The Next Big Traffic Craze – Thumbnail Link Lists

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Link Lists | Response: 0

As adult webmasters are constantly thriving to create the next craze in traffic sources to garner sales from their sites it comes as no surprise that there is already talk amongst the ranks of the next big thing, what is this new idea? The Thumbnail Link List.

Thumbnail Link Lists – Re-Inventing The Wheel.

As the past year and a half have taught us as webmasters, regular TGP’s have almost become a thing of the past with more and more thumbnail TGP’s being created and submitted to daily, why then, has it taken so long for someone to think up the idea of the Thumbnail Link List? Quite simply I think it has been a case of to much has happened over the last 12 months in the adult industry for webmasters to think this idea up.

So What Is A Thumbnail Link List?

A thumbnail link list is in effect a way of displaying free sites on your own standard Link List by utilizing small thumbnail samples of the images contained within the free sites galleries, in fact, much the same way that a thumbnail TGP works however, instead of only listing single image galleries your link list will consist of links to individual free sites.

Much like the Thumbnail TGP traffic source, the thinking behind the Thumbnail Link List is that by showing your surfers what type of pictures the sites within your link list contain they will be more likely to visit the free site thus improving your CTR to your webmaster submitted sites and, ultimately, your site overall allowing you to manipulate the traffic to garner more sales for yourself as the Thumbnail Link List owner.

Submitting Your Site To A Thumbnail Link List.

Looking at the Thumbnail Link List idea from a webmaster who would be submitting your free sites for listing (and ultimately traffic) how do the rules of the Thumbnail Link List differ to that of the regular link list which we are all used to seeing, well for a start, the main difference will be that you either need to submit a thumbnail yourself or, enter the url to one of your gallery pages in addition to the main entrance to your free site, this will actually be the only significant change in how you operate your link list submissions compared tot he current link list method, however, as each Thumbnail Link List owner will have their own individual rules you should check before submitting as to what is required from you as a submitter.

Thumbnail Link Lists – Overview.

The whole Thumbnail Link List idea is one that, in all seriousness should mean more traffic not only for the submitters of the free sites but, also for the Thumbnail Link List owner themselves, by offering the surfers a preview of the content contained within the free sites they will be visiting they can simply reduce the amount of sites that do not appeal to them and focus more on the sites that do meaning that the webmasters who submit highly niched free sites to the links lists will now be able to benefit from a larger traffic base and ultimately, more sales.

Article written by Lee

Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 2

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

In the last tutorial we hopefully got the foundations of our surfer trap laid and in this stage, we will start to put this thing together.

Ok the first step of stage two of building your surfer trap is to start linking each of the individual FPA’s to your Multi-Site FPA.

The easiest way that I have found to do this is to give each FPA its own sub directory on your server and have the html page named index for each of the single site FPA’s.

So for instance, if you have the site All Petite on your Multi-Site FPA you would link it to:

mydomain.com/all-petite/

Or whatever you called the sub directory for the All Petite single FPA.

Now, once you have linked these single FPA’s to your Multi-Site FPA we need to start ‘playing’ with them once again.

You should now have copy’s of your single site FPA’s and Multi-Site FPA on both your server and Hard Drive.

Take the copy’s you have on your hard drive and add a small NICHE pop up console to each of the single site FPA’s AND the Multi-Site FPA.

I would suggest making 6 NICHE consoles.

These consoles should be pure text and nothing else.

Each of the links on this small console should link to a different niche of your single site FPA’s I usually go with one link for each of the following niches…

Gay
Mature
Teen
Fetish
Hardcore
Asian

Plus, I usually add a link at the bottom of my console which goes to the POTD program.

Once you have these consoles built you should upload them to their OWN sub directory on your server, I would suggest calling this directory ‘consoles’ and calling each of the niche consoles the name of the NICHE they represent.

So, you should now have the following on your HD and on your server:

1 Multi-Site FPA
50 or so Single Site FPA’s (All Linked From The Multi-Site FPA)
6 Small Pop-Up Consoles (Popping Only One On The Multi-Site FPA and The Single Site FPA’s, each different niche Single Site FPA pops a different niche console however.)

You now have to check that your surfer trap is working so far.

