Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards.

With so many ways for webmasters marketing straight sites in the adult industry to network I started to look at the various alternatives available to those webmasters who market gay sites to network and, although there are a few different ones about, they still seem to be few and far between.

So What Boards Are There For Gay Webmasters?

Presently, to my knowledge there are four dedicated gay boards that webmasters can utilize for networking purposes in the adult industry with several straight orientated resource sites having a gay board also these are as follows:

The Gay Boards:

Rock Me Hard
Triple X Gay
Gay Webmaster Chat
Gay Wide Webmasters

The Straight Sites With Gay Boards:

Ynot Gay Board
Xbiz Gay Board

Obviously my favorite is The Gay Board at Gay Wide Webmasters but i am slightly biased towards that seeing as its one that we own privately however, the other boards are almost certainly worth a visit in addition to the GWW community forums.

So what do these gay boards offer those marketing to the gay surfer that the straight boards cant? Simply put, it can offer you a place to network without fear of ridicule from your colleagues and peers in addition you will find that a lot of these gay boards have a wealth of information about the gay market being posted on them on an almost daily basis.

It is also worth mentioning however that just with the numerous straight orientated message boards, the gay boards do have their own individual feel to them, for example, Rock Me Hard is what I would personally classify as a ‘fun’ board and Shelmal does a great job keeping the spirit of the board going likewise, Gay Webmaster Chat is more a board geared towards webmasters who operate traffic sites such as TGP’s and Link Lists which becomes apparent after reading a few threads. Gay Wide Webmasters is more a board with a wide reach but, primarily, it is a business orientated gay webmaster community and Triple X Gay, because it is fairly new is still, imho, trying to identify the direction it wants to take but non the less, a lot of the forum members posting there also post on GWW.

The Gay Board – An Overview.

When all is said and done, no matter whether you are gay, straight, black, white or any other demographic, focusing your attention to one type of board can become counter productive after a while, I mean how often can you hear from the same people over and over again before being given the same information again and again? Diversify your posting activities to include some of the gay market community forums and at the same time, you will also diversify your business knowledge which, im sure you will agree, is good for everyone, especially you and your bank account.

Article written by Lee

Personality Plus

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article written by Gary-Alan

Adult Industry Standards – What Are They Exactly?

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

For some, the term ‘industry standards’ might seem like an oxymoron and, in such a wide spread global industry this might just be the case, the adult industry is not regulated in any way shape or form however, this term is thrown around with the best of them.

In this article we will take a quick look at some of the ‘standards’ which have been set and, for the most part, seem to be accepted across the online adult industry as a whole.

Industry Standards – The Basics.

‘Industry Standards’ are, in effect a set of guidelines or rules by which any person operating a business in a specific sector operate by. These may range fro charging a standard price for a product, operating in a certain way or something else. Most industries have their own set of specific ‘standards’ which are usually upheld regardless of whether they are actually written in law, as regulations, rules or, unwritten, unspoken standards.

Adult Industry Standards – The List.

This is a list of the 4 most common ‘Adult Industry Standards’ that webmasters would seem to operate their businesses towards, these are not ‘official’ industry standards more general operational guideline which are accepted as the ‘norm’ in our industry.

1) Adult Webmasters should use ‘legal’ content.
2) Adult Webmasters should abide by the rules of the sponsors they use.
3) Adult Webmasters should not promote ‘child pornography’ or imply the promotion of the same.
4) Adult Webmasters should operate their business within the scope of the law.

Taking the above four items into account, there of course, other standards by which webmasters already self-regulate to some extent for example, you shouldn’t steal other webmasters work, content, bandwidth (through hotlinking), etc. However, other than the four primary ‘unwritten rules’ above there doesn’t appear to be any special ‘code of practice’ to which webmasters should or even, can adhere to.

Taking the above information one step further, lets take a quick look at the adult industry sponsors, almost all of them have a different variation of their Terms and Conditions however, implied or otherwise, most of them tend to stick within the confines of the details already mentioned above. This in itself can lead webmasters into some troubles for example, promotion of sites, most sponsors have unwritten rules about what webmasters can and cant do to promote sites, no spamming paysites, no misleading links but, again, there are no ‘set’ rules that any two sponsors seem to say in the exact same manner.

Adult Industry Standards – Self Regulation.

