Writing A Business Plan – The First Step To Success

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

Regardless of what type of business you want to run be it a bakery, a funeral home or an online marketing empire the one thing that you will require is a business plan however, having never taken any business basics 101 classes what do you need to have and, what is required in your business plan?

That is what we will touch on in this brief article from the basics to the not-so-basics by using a few simple steps you can be sure your business plan will contain all the information you need to make it up the ladder of success.

Information Summary.

As the name suggest this is a simple summary of what you are hoping to achieve from the name of your business, the goals, the concept and your plans. This should actually be no longer than two pages so that you can fill the needed information out clearly and concisely.

Business Details.

This will be the founding information of your business again you need to mention your business name, what type of business you will be running (Sole Trader, Partnership, Corporation, etc) in addition you will also need to include details of who the company owners are, whether it be yourself alone or a list of your business partners, this information will be invaluable to you at a later date you also need to include a brief history of the business whether you have been running it already for a number of days, weeks, month or, years.

Products And Services.

Basically, you need to write what exactly it is you will be selling. Are you going to be selling baked goods, marketing services or custom solutions. Keep this section simple, if you need to go into depth then do so at the end of your business plan by way of an appendices. Once you have listed several of the products or services you will be selling you should also list the features and benefits (Marketing points) of the products and services in addition, why do you think your business idea will succeed, what do you offer your clients that no-one else currently does? In addition you also need to have a basic pricing structure planned out, this will assist you in the future as, from your initial plans you can see what, if anything needs to be changed.

Marketing.

A business is more than just an idea. You need to have good pricing, affordable suppliers and a great marketing plan. This is what is also needed in your overall business plan. You should include details of your competitors products and how they compare to your own or, if applicable why your product will be a benefit to the market place should it not already be readily available. In addition the marketing section of your business plan should include a list of advantages as well as some of the pitfalls you are likely to see. You also need to include a section detailing your specific marketing strategies regarding your overall and individual products and services.

Industry Economics.

This area should detail some of the more specific areas of the industry you are going to be working in for example, what type of industry are you entering, how does the future for this industry look and, more importantly, how many existing companies work this industry as well as how do you successfully launch yourself into the industry. Parts of this area you may have covered in the marketing and previous section non the less, go over them again here in more detail.

Target Market.

We have detailed the business ideas and products and services but, what about your potential clients? What does your product offer then that they need which no other company does? What is your target client base? How will you reach your customers? All of this and more needs to be addressed in this area of your business plan.

Competing Companies.

What do your competitors do and, more importantly, who are they? Make a list of your potential competitors and address their weaknesses and strengths ensure that you leave no stone unturned when getting this information together often, you will realize that there are things your competition is doing that you can do much better then they.

Don’t forget to address their marketing, what are they doing right and, more importantly to you, what are they doing wrong? How can you capitalize on this and make their errors benefit your long term business plans.

Location, Location, Location.

Location is everything and, this is particularly true in business for example, will you be working from an office, from your home or even your garage, do you require any special permits to operate your business? Can your customers reach you easily? All of these items and more need to be considered when writing this area of your business plan. By addressing any and all of these items you will find yourself with a much clearer picture of what is needed of you and your business.

Stock + Supplies.

Often overlooked in business plans the one thing you NEED to have is a list of potential suppliers and sub-contractors who can provide you with your products and services. What materials (if any) do you need? How much will these cost you? Where will you find your stock and supplies? By getting this information available now you will have a better idea once your business plan is laid out as to what you are able to offer easily and also it will enable you to lay your pricing structure out more concisely.

Labor.

So you have this great business idea all laid out but, who will be running this for you? Do you need additional staff or are you going it alone? Do you need to setup accountants, lawyers, insurance companies, consultants, bank accounts etc etc? All of these aspects of your business need to be laid out here.

Capital.