Article written by Lee.

Adult Webmaster Conventions – Remember When?

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

Most webmasters who have been working in the adult industry for a year or two have attended an adult webmaster convention of some sort and, those of us who had the privilege of attending our first webmaster show three to four years ago will know one thing that many others don’t, there used to be a time when you could attend a webmaster show for example, the one held at Disney World (how many of you remember that?) when apart from being relaxing, you would also get a lot of business done alas, times have changed.

Fighting, Drug Taking, Getting Drunk, Rape Accusations, Theft and Criminal damage would be the headline in the national press should one of these reporters attend today’s webmaster convention, instead of a relaxing atmosphere in which you can get business done you find a slew of webmasters who, well, lets be honest here, are only attending these shows for one reason, to get drunk (for free) and to have a laugh.

Of late there seems to have been an influx of people (notice I used the word people and not ‘adult webmasters’) joining the adult industry who would appear to think that our business model is one of all night partying, sordid sex sessions and drug taking, whilst, I will be the first to admit this has gone on in the past it would certainly seem that the last 2-3 years has seen more than its fair share of the negative events happening at these conventions.

Take for example the recent Hollywood Internext Expo show, one incident that comes to mind was the fool who decided it would be a good idea to smash the mezzanine canopy above the hotel lobby, to my knowledge the culprit was never found however, I am sure there are those out there who knows who it was and well, lets be honest, they quite possibly you could be reading this article.

So what happened? How did these shows change so drastically? Quite simply I think it was the sudden onslaught of press coverage about how the adult industry makes so much money for everyone and, whilst there is a lot of money to be made in the industry, it takes a lot of work to achieve making the reported figures by the press.

To many people are entering the adult industry thinking that the ‘norm’ is that of what you can find on your average day of visiting GFY and whist, this is perhaps true for the circle of webmasters who do frequent boards such as GFY for the vast majority of hard working webmasters in the industry, the behavior of those webmasters couldn’t be further from the truth.

So where is all the business being done at the shows? It would appear that event after event the open invite list of parties are being cut down to be taken over by more intimate and sociable private parties in fact, as a company we our ourselves holding several smaller invite only parties for those people that we actually want to do business with on both a personal and a professional level.

So what does the future have in hold for the adult industry events, in all honesty I do not know however, one thing is for certain, if things continue on their current route, things are going to become a whole lot worse before they get any better.

Article written by Lee.

The Adult Internet – More Than Just Porn

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

So you have several adult websites up and running and, if you are one of the lucky few in this day and age you have already started to make money from your adult sponsor programs however, there are so many other ways that webmasters can make money in the adult industry in addition to their regular ‘porn site’ sponsors yet, many webmasters do not realize there are vast opportunities awaiting them.

Lets spend a few moments to look at the alternative sources of income that we can use in the adult industry and also take a look at the basics of each type of affiliate system.

Email Collection.

Opt in email is big business, there is no denying this fact so why not jump on the opt in email collecting bandwagon? Most email collection sponsors will offer you anywhere from $0.50 per email collected to $2.00 per email collected and, better still, to start making money from your existing traffic base all you need to do is include a small email collection box.

Software Programs.

Many of the larger adult affiliate programs now offer their webmasters a range of software products to generate additional income, many of these products are good for use not only in adult but, also in mainstream. For instance, Anonymous browsing software, history deletion software, IE Toolbars and even submission programs are all good ways to generate additional income either on a per download or, per sale basis. Best of all, you only need to add a new banner to the sites you currently have in order to get a share of this lucrative market.

Herbal Products.

Penis Pills, Breast Enlargement, Vitamin Supplements, you name it you can sell it on adult traffic. Whether you run a TGP, Link List or your own collection of free sites, these herbal products can often sell much better than ‘porn sites’ and, for the most part, the payout levels are the same, if not higher than what your regular ‘porn site’ trial will make you. Again to get started with this type of sales all you need to do is add a text link or banner to your existing sites.

Casino Sites.

Gambling makes BIG money, just look at Vegas for the example, millions of people a year visit Nevada to gamble and millions more simply can’t get there for a range of reasons however, almost every home in the United States has a computer and internet connection so why not start using this to your advantage? Many of the larger casino affiliate programs will pay based on the amount of funds credited to a new users account and, to get started making money from casino sites it is quite literally as easy as adding a banner or text link to your existing sites again.

