Using Full Page Ad’s

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion, Traffic | Response: 0

Full page ad’s can be used for more than just ‘adverts’ in fact, there is a wide and varied range of uses for them, below I have detailed some of the uses that I have tried in the past and from my experience, they seem to work well enough.
Creating A ‘Hub’ Site – By interlinking FPA’s together in a range of niches and, offering your surfers a money bar linking to other FPA’s in different niches, you can actually get some good rankings in the SE’s and, if you utilize banner exchanges or counters on your FPA ‘hub’ site you can also ensure you get a fair amount of additional traffic. One thing I like to do with my FPA hub is use it as the ‘exit’ page when a surfer leaves one of my sites. This ensures that I am getting optimum traffic for my time spent a) building sites and B) building my hub.

A lot of people I have spoken to about ‘hub’ sites simply forget about them once they have been built, personally, I do not see the point in doing this, if you build something like this why not send your exit, top list, counter, banner exchange traffic to the first page of your ‘hub’?

Doorway Pages.

FPA’s also make exceptional SE doorway pages, by optimizing your image names, meta tags and text on the individual FPA’s you are not only ensuring they WILL get ranked by the SE’s but, if you ‘hub’ them together as explained above you will also get some premium listings from them.

Filter Pages.

What I learnt to do early on is rather than send my surfers directly to the sponsors using the ‘standard’ linking codes is to send them first to an FPA with a money bar (or table ad) on it, this way, if they click the link in error and not realize that they are going to a pay site, you can give them an option, not only to use their ‘back’ button but also, to go to a different niche or, to continue into the sponsors tour. Now that you can link directly to a specific tour page on ARS sites, this method is a good way to give your surfers a ‘fresh’ tour front page.

PPC Listings.

An FPA is an ideal way to get sites listed in the PPC engines, not only do you show the surfers EXACTLY what is in the site they have just clicked on but, you also have the added option of being able to utilize blur consoles and exit consoles on them.

One other thing that I will mention, is that often, you will find that FPA’s that you have made yourself, no matter how ‘amateur’ looking they are will work better than the ‘pretty’ sponsor built FPA’s.

Hopefully, this article has given you some ideas on how you can better utilize FPA’s and not just use them in the same manner as every other adult site on the internet. If you have some good results from using FPA’s in this manner feel free to post about it on the ARSR Support forums and likewise, if you can think of any additional uses that have not been mentioned here let us know on the forums.

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

Protecting The Kids – Europe’s Role

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: 2257 | Response: 0

As adult webmasters we have certain obligations we must fulfill daily whether these be, legal or moral.

One issue that is constantly cropping up in our industry is that of minors (Children) accessing adult websites and, more importantly, the ease of which they can do.

Recent figures released by one of Europe’s top internet analysis companies show that children in Europe and, specifically within the United Kingdom are more likely to visit a website and that, ‘showing that around one in five Internet kids (290,000) check out the sex sites’.

These figures are certainly alarming to say the least, bearing in mind they are specifically talking about the United Kingdom, that leaves a vast majority of Europe, as yet, un-analyzed.

We should all adapt to new methods in order to protect minors from accessing our site whether that includes placing your sites behind AVS systems which, in my opinion is one of the best ways and, most profitable of protecting minors or, utilizing ‘web safe’ software packages that are available to block access to adult sites completely we all need to adopt these practices.

The fact of the matter remains that, in this day and age, no matter what precautions we take in order to prevent access there will, undoubtedly, be a majority of children who can and will, get access to adult sites.

Does that mean we should compromise on the quality of our sites? No
Does that mean we need to think harder about how we develop our sites? Yes

It takes very little effort to subscribe to the services to block access and, you can get a single line of code to place within your html from ICRA which will at least, deter underage surfers from accessing your sites.

In addition to the above mentioned service, you can also place a link on your warning page/s to the following services for parents to block access from children to our sites, SAFESURF, CYBERPATROL, NETNANNY and, SURFWATCH amongst others. Its not just about utilizing software and ratings on our sites though, we can go much further than that and, for instance, using nothing but softcore content on our sites will protect to some extent the materials available to children but, in addition you will also notice your conversion ratios will go up! I have and, I’m sure you have, heard it time and time again.. Make them ‘Pay for pink’ and, by using softcore images on your sites that’s exactly what you are doing.

I for one certainly hope that you take heed at this article, protecting our children is paramount if, we are to succeed in the business, it is getting harder and harder to control who accesses our site but, we can at least take a step in the right direction.

Article written by Lee

What Is The Golden Ratio?