Money, as they say, makes the world go round. Your business is no different, how much financial outlay do you require to get your business off the ground? Do you need to ask for a loan from your banking facility to help you out? How much income are you planning on making within the next 6 to 12 months? How much of this income needs to be invested back into the business? All of these ‘financial’ question need to be answered in this area of your business plan only then will you begin to see the bigger picture of your business idea.

Hopefully this article has given you some solid advice and information regarding planning for your new business and, once you have all of the above laid out you should be able to see whether you will succeed or fail in your new idea.

Also, by planning now for the future of your business you should hopefully be able to avoid any hidden costs which can often push a company to the edge.

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

Domain Name Registration Services What To Look For

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

Once upon a time, if you wanted to register a domain name, you could only do it by visiting Network Solutions at http://www.networksolutions.com/ and paying them whatever they asked for, about $35.00 per year.

Then ICANN, http://www.icann.org/, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities, decided to change the rules.

The initial testing phase of the new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com, .net, and .org domains quietly began to take place in April of 1999.

It started with five participants who were the first to implement the new system for competition in the market for .com, .net, and .org domain name registration services.

Previously, registration services in the .com, .net, and .org domains were provided by Network Solutions, Inc. under an exclusive contract with the United States government.

In the two years since this program began, things have really changed.

Just this last week, ICANN reported that two of their registrars, Tucows and New York-based Register.com, had recorded more new registrations for Top Level Domains (dot-com, dot-net and dot-org) than VeriSign’s Network Solutions.

This marks the first time ever that VeriSign’s Network Solutions was out-sold by any of the registrars and signals that their past dominance of domain name registration is certainly fading.

Why?

Because besides others being allowed to make domain name registrations, these new registrars are also cutting prices.

The Rules have most certainly changed.

The Shared Registration System (“SRS”), ICANN’s accredited registrars program, allows people to submit application to become a registrar along with a non-refundable $1000 filing fee.

After someone is accepted into the program then they must pay a yearly fee of $5000 to maintain their status as an accredited registrar.

This situation has created a very competitive environment which can only be beneficial to all of us as the price to register a domain name has fallen like a rock from a very tall building.

However, if you plan to register a new domain name using a virtual unknown registrar, make certain they do indeed have the legal accreditation from ICANN by visiting the ICANN web site and viewing their posted list of ALL accredited vendors:
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

It will only take you a few moments to make sure you are dealing with a reputable vendor of domain names. Those few moments will make the entire process legal and worry-free.

Article written by Lee

Over The Rainbow

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

So why is the gay community over the rainbow? As promised today I’ll finish up on the symbols that are prevalent in the gay community. Last week I mention the Pink Triangle and it’s political emergence. And technically, the rainbow flag has a similar political beginning.

I always love answering a question with another question (it is one of those annoying habits I have). So, when I am asked the “what does the rainbow flag stand for?” I look forward to the response when I ask, in turn, “what do YOU think it means?” Here are my top three favorite answers:

1 – “It’s colorful and gay people like colors.”

2 – “It’s a dance party thing”

3 – “Judy Garland sang Over the Rainbow you guys loved her a lot.” (This has to be my all time favorite.)

Well like any political symbol, it is a way to distinguish ourselves. But this time we look not to a place in history but we look at the world in general. No matter where you are, whether it is on 8^th street in NYC or Rue du Champe in Paris, there will be a gay person somewhere. Now, some may argue that not all cultures and societies will have homosexual present. And I say, “BULL”. They are just in the closet somewhere.

So in essence, gay men and women cross every racial and religious culture around the world. We come in all shapes, sizes and colors. So what better symbol to show that with than a rainbow, all colors coming together as one – as one community. No matter how culturally diverse our world is, the gay community is made up from a piece of each.

The rainbow flag and the uses of the rainbow, in the gay community, are diverse. If you see it flying outside on a restaurant wall, and it means it is a gay or gay friendly establishment. See a set of rainbow rings around a friend’s neck, it’s gay fashion accessories. And see a political march with rainbows on posters and flags, it’s a gay assembly.