Pre Paid Services.

Such as Credit Cards and the likes, selling these types of products to your adult surfers not only offers then ‘anonymity’ on the web when they do make online purchases but at the same time when your surfers sign up or one of these pre-paid credit cards you will be making some money in the process. Often however you will find that these types of affiliate program do not payout as much ‘long term’ as they are pretty much a first time deal as far as, once the surfer spends money to initially ‘charge’ their pre paid card with funds, that is when you will make money and not again. Still, even if you can make $50 by selling one of these cards, its still an additional $50 you wouldn’t have made otherwise.

Adding To Your Profits.

As you can see from the above, there are a wide range of products and services you can offer your surfers and, as we all know, the more things we can offer our ‘customers’ the more chance we have at one of them buying something. Of course, as with anything, the more effort we put into marketing these products and services the more chance e have at making a sale however, unless we try to sell the surfer something other than porn, how will we know whether they will buy or not?

Article written by Lee

Masters Of Discipline – Have You Got What It Takes?

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

So you want to throw in your day job and become a full time adult Webmaster? Well yeah, I can hear you saying, “Who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by pictures of beautiful women all day, make up their own hours, and be the master of their own destiny?” It just sounds sooo good when it’s put like that doesn’t it?

Before you tell your boss you quit, you might want to read this article first, as the reality of working in this industry and especially for yourself can be a real wake up call for many.

The main thing you need to succeed in this business is discipline, and lots of it. If there are temptations when you work for someone else to slack off, take a sick day, or simply not bother showing up, then you can double those temptations when you work for yourself.

It’s so easy to roll over in the morning rather than get out of bed, stagger to the PC, and actually work.

It’s so easy to decide to take the day off when the sun is shining and the beach is calling. You simply tell yourself you’ll make up for it tonight, and then find yourself coming home at 3am.

It’s so easy to not actually work, when you work for yourself, that at times it can be unreal.

The reality of doing any of the above is longer nights, less sleep, and almost inevitably smaller paychecks.

Structure Your Day.

The answer to this problem is to really think about your working day and give it some structure, just as you would if you worked for someone else. Work set hours and take frequent breaks. When you work for someone else they make you take breaks for a variety of reasons, but mostly, because as research has proved, you’ll be more productive after one. It’s also important to make sure others know your hours as well, and always remember to add what time zone you are located in on any correspondence. There is nothing worse than being awoken by an associate at 3am because you forgot that little detail!

Set A Routine.

Get into a routine! There are various tasks that must be done each week no mater how boring. By creating a work routine, you can control your time and structure the more boring jobs at the end of the day when for most our creativity levels are less. You can also structure that routine as I do, when I’ve finished those boring tasks at the end of each day, I reward myself with some time doing what I want to do.

Going Solo.

This can be a lonely business and if you don’t like working alone then maybe it’s not the right one for you. You’ll likely spend many hours in your own company and as someone else pointed out to me, while boards and instant messengers are great, they can also eat heavily into your working time if you’re not careful. Personally, I use the boards and chats as a treat when I’ve accomplished a goal, unless I need to talk to someone in order to get that set goal done.

If, like me, your office is in your home, in reality you never really leave work. It’s just always there and there is always something else to be done, and it’s so tempting just to work a few more hours. Having the discipline to stick to your office hours is the trick and where structure comes into play. The saying all work and no play makes Jack/Jill a dull boy/girl is really true here.

The biggest trick of all though, is learning to recognize your limits. Set them and stick to them. Unlike in the normal workplace, you won’t have the big cheese or even the little one watching over your shoulder, making sure you work or making sure that your paycheck and your bills are covered each week. That’s up to you now.

Think Before You Leap.

Another thing you need to consider is can you REALLY afford to give up your day job? Working for someone else means that for the most part you will have a reliable pay check each week or month, when you work for yourself you loose that security. There are other things to consider as well like health insurance, book keeping and how exactly you are going to pay for them. Of course if there is another bread winner in the house this may not be of such a concern, but it’s still something you should consider before you give in your slip. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re considering going it alone, don’t, at least not until you have enough cash saved to cover any outgoings you might have over a six months period.