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Sponsors | Response: 0

Its a little known marketing technique that say that, as long as the longest side on any oblong is 1.6 times the length of the shortest side of the same oblong people will be more likely to prefer that shape over any other shape.

Why do they prefer this size? Because it occurs naturally and, subconsciously EVERY LIVING PERSON is attracted to this trait.

An example of this is as follows:

1) Stand Up
2) Measure the distance from your head to your feet and write this measurement down
3) Measure the distance from your Navel write this figure down.

The length of your ENTIRE body is 1.6 times longer than from your Navel to your feet!!

The same is also true for the length of your arm from shoulder to finger tip, then from elbow to finger tip.

The same is true for credit cards, the longest side is 1.6 times longer than than the shorter side!

Think about this for a second, banner ads, what shape are they? Oblong except, they don’t employ the ‘golden ratio’ what if, just what if, you used some banner ads that employed this ‘golden ratio’ who says banners have to be 468×60 in size?

Why not try making some ‘basic’ banners in paint or a decent graphics program utilizing the 1.6 rule and see if your click thru’s increase, personally, I will bet my earnings last month that they will.

On the same way of thinking towards marketing, table ads, money bars, etc, why not incorporate this idea into them also? It cant hurt and who knows it may just work.

the math to work this ‘golden ratio’ out is as follows for Image a above:

shortest side (60) x 1.6 = (90) Longest side

You don’t even need to be a genius to make your own ads using this method as the people at Microsoft supplied you with a calculator.

Article written by Lee

Favicon.ico – What Does It Do?

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Favicon.ico is the name of the graphic Internet Explorer 5+ uses in the address bar and when someone views their favorite bookmarks. There should be one beside the address of this page now if you are using IE5+. If you want to see favicon.ico in action among your favorites bookmark our site now by right clicking and selecting ‘Add to favorites’.

Internet Explorer looks for this file in the same directory as the HTML page currently being displayed, if it cant find favicon.ico it will then display the default Internet Explorer icon in the address bar. As for viewing of favorites, IE will check its temporary folder to see if favicon.ico is there again, if it is not located it will display the default white background with a blue ‘e’ icon.

For a webmaster there are three main advantages to using the favicon.ico ‘trick’.

The first, is that it helps to brand your site with a nice little icon that is easy to recognize.

The second, is that it makes your website more professional.

The third, is that your entry will stand out in surfers bookmarks over the others. This is especially good as, if you can get a surfer back to your site then you have another chance at making a sale.

Many internet users have a multitude of site bookmarks so, you need to use favicon.ico to give you an edge. I highly recommend using it and, now I’m going to tell you how.

First, you will need to create an icon file which is exactly 16 x 16 pixels. If the icon is larger or smaller IE5+ will just ignore it. As for the colors in it, 16 is standard. You can use more colors if you want but, the more colors you use, the larger the .ico file becomes and, the longer it takes to load.

You now know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create this file you can take one of two routes.

The first is to convert and existing 16 x 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16-32 colors into an .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

You know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create favicon.ico . The easiest way of creating a favicon.ico file is to convert an existing 16 X 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16 – 32 colors into a .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

Once you have created your favicon.ico file all you need to do is to upload it to any directory on your server that contains html pages. This way, when IE5+ searches for favicon.ico it will be bale to find it regardless of which page you are on.

That’s nearly all the areas of favicon.ico covers apart from, what if you want different icons for different parts of your website? Can this be done? The answer is yes it can. All you have to do is place the following HTML code between the <head> and </head> tags of your web page.

<LINK REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”differenticon.ico”> (SHORTCUT ICON should be kept in uppercase).

Now when someone adds a web page with that code to their favorites, IE5+ will not look for favicon.ico but will look for differenticon.ico and if it’s there it will display it, if not the default icon will be displayed.

Using favicon.ico or the SHORTCUT ICON code is nice way to add a unique touch to your site, and of course will result in more repeat visitors than if you were not using it – which is always good for any webmaster.

Article Written By Le

Building Your Own Opt In Mailing List

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Opt-in Mail | Response: 0

Despite the constant launch of ‘new and improved’ email collection programs one of the more popular emails I receive each month ask how webmasters can actually start their own opt-in email list for surfers. Surprisingly enough, this is a fairly simple process and, should only realistically take a webmaster 10-15 minutes to have an opt-in email script installed.

However, the second type of email I get from webmasters who have already installed one of these scripts is asking how they can ensure that surfers sign up to their lists this is what I will approach in this article.