Last week I insinuated that the pink triangle was not a symbol to over use in design. Well, in my opinion, the opposite is true with the rainbow and the rainbow flag. I am NOT saying run out and re do all your sites with rainbow backgrounds. No! But, I am saying that the nature of this political symbol is somewhat more flexible. We ourselves took the rainbow and made jewelry, publications, tee shirts and such. And just as the pink triangle, the rainbow will say that it’s ok to be here, you have friends inside or you have nothing to worry about here – be yourself, this place is for you.

So what have we learned? What some people think as silly symbols that gay people use, actually have an origin – and, a potent origin at that. I still ask, for your own good, that you use them wisely and not over do it. The more you throw symbols around willy-nilly, the more people will think you do not know what you are doing. And the more that the surfers thinks that, the less likely you are to make the sale and get your business to grow.

Article written by Gary-Alan

Penis Enlargement Pills

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Sponsors | Response: 0

Well if you’re a guy who had to shower after gym class, or woman with a boring husband or a gay man looking for Mr. Right we all know SIZE Matters!

Do I a have your attention? Good! Now, let’s get on with it!

Like many people, I have always experimented with secondary or even tertiary sponsors for my free sites. In my case most of them do not only pertain to a site membership. I have found success with things like, Viagra online; security programs to remove you net affairs; sex toys and videos; and, today’s’ latest a greatest is penis enlargement remedies.

I’m finding some astonishing success with these herbal penis enlargement products. I’m SELLING it not USING it! LOL. Some of us don’t need it <wink>. But I’m finding lots of my surfers do need it, or at least want it.

A couple of months ago after seeing an influx of email to Gay Wide Webmasters for hints on selling penis enlargement medications, I decided it would only benefit my member and myself to experiment. I used a sponsor on Gay Wide Webmasters, Albion Medical who boasted great returns and high payouts. Well what I was in store for was BETTER than I expected. By the way, here’s a little secret; I do sign up for my own sponsors but under my real name, so unless they really look hard, they do not know it’s me. I don’t go boasting with out proper backup = )

Amid my salesmanship attempts for surfers to “Sign Up!” I sprinkled my secondary ads for Penis Growth among the pics with lines like “Become Mr. Right – turn your dick into a DONG” or “Make your manhood massive… Even straight guys will look!” And to my surprise, it worked wonders. I know there is an attitude in the gay male community to seek perfection physical most of all. And it definitely came clearer to me with the number of sales.

It’s funny how many different ways you can approach selling things that will enhance a person. To me, telling me I need something to make me better pisses me off. Don’t try selling something to me by TELLING ME I’m not right. Or what I have is wrong. I’m definitely a person who marches to the beat of his own drum. And then there are people who NEED to be told they are not everything society expects them to be. That they are doing or have something wrong but it can be fix and you have the solution.

Like the examples above, “Become Mr. Right…” I took the effect that I was letting the surfer make up his own mind. Does he have an issue? It was entirely up to him to decide. Let me tell you, it works well on gay traffic. Let the gay surfer decide yes or no.

NOW, I tried a different approach and gauged the success/failure. I popped in text links like “Aren’t you upset by how small your penis is?” “Remember the guys making fun of you in the showers after gym?” or “Are you sick that you don’t fill up you the front of your briefs?” Well let me tell you the number of Emails I rec’d was “enlarged”! For the most part I was getting mail from men who felt I was exploiting them, even making fun of them. I made them feel inadequate and they lost their hard-on. My site was meant to entertain not disdain them. All I could say was WOW! I didn’t expect that kind of response. I will tell you that I was very happy that I didn’t do it across all of my sites and only a few. So I moved everything back to my “Let him decide” campaigns.

The affect of the sales on the “insulting ads” was evident. According to my traffic program it was apparent that these ads were NOT getting clicks. Instead the surfers clicked on my email link to voice their disgust.

The bottom line of all this? With the proper motivation, the right marketing approach, surfers enjoy the seclusion of buying penis enlargement aids online. It is a great addition to your web site income among other avenues.