How well do you know the law? If you think the law doesn’t affect you because your just one person working from home then think again. If you don’t know your Title 18 USC 2257 from your arse then you may be heading for trouble. Standing in front of a judge and saying I didn’t know won’t get you out of a heavy fine or even a prison sentence.

The real questions you need to ask yourself now are you up to the challenge, and do you have the personal discipline to make this work for you?

Article written by Jenne.

http://www.clitical.com.

Online Billing Alternatives – Token Payment Systems

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

In this article we will continue our look at the various payment solutions that are available to webmasters for use on a global scale and, this time we will look at the ‘Token’ system of generating income to our sites.

Token Payments – What Are They?

Token payments, as they name suggests is a way by which your surfers can access your members area by using pre-purchased tokens as a cash alternative. These tokens are available in a variety of values ranging from US$1 to US$5 and above.

Token Payments – What Are The Costs?

The cost to the surfer (as mentioned above) can vary from solution to solution however, on average the tokens which are redeemed for payment are bought in amounts ranging from US$1 to US$5 and above, these tokens then grant the surfer access to any of the sites that uses the specific token system the surfer purchased ‘credits’ for.

Token Payments – Price Comparisons.

Okay so based on our previous articles we will again say that access to your members area costs an average of US$30 for a months access, now, using the token payment method, you are now able to set certain ‘restrictions’ immediately on the level of ‘access’ your new member can have although, the reality of it is, these restrictions are set by the token provider themselves.

Lets say a surfer has gained access to your site using a US$5 token, what can they get actually have access too – not a lot. Your surfer only has access to as much of the content in your site that his ‘credits’ or ‘tokens’ will allow him to, in fact, the token system itself is much like the current pay-per-view model only, IMHO, not as satisfying to the surfer.

back to the issue at hand, how much will you make from this surfer with the US$5 token who has just accessed your site, well, if your members area is good and you have enough content to keep the surfer there until their tokens run out of credit, then, you will make upto 95% of the initial US$5 token purchase.

The good thing about this payment solution from a webmasters perspective however, is that YOU can actually set how much time each token will last on your site. Therefore, the reality of it is, you could have a surfer join your site with a US$5 token and only see one movie file whereas, a surfer who joined with a Credit card for 30 days access, could in effect strip your site of its content and move onto the next paysite.

Token Payments – Overview.

All in all, i strongly feel that there is a place in todays adult industry for the token payment solution after all, webmasters have to limit access to the amount of content surfers are able to see for free (or cheaply) and start to ‘educate’ todays sufer that they need to spend some money in order to access ‘the good stuff’.

By allowing webmasters to control the content and value of the token payments on their sites this payment solution could, somewhat start this education process for the surfers. Whether this will be a good or, a bad thing however, will depend entirely on the amount of use these relatively new payment solutions get from both webmasters and, ultimately, surfers.

Article written by Lee

Pay Per Click Or Search Engine Optimization

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Paid Traffic, Search Engine Optimization | Response: 0

What would you choose to run your business? Well each has their own benefits and drawbacks over one another.

PPC or SEO The Breakdown.

Pay Per Click or, PPC as it is most often referred to looks to the novice to be the better option for ‘immediate’ traffic results, you enter your desired keywords, place your minimum / maximum bid amount and you are set for top PPC engine listings for as long as you can maintain the balance in your engine account.

Search Engine Optimization or, SEO on the other hand, is the more traditional way of attaining high ranking search engine pages. Either you or an SEO expert optimizes your websites pages and random other elements of your website and hopefully within a month or two, you achieve high rankings in the major search engines.

So Which One? PPC or SEO?

Generally speaking, SEO work is most commonly more cost effective to your business than utilizing PPC results to gain your traffic, you could pay an SEO expert anywhere from $500 plus to optimize your site and get high rankings indefinitely or, you could put that $500 into a PPC engine account and get high rankings until such time as your account balance runs dry.

But lets look at this in terms of actual traffic…

Say you get 1000 visitors to your SEO based website which you paid $500 for, each visitor has cost you $0.50c now lets say your site remains at the top of the engines for a few months perhaps even years each month you receive another 1000 visitors to your site, you have basically cut the cost of each surfer hitting your site down to less than a penny per hit (not taking into account bandwidth costs obviously).

