of success and failure when it comes to this type of traffic whether it be from Googles Adwords program, Overture PPC engine listings or in fact, highly targeted Sex.com adult traffic.

But how much do we all actually know about maintaining this level of traffic once we actually get it and at a minimal cost to our bank balance?

First of all there seems to be a belief that PPC traffic should be sent to a sponsor or one of our existing sites, this is all good and proper but, what happens when the sites we own or the sponsors we use don’t convert on this traffic do we just give up? For the most part, yes webmasters do tend to give up and mark this source of unrivalled traffic as a flop.

Enter the world of traffic manipulation.

We all know about a variety of programs that are available to drive traffic to our existing sites from banner exchanges like Pornclient to text link exchanges like TextPop even to top lists.

So why don’t we utilize these when we buy PPC traffic? Quite simply many webmasters forget that traffic can be manipulated regardless of where it comes from initially.

Lets take a simple listing on sex.com, you fund your account and traffic starts to flow, you get 1000 hits per day for as long as you have funds in your account. Were you aware that this 1000 hits could in fact, become 10,000 hits if we actually thought about our pay per click listings.

How you may be asking especially with so many rules being levied upon us by the PPC traffic sources? Simple, set up a filter page, on this page you should place a single text link which would be your entry link however, you should also place a few other items on the page this is what i will explain next.

Ideally you want to be able to use the traffic you are paying for in order to build up a larger traffic base this is where the use of such programs as banner exchanges and the likes come in handy.

As well as your entry link you should also place a banner exchange (or a text exchange) code on your filter page this will mean that for every visit your page gets from the PPC Engine you are accruing credits towards additional visitors.

In addition to the link exchange you might also like to consider placing a counter on this page specifically, a toplist counter such as Outster or sextracker so, for every page view you receive you get rated further on their toplist.

Also, as we are on the subject of top lists why not place a text link to one on this page? Even though you are sending your traffic out you are actually getting sometimes in excess of twice that back depending on the toplist you choose to use.

Now we have the basics set up we need to look at what else we can do to maximize this traffic, i would suggest having a single console (preferably a blur console) load on this page if the PPC SE allows again, this should contain a link exchange of some description however, you will need to make sure that the account you are using is separate to the one on your filter page.

Finally, remember the entry link, that shouldn’t go directly to your sponsor instead, send it to an FPA (Full Page Ad) first and, on this FPA place a table ad which is pure text at the bottom again, sending this traffic to a variety of other niche filter pages all set up in the same method as the one we have just made above.

Hopefully by using these methods your ventures into the Pay Per Click search engine world will be more fruitful than the webmasters not using the above method.

Article written by Lee

Adult Exit Traffic

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

How Do You Use It?

I honestly do not think there is a webmaster working in the adult industry to date who has not seen a warning page for a free or avs site with both an enter and an exit link, the enter link goes to the main body of the site in question whilst the exit link goes to some other link, normally disney.com or google.com or some other url where the webmaster in question is quite literally throwing their traffic and money away.

Instead of wasting your exit link traffic to a site that doesn’t make you a cent why not utilize this traffic to feed additional revenue streams, for example, most of the larger adult sponsors now have penis pill programs or dating sites, you could include your affiliate id in the exit link and send your traffic there, after all, the surfer you have on your site isn’t looking for porn so, offer them an alternative which, can still add to your bank balance.

So What Are The Alternatives?

The alternative types of sponsors you should be using on your exit links can vary widely however, the best type of site to send them to would be a sponsor offering products and services such as penis enlargement programs, online pharmacies, history eraser type products or, even a link to a site like amazon.com if the program you use allows for that.

Basically you should try to maximize all the traffic you get to your site whether that be by using exit consoles or links, make sure that for each and every surfer you send to the front page (warning) of your site that if they decide to back out or click on a link to leave that you send them somewhere to give them the option of spending money and ultimately earning you revenue.

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

Thumbnail Preview TGPs And The Gay Market Place

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: TGP | Response: 0

One of the latest crazes to hit the gay adult market from a webmasters point of view is that of the thumbnail preview TGP and, more surprisingly than this is the fact that this new breed of gay adult TGP seems to attract more traffic than the standard format TGP ever did so, what is a thumbnail preview TGP and just how do you go about making one of your own? This is what we will investigate in this article.

Thumbnail Preview TGP Basics.

A thumbnail preview TGP is just as the name suggests, a standard TGP with one main difference, the TGP itself doesn’t list gallery descriptions rather a small preview image of the content placed on each of the galleries submitted. This thumbnail preview is usually size between 100×100 pixels and 60×60 pixels in dimension however, the thumbnail preview size can be determined by the webmaster owning the TGP.