Article written by Gary-Alan

JavaScript – Redirecting Foreign Surfers

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Scripts, WebDesign | Response: 0

At some point or another we are no doubt going to have the need to redirect some or all of our surfers based on the language they speak, this snippet of JavaScript when placed on your page will enable you to do just that without the need for .php or other more complex scripting.

Here is the coding that you need to place between your <head> and </head> tags:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=”JavaScript1.2″>
<!– Begin
if (navigator.appName == ‘Netscape’)
var language = navigator.language;
else
var language = navigator.browserLanguage;

if (language.indexOf(‘en’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘english.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘nl’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘dutch.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘fr’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘french.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘de’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘german.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘ja’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘japanese.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘it’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘italian.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘pt’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘portuguese.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘es’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘Spanish.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘sv’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘swedish.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘zh’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘chinese.shtml';
else
document.location.href = ‘english.shtml';
// End –>
</script>

To add additional language redirects to this JavaScript all you need to do is duplicate the:

else if (language.indexOf(‘zh’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘chinese.shtml';

Section of the coding changing the (‘zh’) language code to that of the language you wish to redirect.

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

Doorway Pages

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Traffic, WebDesign | Response: 0

A doorway page is built to rank high for a particular keyword or search phrase. When your doorway page is visited by the searcher it simply has a “click me” button which links to your web site. The major search engines accept these pages as long as the end result does provide what the searcher is looking for. If you are discovered to be using doorway pages for irrelevant keywords you can expect to have your entire domain unlisted. For instance, one of our doorway pages is built to rank high for the search term -Adult Content—which is quite acceptable because when the searcher gets here he can find links to adult content providers from our site. If however, he couldn’t find links to adult content then we would risk the wrath of the all powerful search engines.

Once you have selected your keywords and phrases (about 50 would be the normal) you need to build a doorway page for each keyword and ideally, for each major search engine. All the major engines look for different keyword density in the text, title and description so you need to do some research by doing a search using your chosen phrase or keyword and studying the top 10 results at each engine (if you can spot them, study high ranking doorway pages).

Make notes of how many times the phrase or keyword is used in the title, description and body text. Is it used in header text etc? Once you have built a picture of what your doorway page should look like you can build it using your favorite html editor. Once you have done one for a particular engine the other 50 or so pages can be done by simply replacing keywords for keywords. After you have done a page for each keyword move on to the next search engine. Remember that your body text is not important but make each page unique or it may be considered spamming. It is your keyword or phrase density that you are attempting to get right. The page, when visited by a person, will be recognized for what it is, simply a link to the real content so don’t worry too much about what it looks like. When a search engine spider visits the page it is only interested in counting the keyword density in your body text.

As you have probably worked out there is quite a lot of work involved. 50 phrases or keywords=50 pages X the top 8 search engines= 400 pages. In reality though, you are only creating 8 doorways, 1 page for each search engine. For all the other pages you simply have to substitute the keyword for the next and alter the text around so as not to finish with 50 identical pages. OK, nearly finished but the next step is crucial if your doorways are to work.

Put all your pages in a folder on your server e.g. Mydomain/doorways/. Then create 2 more pages that have a link and a small description to each of your doorways (200 on each) and to each other. These are called corridor pages because the spider travels down them, visiting each page linked off them. Call these 2 pages index and home and place them in the folder with your doorway pages. Then place links to these two pages from your main index page so that a spider will be able to find them and list all your doorways. Submit only your index page and your 2 corridor pages. Do not submit your doorways to the engines.

Ideally, and if you can afford it, you should set up a new domain and host for your doorways. This isn’t essential but it does have benefits. These are: If you do get over zealous with your doorways and an engine does ban you for spamdexing at least your real site will be safe. Engines rank sites higher if they have lots of links to them from other domains. You can put your most important keywords in your new domain name, which will increase the ranking of the doorway pages containing those keywords.

Now all you have to do is wait for the engines to update their databases. We have had the best results with Google.