Now, on the other hand, you want to attract 1000 visitors from your chosen keywords via the PPC engines, most Pay Per Click search engines have a minimum bid amount of $0.05c per hit so right away in your first month, you could receive a potential 10k hits however, as most of you who have already tried your hand at the PPC engines will know, getting 10k hits for one or more keyword at a cost of $0.05 is hard to do, in fact, some would say almost impossible. Non the less let us keep going with this minimum bid amount for the time being.

Immediately, you can see that you are already restricted to the actual amount of traffic you can receive from the PPC results to 10k hits however, this isn’t the case with the SEO traffic, you could potentially hit your top chosen keyword and stay there until another site out-optimizes you or, your site needs to be optimized again.

Ultimately, the reasons you will choose over one or the other will be for either ease of traffic generation, PPC will allow you to gain almost instantaneous targeted traffic form the second you open your PPC account up until the point when your account funds empty whilst, SEO work will give you long term targeted traffic over time and, in most instances, this SEO traffic can last for years making the cost of the initial SEO work minimal.

In Closing..

Search Engine Optimization can last you years and years whilst Pay Per Click results can diminish in a relatively short amount of time depending on the amount of bid needed to achieve top listings.

However lets look at a third option, using both PPC results and SEO results in conjunction with each other to minimize the traffic you lose from your SEO work and, to minimize the traffic you lose from your PPC results this will afford you the time to see what works with your Search Engine Optimized sites whilst being able to play with the targeting of keywords on your PPC traffic, once you have both types of search engine figured out, you can put them both together and use them to increase the traffic to your site for years to come.

Article written by Lee

Domain Name Renewals – The Basics

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

As an adult webmaster there is one thing that we all own which we build our businesses on, a domain name and, with this comes the responsibility to ensure that as long as we are running our business from any given domain that we ensure they are constantly under our control this is where domain name renewsl come into play.

Domain Name Registration Periods.

Almost all reputable domain name registrars will allow you to purchase a domain for anywhere between one and ten year periods. Many webmasters however only choose to register their domains for one year at a time and this, is where many webmaster can run into problems with their domains. More often than not webmasters will either forget to renew their domain names completely or, are not aware that they are even coming up for renewal. For this reason it is usually best to ensure that you register your domains for a minimum period of two years, this gives you a good time frame to start using the domain as well as ensuring you have enough funds available by the time the domain name comes due for renewal.

How To Stay On Top Of Your Renewals.

The simplest way to ensure that you keep on top of the domain names you own and when they are due for renewal is to keep a written document detailing as much information as possible about your domains, this document should include information such as the domain name itself, the registrar you used to register your domain name, the cost of the domain name and, most importantly, where the domain is pointing to, the period of registration and, the date when the domain needs to be renewed. By having this information readily available and, by keeping this document up to date with each new domain name purchase you should be able to ensure that no matter when your domain/s become due for renewal that you are on the ball with paying the domain name renewal fees.

Domain Name Renewals Overview.

Regardless of when you register a domain name the one way you can be sure to be the owner of the domain for years to come is to ensure that you keep accurate, detailed records of each domain name purchase, whether you keep this written on a calendar, on a piece of paper or, somewhere else, you should make part of your monthly routine checking this document and making sure that the domains you own are all fully working and, more importantly, are fully paid up.

Article written by Lee

What Happens Your Current Processor Bails?

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

Whilst this is perhaps one of the hardest challenges that a webmaster of a paysite can face in the industry it isn’t as bad as they may seem at first after all, there are literally hundreds of processors to choose from ranging from credit card processors, dialer option, micro-sms billing and a wide range of other systems.

The first and foremost thing you should do however when confronted with this challenge is to try and contact your existing processor and find out what will happen to funds that you are owed, will you be paid (in most cases you will).

The next thing you should do is to evaluate your business billing methods are you offering multiple processors already? If so, simply switch to your backup processor and find a new processor to use as a backup.

However, what happens if you only have a single processor on your site what can you do then?