One of the easiest ways to make sure surfers join your opt0in list is to offer them a financial gain by doing so, I don’t mean you should literally pay them for their email address but, why not offer them something for free? A daily picture by email, free porn site access etc etc.

The next biggest mistake I find are that webmasters simply place a collection box saying something like ‘enter your email address here for our newsletter’ and, lets be honest, it isn’t very enticing. Ideally you need to have a ‘headline’ that will catch the surfers attention and actually ‘make’ them want to join your list. Be specific yet be vague (bit hard I know) and you’ll soon see your list grow from one new subscriber a week to hundreds of them!

The next thing you need to take into consideration is how quickly, not only your site, but the page with your collection box loads, if you are using a pop-up console, make sure it is heavy in text not graphics with the first words at the top not saying ‘free porn’ but a similar meaning text, everyone and their dog has seen the words ‘free porn’ on countless other porn sites. Yours NEEDS to stand out!

You should use an effective title if you are going to be using pop-up windows for your email collection. in the title bar don’t have the window called ‘pop-up’ have it named appropriately for the niche you are trying to collect the surfers email address from. Make it relevant, make it concise.

Balance the collection page, any type of page you build for your site should at least be appealing to the eye. Meaning that your fonts, colors and actual text need to contrast together perfectly. If you do use images on this page try to have them prominent yet not overbearing to the surfer.

Offer a way to close a pop-up if this is what you are using to collect the emails after all, they (the surfer) may decide they don’t want to give you their email until they have seen what your site can offer. In the same way, make sure you have a link from your sites to your collection page so, if a surfer decides they do want to give you their email address they can do it without the need of closing your site and reloading it afresh.

Overall however, the best rule you can follow is to keep to the point and keep it simple. This way you will gain the surfers attention quickly and easily and, the surfer will not be distracted from the main purpose of having them on your site – getting to your sponsor.

Hopefully the information above will enable you to start having some more success with your traffic and, once you have the surfers email address make sure you treat it with the respect you would want your own to be treat with, an email address is a sacred thing to most surfers, if you Spam them daily they will leave your opt-in list quickly however, if you send them a ‘newsletter’ once a week / month filled with relevant information you will soon find your list growing exponentially.

Article written by Lee.

Now They Signed Up – Learn How To Keep Them

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

Member retention is going to have a large effect on the adult industry over the next few months, with Visa chargeback rates being lowered and, many affiliate programs lowering their payout model something has to give and, hopefully, the thing that does give will be that affiliate programs start to realize that once they have your surfer, it becomes their responsibility to make that member retain.

With that in mind this article will look at a few things that we have been doing on some of our paysites for the last few months and, instead of having to provide an excess of plug in content we have started updating our sites regularly within the niche confines of what our members are actually looking for, also, despite this increase in content, we have started doing something unique so far as member retention goes – actually communicating with the member directly.

Communication Pays.

Actually spending the time to listen to what your members want can be beneficial on many levels for example, how many of the big sponsors offer the member a chance to become involved in a ‘community’ inside their paysites, i can only think of 3 paysites that i have personally visited that do this.

Often, offering your members a way to communicate to YOU what they want inside the site can, and usually will increase the value of their membership to you in the long run. offer your members weekly polls, offer them incentives to keep an active membership, perhaps some kind of loyalty program, in addition to a method of your paysite members being able to communicate to each other inside your site.

Content Updates.

We all know that paysites need to update however, how many paysite owners spend the time to ask their member what they are looking for? As mention in the previous section, offer your members polls on the next updates you will be doing, ask them what sections of the site need improving and, more importantly, ask them if they are happy with how your site looks and feels overall.

Renewal Time.

So you have managed to keep hold of your paysite member for a few days without them canceling and, their trial period is ending what now? Well, more often than not, communicating to the member that they are about to get rebilled can have a positive effect, send them an email prior to the rebill informing them of what your next set of updates will be, let them know they are a valued member of the site and, more importantly than this, that you are there to help them and listen to their suggestions. This is also an ideal time to remind them of why they joined your site in the first place, you have a lot of exclusive content that, simply put, no other paysite can offer them, you listen to their feedback and, again, value their feedback, all of these things will ensure that your member base retains well over the trial period.

Second Month Renewals.

So you have managed to keep your member for a month, and, again they are due a rebill, as with the first rebill you gave them, re-iterate the points of your site and, tell them what has changed over the past month, give them some sales speak about how your site is doing and, more importantly, what you have coming next month, by communicating these updates to your members a day or so before they have to renew, you should, in all honesty, keep their interest in your paysite and, more importantly, make more money from your members.