How Do I Start My Own Thumbnail Preview TGP?

In order to start your own thumbnail preview TGP you will need a couple of things, first and foremost, a domain name to run it on, the current trend in the gay marketplace is to name your TGP something short, memorable and, well, brand able so, the domain name you choose for your TGP should take all of these aspects into consideration. The next thing you will need in order to run your own gay thumbnail preview TGP will be the script which you use to manage the TGP itself, for this purpose I would highly recommend Autogallery MySQL from http://www.jmbsoft.com it is affordable and, easy to maintain which is a must if you are wanting to run a sizable TGP. One other thing that you may also like to consider investing in for your thumbnail preview TGP is a design, in fact, most of the ‘good’ thumbnail preview TGPs whether they are focused in the straight or gay market, have a clean, almost pay site quality design aspect to them. Of course, you do not need to keep up with the joneses however, if it works for other people, then why not see if it will work for you also?

Thumbnail TGP Structure.

So you now have a domain and have purchased the script and / or design that you want to use on your thumbnail preview TGP what next? Well first things are first, you should take a look at some of the other sites that currently exist and see how they do things, find out what things you feel they are doing wrong and, capitalize on that.

You should also make some decisions now as to the look and feel you want your thumbnail preview TGP to have, how many galleries are you going to list on the front page each day? Will you be utilizing the archives feature of your TGP script? What limitations do you want to put on submissions from other webmasters? These are all aspects of running a TGP that you need to think of prior to opening your site up for general submissions.

In general however, you will find that most thumbnail preview TGP sites will have roughly 100 thumbnail images on their front page of the site with any additional galleries being listed in their archives section again, you should decide on how you want to maintain your own site.

Getting Traffic To Your Thumbnail Preview TGP.

Now you have hopefully set your thumbnail preview TGP live you need to do one final step in making the TGP itself a huge success, get the traffic flowing, one of the best ways to do this, as with any other type of site is to ask your friends and associates to trade traffic with your site however, should this not be an option then you should use more conventional methods such as submitting galleries to other TGP sites ensuring that you use a recip to your TGP on each gallery as well as utilizing other forms of traffic such as cheap brokered traffic, top lists, web rings and, even counters, within a month or so you will soon start to see a steady flow of new webmaster gallery submissions and, with each new submission comes more traffic and ultimately, more income from your site.

Article written by Lee

Obscenity – Put It To The Test

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

Regardless of how long any of us have been an adult webmaster we all need to be
aware of obscenity laws and, in particular how they affect our businesses
whether we think a hardcore photoset is ‘obscene’ or not ultimately, if you get
taken to court on obscenity charges the one thing you should be aware of is how
the courts will decide whether the images you are using will be classified as
obscene or not.

Testing Obscenity – The Miller Test.

The Miller test was developed in the 1973 court case of Miller vs. California
and in comprises of three parts ALL of which MUST be satisfied on order for
something to be deemed obscene by the courts. The Miller test is the ‘official’
method used by the United States Supreme Court for determining whether an
expression or a speech can be determined as obscene and, if deemed obscene, it
is not protected under the First Amendment and is therefore prohibited by law.

The Miller Test – Part One.

Part one of The Miller Test states something may be obscene if ‘the average
person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find that the
work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest’ In essence, this
means that if the ‘average’ person on a jury or on the bench finds the work to
be deemed obscene then, it is. However for the court to rule something as
obscene it also has to be deemed obscene by the standards set in part two and
part three below.

The Miller Test – Part Two.

Part two of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene is
‘the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would
find that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual
conduct’. Basically this is saying that if the images or speech is something
which is not practiced in a manner befitting your local community standards
then again, it may be obscene. However, as with part one of The Miller Test for
a court to find something obscene it needs to fall below the standards in part
three below.

The Miller Test – Part Three.

Part three of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene if,
‘a reasonable person would find that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious
literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.’ This is pretty much where
you could potentially come unstuck after all, everyone has different sexual
tastes and because of this, just because something that may be widespread such
as ‘bare backing’ (to use as an example) could potentially be considered as
obscene if you happen to have a jury who are devout practicers of safe sex.

The Miller Test – Overview.

In essence The Miller Test is a useful guideline for webmasters when it comes
to operating our sites and specifically, when it comes to choosing the types of
content we utilize on them however, for the most part The Miller Test itself is
outdated. Since the early 70’s when this test was devised there have been many
sexual practices that were once deemed obscene that have become more a part of
everyday life and accepted in to society as whole thus, what once would (or
could) have been deemed obscene would no longer be in the same sense as
something that may be deemed obscene today could be found not to be in 5 years
time.