First things first, you need to make sure you choose a reliable payment processor to start off with companies such as iBill, CCBill, CCBill EU, Netbilling and Jettis are all good processors used by a multitude of sponsors and content providers amongst the other companies.

You will most likely find that these companies are more than happy to work with you in the integration of their system onto your site.

Whilst you are awaiting your setup of your new processor to ensure you do not lose any sales it may be an idea to divert your join page off to a dialer or, perhaps have some form of ‘internal’ billing mechanism set up so that, when you do change over processors you can seamlessly transition your member base across.

Now, presuming that you already have an existing member base what do you do then? How easy or hard is it going to be to transfer them across to your new processor? Well based on the situation some were confronted with when Visa introduced the new fees to process adult payments this can vary from webmaster to webmaster again, as before, the easiest solution for you would be to contact the company you will be using as your primary processor and see what they can suggest.

Hopefully, you will have access to a database of your existing members email addresses this will also come in handy to ensure you can keep recurring those members. Send out an email stating that you will be changing your processor and, ask that, if they would like to remain a member of your site that they update their billing information, it might also be prudent to offer them some sort of recompense for having them change processors perhaps something along the lines of 2 weeks low cost or even free access tot he site, this is sure to mean that most of, if not all of your existing members will input their billing information again enabling you to rebill them until they cancel their membership at our new processor.

Of course nothing is infallible so the best advice i can offer you is to work closely with your new found processor and make sure that the transition period happens as quickly and, as smoothly as possible.

Hopefully this article will be of some use to those who do get affected by their processors going out of business and, will also serve as a warning to have multiple processors in place for those who have not or will not have the need to change your billing company.

Article written by Lee

International Billing Alternatives – Online Check Payments

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

In my previous article i discussed the value involved with Premium Rate Phone billing as an option for your adult surfers and, staying on the topic of payment processing this article will take a closer look at the Online Check payment method or, ACH as it is commonly referred to.

ACH (Online Check Payments) – What Is It?

An online check payment is a method of allowing your customers to pay for their goods using their check’s online, in order for your customer to pay via a check they need to have available certain items these are, a current checking account, a valid routing number (found on the check) and, an account number. Funds paid via online checks are automatically debited from the customers bank account.

Online Check Billing – How It Works.

Online check payments are processed in real-time, surfers are automatically accepted and authenticated via their current billing address, social security or, driving license number, once they have been authenticated their payment details are then sent to the ACH (Automated Clearing House) system where this information is automatically accepted as long as the details provided are verified as correct.

Online Check Payments – What Are The Costs?

Utilizing the online check method of billing your customers is actually just as, if not more, cost effective as using online credit or debit cards, in effect, you are guaranteed the funds of the check once they clear as, in all reality, the surfer will not have such an easy time declaring the purchase as a ‘charge back’ because the information needed to pay via an online check is information that in reality, only they have access too.

So, as with our previous articles, lets say your paysite membership fee for one month is US$35, a surfer signs up to your site using an online check, you make, approximately, US$33 from this membership for each and every month the customer (or surfer) chooses to renew their membership.

The one main advantage with online checks however is that, surfers will often feel more ‘secure’ in using them to pay for 3 or 6 month memberships and, as long as their check clears your account, you are almost certainly guaranteed the funds.

Online Check Billing – The Main Benefits.

As mentioned above already, the primary benefit of the ACH payment method is that the customer will almost certainly have funds available in their online checking account to be able to meet the cost of the paysite membership, after all, they wouldn’t give out their banking details if they were not sure the payment would go through. In addition to this advantage there are also several other advantages to using Online Checks as a payment method for example:

Increased Sales.
Reduced Order + Billing Costs.
Faster Payment.
Reduced Credit Card Charge Backs.

ACH Check Payments – Overview.

Whilst ACH check payments are a good alternative for US surfers the one major drawback is that, in today’s global market place they are not a method of payment for international surfers unfortunately, at this time, there are no companies who can offer this service to my knowledge to the ever growing global population.

That said, there is a place in the industry for check processing for adult payments and, with Visa breathing down our collective necks more and more, now would be an ideal time to take an in-depth look at this processing method.

I hope this article has provided you with some useful information regarding the online check payment method.

Article written by Lee