So Your Member Cancels.

Okay, so perhaps you managed to rebill your member for a few month or, perhaps they left after the trial period, what now? Simple, send them a follow up email, find out the reasons they cancelled their membership to your site and, see if you can offer them an alternative to stay, perhaps a reduced cost membership or, maybe even an alternative site altogether, if they entered your teen pay site and, were looking for amateur teen pics, even though you know you don’t have them yet, you will probably know of a site that does, tell this cancelled membership about this site and, get them to try it out, if you can match what the surfer is looking for to a site you own then you have a second chance at keeping their membership and, making money.

Retention Overview.

When all is said and done the one thing that is apparent so far as pay sites go is that a lot of them do not communicate with their members and build the sites they operate around what their members are looking for, we can all say we actually do this constantly but, how many of us really, hand on heart, can prove that they ask, listen and, more importantly, implement the feedback from their members base?

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

What’s A CHMOD?

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

CHMOD is another name for setting the permissions of files on your server.

All UNIX based web servers understand the concept of permissions. these are broken down into three distinct areas.

Permissions for the person who OWNS the file.
Permissions for the group (all users are members of one or more groups).
Permissions for everyone else.

Permissions are listed one of two ways either using numbers such as 755 or, using letters such as rwx-xr-x however they both mean the same thing.

The first number or first group of three letters stands for the permissions of the owner (IE 7 or rwx).
The second number or second group of letters stands for the permissions of the group (IE 5 or xr).
The third number or third group of letters stands for the permissions of everyone else (IE 5 or x).

The way the system works is as follows:

1 = x = you are able to execute (run) this program.
2 = w = you are able to write to this file.
4 = r = you are able to read the contents of this file.

so if you add it up rwx = 7.

So, in the example given above (755 or rwx-xr-x) the owner is allowed to read and write the file AND execute it.
The group is allowed to execute and write to the file.
Everyone else can execute the file.

We hope this gives you a little more insight to how CHMOD’ing or, setting the permissions on your server can affect how files act.

Article written by Lee

How To Claim Back European V.A.T

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

With the recent legislations requiring US businesses to charge Value Added Tax to EU Member state customers for purchases of digital product / image downloads there are many new questions going around enquiring how companies and small business owners can claim the VAT back this is what we will look at in this brief article – The basics of claiming back your VAT from Europe.

What Is V.A.T?

Value Added Tax (VAT) is a consumption tax levied on goods and services in many countries across the globe. Over the last decade, legislation in the tax systems of Europe, Canada, Japan and South Korea allow for a refund for the majority of non resident entities, worldwide to a refund of VAT in most instances however, especially in the business world, registration must be achieved prior to claiming back your VAT and, preferably before the purchase of Vat able goods takes place.

Who Is Entitled To A VAT Refund?

Most businesses will be entitled to receive a VAT refund however, as the laws vary from country to country, the best way for you as a business owner to find out the laws as they affect you is to contact your company accountant who, should be knowledgable enough to inform you of what you need to claim back from each of the EU member states where V.A.T has been charged.

What Products Can I Claim V.A.T Refunds For?

Most typically value added tax recoverable expenses can take form as one or more of the following items:

Business Property Expenses.
Transportation Costs.
Inter-company Billing.
Marketing + Promotional Services.
Exhibitions, Conferences + Business Meetings.
Importation V.A.T.
Digital Downloads (Business Related).

How Do I Register For V.A.T?

When a company inside the domestic US conducts transactions in the EU countries where value added tax registrations may be required the registration for the VAT refund should be done prior to the transaction taking place however, on occasions which vary from individual EU member states this registration process may be done retroactively. By becoming registered to claim your VAT back the company is legally required to d the following:

1) Register for the VAT in the EU country where the transaction takes place.
2) Account for VAT on all invoices or receipts issued to your European customers.
3) Deduct the V.A.T incurred from your European suppliers of goods or services.

Value Added Tax – An Overview.

When all is said and done, other than the obvious need to increase your pricing structure for certain global markets registering for and, charging value added tax actually has a great deal of benefits. You now get to claim addition refunds from any expenses that you incur from the day to day running of your business, your promotional activities become vat’able so you can now increase the level of global marketing you do and, claim full value back from the EU member states (where applicable). basically, registering in the EU member state will enable your business to grow on a global scale and, at the same time, afford you the luxury of being able to market your goods and services to a greater client base at virtually no cost to yourself this is a good thing especially when you take a look at the growth that international internet usage is making each month.

Article written by Lee