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.

Payment Processors – Advice And Information

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

For many, the first step in launching a successful pay site is to find a billing processor that can adequately and efficiently handle all levels of the membership payment process. The processor must also have the technical savvy to grow with your site.

One such payment processor, iBill, is currently the premier provider of such solutions worldwide. They handle the payments in real time and all of the back-end services that enable you to run your business.

Of course, there are many issues to consider when deciding on a payment processor apart from their commission rates on your sales, including the following:

How do they handle the billing itself? Is it processed in real time? If your customers do not have immediate access to your site, they may decide not to join.

How do they supply your account reports? You may want to know at 3 a.m. the number of members you have and how they are rebilling. iBill allows you to access detailed, real-time reporting 24 hours a day, so you know exactly who is a member of your site and, more importantly, what their username and passwords are. No one wants to find a member has posted a username and password on a trading site. If this occurs, iBill’s real-time reporting tools give you the ability to stop this immediately.

How comprehensive are the payment options? Do you want to use credit cards, or do dialers or check transactions suit you more? The best way to maximize sales is to accept a full array of payment options. The more options you offer your members, the better the chance you’ll keep them rebilling month after month.

How good is customer service? Does your payment processor offer access to live representatives 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? If so, you’ll resolve customer issues quickly and effectively, which reflects well on you and encourages loyalty from your members.

How good is the fraud protection? Internet fraud is a constant threat. Your payment processor should have state-of-the-art fraud protection systems to guarantee the integrity of every transaction.

Are there multilingual features for international members? Due to the global reach of the Internet, you must find solutions for foreign customers. Ideally, your payment processor’s website should be multilingual and easy to navigate in several key languages, such as German, Spanish, French, and Japanese.

Choosing the right payment processor is a long, arduous task that, if done right, will result in a long-lasting working relationship. In turn, your members will feel confident in your site and stay with it. We hope this article has given you insight into finding the right billing party for your membership or online store. If you need any further assistance please feel free to contact us directly using the form on our site (URL below).

Article provided by Internet Billing Company

There’s Face Value And Then There Is Real Value

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

How often do we sign up to affiliate programs based on their standard terms of service for example, Sponsor A will pay you $35 for every signup you send to them and they tell you they convert at roughly 1:200 whilst Sponsor B will pay you $30 per signup and they convert at roughly 1:200 also, which of these scenarios straight off the bat will make you the most money? Think about your answer first then read on.

Negotiate The Figures.

Most, if not all of us would have immediately chosen Sponsor A for the pure fact that they pay you $5 more per signup and they convert at the same rate as Sponsor B however, how many of us would have written or icq’d Sponsor B and asked them to raise their payout? Not many of us I would guess. With that said, what is to stop you from emailing a certain ‘Sponsor B’ if you are able to convert consistently at their published 1:200 and asking for a higher pay rate to continue sending your traffic to them? Nothing at all and, surprisingly enough, I would guess that for most programs, they would actually increase your payout if you have a history with them.

Haggling The Costs.

The example above used a sponsor as the main focus however, how many times have you spent money at a content provider? A hosting company? A traffic broker? Have you actually taken a moment to ask these companies if they would give you a lower rate on the services they are providing you with? Again, I bet not many of us have I know it was only recently when I started asking for long term customer discounts and the likes. In fact, from the first point of contact you have with any company online, be they an adult web host, adult traffic broker, content provider or, in fact, an affiliate program, spend an extra few seconds when you first sign up and see how they can improve their service for YOU. To your surprise they might just cut you a deal that is unmatched anywhere else!

Don’t Undersell Their Products.

With the above said, one thing that you need to be aware of is that if you start making absurd price cuts from these companies you will probably be told to politely take a running jump however, lets say you were going to be charged $50 for something, ask them if you can get the same service at a 10% discounted rate if you use them again, perhaps not even on the first purchase but on the second, the third, etc.

By contacting these companies directly and not just going on ‘face value’ even if you only save yourself one or two dollars per purchase over a year those odds and ends soon add up to a nice saving.

Saving Money – Recap.

In essence many of us take things at face value whether we are talking to friends and peers or whether we are paying for goods and services but, by at least in asking for a discount on our purchase the worst thing that will happen is that you get told ‘no’ however, on the flipside of the proverbial coin, you might just find yourself a better bargain than you had already found in the first place and that’s some food for thought.

Article written by Lee