We all know by now (at least those of us whom have been doing this for a few months) that the adult industry is pretty much self regulated and, whilst this is almost certainly a good thing it can also lead to complications. For example, ‘Webmaster A’ does something to promote a site that they got permission to do whilst, ‘Webmaster B’ does the same thing without having permission. in this instance, more often than not ‘Webmaster B’ will the one who gets their name blackened in the industry. it would also seem that, whilst those webmasters who have a long standing in the industry are capable of getting away with certain things, others, who perhaps have seen things done, when they try the same they get ridiculed.

Adult Industry Standards – Overview.

As ‘Adult Webmasters’ and, i would like to stress the ‘Adult’ part of that job title we have a lot of information thrown at us from the very first day of joining this industry, how we choose to use that information is up to us on an individual basis. That said, until the ‘standards’ are set on a level playing field i cant help wondering what effect, negative or positive our own style of self regulation is having on our associates and peers, does it help that we can go to message forums and call sponsors, hosts, other webmasters cheats? or, does this hinder our industry on a much wider scale?

One thing is for certain, if i were a journalist writing a report on the adult industry as a whole, i don’t even think i could write about the actual ‘business’ side of things after all, we all run our businesses as we see fit and, at the same time, read the rule book that would at least, for the time being, suit us as individual business owners.

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.

Newsletter Know How – A Guide To Writing Newsletters

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

Email newsletters are a great way to make contact with existing clients and, prospective clients which makes them a great marketing tool. The biggest bonus however, over Email newsletters rather than print ones is that you have virtually no cost involved with writing and, ultimately, mailing them out.

There is a wide variety of online newsletter on the internet. however, probably the simplest form for most webmasters is the email newsletter. Email provides you with a quick way to keep your name out there, build trust with you readers and, hopefully attract a few sales. If you archive your newsletter also this is a great way to get additional pages into the search engines and, as such, it then becomes a good traffic driver to your website regardless of the amount of subscribers you have. However one of the most important benefits of having an email newsletter sent on a regular basis is that it build brand recognition of your website or business.

Your newsletter should provide information, not just of an advertising nature but that, should also be informative to your subscribers. In doing this you are offering information of value and, ultimately, ensuring that your subscribers remain. However, remember newsletters are for promoting your area of expertise not just a vehicle for revenue generation.

One of the first things you should consider when deciding to do a newsletter is the amount of commitment you will have to put towards the project. Whether you start a monthly, weekly or, daily newsletter a great deal of commitment must be made to both the newsletter and, more importantly, your subscribers. For example, We generally spend a good 3 days researching the articles that have been submitted and trying to ensure that the details contained within them are relevant at the time of sending the email, this is not an easy task especially when the adult internet is constantly developing. If you don’t have the time to research and maintain consistency in your newsletter, then don’t even consider doing one, it isn’t for you at the present time.

Now you have decided you can make the commitment required to run a successful email newsletter what do you do next? Collect email addresses. Probably one of the easiest ways to get email subscribers to join your list is to go through your current mail clients contact list and manually add those email addresses or, further still, you may even have an opt in collection program that you have been using for a while but have never really had the time to commit to writing a newsletter worthy of sending out. Remember though, an email list is only as good as the addresses contained within it. You want to run an OPT-IN email list, any other type of list will be considered Spam and, that will do you more damage than good. Of course, if you haven’t already got an email collection program you can find one online there are literally hundreds of them floating around that you can get for free from sites like http://www.hotscripts.com.

So, you now have your emails, onto writing your newsletter. I think the greatest part of email is that it is somewhat less formal than writing for print copy. Email in fact tends to be very informal in comparison. The best way at approaching writing for an email newsletter is to write how you talk, it is more enjoyable for the reader and gives your newsletter a personality that no one else can emulate. Content wise, that depends on what you do, what would YOU like to see if you subscribed to an email list of the type you are going to be running and, more importantly, what would ensure you stay subscribed to the newsletter? Ask your friends, colleagues and, peers what they would like to see in an email newsletter, often they have been looking for information that is not readily available, this is an area where you then start to provide a service that no one else does.

So you are at the point where you are starting to realize that running a newsletter is a lot of work correct? Well, it is. However, the effort, work and, time spent in putting your newsletter together will help you build a relationship with people whom, in all actuality, you may probably not ever meet in a face to face situation and, more importantly, it can become a great income generator over time.