Article written by Lee

Turning Opt In Mailings Into Pure Spam

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Opt-in Mail | Response: 0

Spam is frowned upon net wide and even more so than usual in the online adult industry especially unsolicited email Spam however, many webmasters do not seem to grasp the essential basics about what Spam is and more importantly, the point in which they themselves become Spammers, this is what we will take a look at in this brief article.

Double And Single Opt In Mailings.

By themselves single and double opt-in mailing lists can be a very effective method of promoting your or, your sponsors sites however, many webmasters forget the one fundamental rule when mailing their opt in subscribers, send them what they actually opted in for otherwise, you are spamming the list and ultimately, the recipients.

The line between opt in mailings and Spam is a very finely drawn one at best however in the adult industry it seems the edges of this line are more blurred than almost anywhere else. Quite often you see webmasters on a variety of message boards selling their ‘opt in mailing list’ to one or two other webmasters however, when does the opt in to Spam equation fit in? This is what we will look at next.

Turning Opt-In Mailings In To Spam Emails.

So you have collected opt in email addresses diligently for the last god knows how long and, you have successfully emailed those lists numerous times with some good results to show for it and you want to let others profit from your lists whilst making some money for yourself at the same time. Time to sell the emails you have collected. This is your first mistake, the email addresses which you have collected for your subscriber mail outs have been opted into YOUR list not another webmasters and well, the second that another webmaster buys this list from you the list itself becomes pure unadulterated Spam, nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, you don’t have to sell the list, you could offer the list up for trades however, the same thing applies, the second your mailing list changes hands that list not only becomes worthless to the person who has purchased it but, in effect, the list has now become worthless to you.

Adult Opt In Email Lists.

To make a long term profit from your opt in mailing lists the one thing that you should ensure is that the list you have remains clean and, more importantly than that, remains private, if you have spent several years collecting these email addresses why would you turn the revenue potential of them in to nothing less than worthless overnight? Keep the lists as clean and as private as possible, the next time a sponsor opens a paysite that is on the same topic as your mailing list you can send your opt in mailer to your database and profit from the unexposed site.

Adult Opt In Mailing Lists Overview.

When all is said and done, as mentioned above opt in adult mailing lists are a very hard to find commodity and, if you have a list for a specific niche or market the list becomes even harder to find, keep your list as clean as possible and ensure that you and only you use the opt in mailing list. By keeping the email addresses you have collected out of the grasp of other webmasters you have the potential to make revenue from that list for as long as you maintain it however, all of your hard work can be undone overnight if you sell the list to the wrong webmaster. In short, if someone opts in to a mailing list owned by you, make sure you are the only person who mails them from that list otherwise, you have indirectly spammed that email address.

Article written by Lee

Calling Complete JavaScript’s With One Line Of HTML Code

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

We all know that some JavaScript coding can be excessive and add considerable amounts of additional coding to our pages making them both slower and less search engine friendly however, what if I told you there was a way you could call the EXACT same JavaScript functions you are calling now by using a single line of code and, in the process you would NEVER have to find a specific piece of JavaScript again as you would instantly know where it was saved.

You would probably think the above is in fact very time consuming but, it actually takes no time at all.

The secret is to copy and paste the JavaScript into a plain text file and save that on your server somewhere. However, instead of saving it as a .txt extension save this file as a .js extension and, to make it easier still to find, when you upload this file to your server place it in a directory called /JavaScript/.

That’s pretty much it, easy huh?

Now comes the part of actually getting the JavaScript to work on your web pages, what you need to do instead of using the complete JavaScript coding that you usually would if you wanted to make a pop-up console appear is to use the following coding placed between your <head> and </head> tags:

<script language=”JavaScript” src=”../JavaScript/popup.js”></script>

That will now call the popup.js file or whatever it was you called it from your server and make the JavaScript function work for your surfers with JavaScript enabled in their browser.

As you can see, not only does using this method save you a considerable amount of time but, it will also make your pages more search engine friendly as spiders will not have to work their way through a lot of heavily JavaScript before they get to your SE content.