Article written by Lee

Viral Marketing – Catching The Marketing Bug

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Viral Marketing | Response: 0

The term viral marketing is offensive. Call yourself a viral marketer and, people will often take two steps back. I know I would do. It is a sinister thing, the simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not fully alive, it exists in that nether region somewhere between horror movies and disaster films.

That said however, you have to admire the skills of the viral marketer. They have a way of winning by sheer weight of numbers alone. They piggy back on everyone else and use their resources to grow their own. In the right circumstances the viral marketer can grow exponentially. A virus doesn’t have to mate, it just replicates itself again and, again and, again increasing its power, doubling its effect with each replication.

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I I I I I I
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In a few short generations, a viral marketing population can boom as seen in the diagram above.

Viral marketing defined.

What does a virus have to do with viral marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for mass growth in the messages exposure and influence.

Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to hundreds, even thousands in a relatively short period of time.

Before the advent of the internet viral marketing was often referred to as ‘word of mouth’. However, for better or for worse, the term viral marketing has infected.

One classic example of this marketing technique is Hotmail.com one of the first free web based email services. Their strategy was simple.

Give away free email addresses and services.
Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out.
Watch people email their friends, colleagues and family.
Watch these same friends colleagues and family join up to their service.
See the message propelled to an ever increasing audience, all for free.

In closing viral marketing is like watching the tiny ripples of a single pebble dropped pond, one small splash can create ever increasing circles which in turn could create ever increasing revenues.

Article Written By Lee

Filtering Adult Traffic For More Sales

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

When webmasters build sites there seems to be the train of thought that just because they use one of the top converting sponsors site they will make sales regardless of what type of traffic they are sending.

Unfortunately, this is often not true.

One of the first steps that we should take as webmasters when it comes to creating a new site, whether it be a free, avs or a TGP site is to learn the art of targeting our sponsors tour with the content and, more importantly, the traffic we are going to use.

taking it to the simplistic levels, a straight teen sponsors wont convert on a site that gets mostly mature traffic, the niches, although complementary, are so far apart its unrealistic.

That said, lets take a look at some options we can all implement on our sites to better target and filter our traffic to ensure optimum conversions.

One of the simplest ways to target and filter your traffic is to build yourself a hub or a surfer trap. Of course, we also have to take into consideration the type of traffic we are currently receiving to our site and, that we ‘could’ receive in the future.

Just because we receive 10,000 hits to our teen TGP doesn’t mean that ALL of that traffic IS looking for a teen site, this is where our surfer trap or hub site can come into play.

Even if your main focus is the teen niche, you should make sure that the first thing the surfer see’s when visiting any type of site you build is a multi-site FPA (Full Page Ad) where applicable.

This then starts your filtering process. If they know that they can find other niches than teen on your TGP then chances are, they will go to them either because that is what their niche is or, they are curious about that niche.

Another thing we can do as webmasters is to ensure we use the headers and footers of our pages in the proper fashion, offer our surfers a choice of the main niches, Asian, Gay, Ebony, Teen, Ect using only text links and, you will probably find that by lining these text links to your hub or surfer trap that you actually have a diverse range of traffic available to you.

In addition, rather than sending our surfers directly to our sponsors, send them via a filter page whether this is an FPA, or a page full of text links you made yourself detailing the benefits of the sponsor you are going to send them to, again, you will let the surfer know where they are going and, give them a choice as to whether they want to continue to that site or, choose an alternative.

Overall, webmasters who target their surfers by niche can, for the most part have some excellent sales with a variety of sponsors that otherwise they would not be able to see.

Target, Filter, Micro-Niche, however you do it, make sure your traffic is not wasted and, more importantly, make sure your sponsor is able to offer your surfer what you are telling them is inside the site.

Article written by Lee

Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 3

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 3.

You should hopefully by now have a basic looking surfer trap ready on your server and on your hard drive.

Now we need to start to ‘dirty’ this surfer trap up a little.

We have already added 1 pop-up console to each of the FPA’s including the Multi-Site FPA.

For the next step in this ‘dirtying’ process we need to add some additional links onto each of the FPA’s including the Multi-Site FPA.

On the FPA’s what you need to do is create a ‘no thank you’ link so, if your surfer does not want to visit the site for the FPA you have sent them to you can send them to an alternative.

This no thank you link can go to one of two places, you need to decide where you feel the traffic can be best utilized however, from my experience i would highly recommend using this first method:

Link the ‘no thank you’ text on each of the single site FPA’s to another DIFFERENT niche FPA in your surfer trap so, as an example, if your surfer is on the All Petite FPA in your trap, the ‘no thank you’ link would lead to Just Toon’s. If they decide not to go with the Just Toon’s site, the ‘no thank you’ link on this FPA would go to Gay Ultra and so on, you need to ensure however, that the ‘no thank you’ link goes to a completely different niche to the one of the FPA the surfer is currently on.

The second option you have is to link the ‘no thank you’ text to the ARS POTD (picture of the day) program. This will be your last chance at selling the surfer to one of the ARS pay sites.

In addition to the ‘no thank you’ link on each of the FPA’s you also need to add a small table to the Single-Site FPA’s. ideally this should be four columns across and 2 rows down. This will give you 8 places to put a one or two word link going to another different niche FPA than the one the surfer is currently viewing however, you also need to ensure that these 8 links are going to a different FPA than the ‘no thank you’ link you have created.

The above stage is where we could potentially start to lose people in the instructions therefore if you have ANY questions or queries regardless of how small they may be please post on the forums.

This stage should hopefully only take you a couple of hours to complete and, once you have tested all of the links and uploaded the FPA’s to your server you are all set for the next MAJOR step in this project…. Generating Fresh Traffic.

Article written by Lee

Why Have More Than One Index Page?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article written by Lee

Marketing to European Surfers

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Marketing to European Surfers.

Today we’ll try to answer couple of questions regarding dialers and how to market them to European traffic.

How to get traffic to your European market targeted site?

Pretty much the same way as for all the other sites, lets German market for example (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) use SE’s, German link-lists, TGPs,… feed site with your own traffic, and don’t forget to use exit-consoles.

Is your site translated into specific language?

Yes, of course you won’t get far using English template on German/Spanish.. sites… You can always contact Adult Site Translation if you need help with translations.

What sponsor should you use?

That is pretty hard to say. Practically since almost every European based sponsor offers dialers so it doesn’t really matter which one you choose. It’s the same with per sign-up sponsors: It depends how good you are in sending traffic to them. And as always try couple of them and see which one works best for you. Most of the sponsors will offer to your surfers to pay by CC, bank account and dialers.

Me personally, I don’t really advertise dialers. I go for sign-ups because most if not all European sponsors are recurring and it brings more money in the long run. But if a surfer wants to pay the (admittedly) high phone bills – that’s fine with me In fact, sometimes I get more money from a 0190-number (dialer number in Germany starts with 0190) than I’d get if the surfer would sign-up with his CC and would cancel his membership after the first payment.

Why are dialers so successful in the German/European market?
Well, I can think of 3 reasons for this:

1.) 0190-numbers are very common in Germany. Many support-hotlines use them, you can download logos for your cell phone via 0190, you can get health-tips via 0190, fax-numbers, etc… Germans see those numbers everywhere and get used to them. Of course they know that they are expensive but I think they tend to forget this because they are so common.

2.) Much of my income from dialers is from Swiss and Austrian people. Especially surfers from Switzerland LOVE dialers (Some of them spend hours/nights with dialers and in the end if i get 50% of that for me is not bad, isn’t it? I think they love dialers because they hesitate to give out the information on their CC (if they have any) and they can’t/don’t like to transfer their money via bank transfers. So dialers are actually their only way to get into the members-area.

3.) Credit cards are not very common in Germany. I would guess only some 30% have one and many who have one don’t believe that CC transactions on the internet are secure. So most of the surfers have only 2 options left: Paying by bank account or using a dialer. The bank account has 2 disadvantages in the eyes of the surfers: 1st “The sponsor knows my name, my account number, where I live and that I’m a greasy little wanker who pays for porn. -Maybe this sponsor is going to tell my neighbors about it-” 2nd “How can I explain this to my wife?” On the other hand the dialer has advantages: 1st It is anonymous. Nobody knows who and where the surfer is. 2nd The dialer is faster than typing all the necessary information needed for a bank transaction. A few seconds for a 35kb download and the surfer is ready to go. 3rd You can always find a reason why there’s this 0190-number on the phone-bill. “Well darling, you know, I had problems with my new graphic card and I had to contact the customer-support. Those damn bastards are on a 0190-number what what can I do?”

Article written by Lee