• 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

  • Cascading Style Sheet Basics

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) have been around for a while now, and act as a complement to plain old HTML files.

    Style sheets allow a developer to separate HTML code from formatting rules and styles. It seems like many HTML beginners’ under-estimate the power and flexibility of the style sheet. In this article, I’m going to describe what cascading style sheets are, their benefits, and two ways to implement them.

    Cascading What’s?

    They’re what chalk is to cheese, what ice-cream is to Jell-O they complement HTML and allow us to define the style (look and feel) for our entire site in just one file!

    They get their name from the fact that each different style declaration can be “cascaded” under the one above it, forming a parent-child relationship between the styles.

    They were quickly standardized, and both Internet Explorer and Netscape built their latest browser releases to match the CSS standard (or, to match it as closely as they could).

    So, you’re still wondering what a style sheet is? A style sheet is a free-flowing document that can either be referenced by, or included into a HTML document (Kind of like using SSI to call a file but not, if that makes sense). Style sheets use blocks of formatted code to define styles for existing HTML elements, or new styles, called ‘classes’.

    Style sheets can be used to change the height of some text, to change the background color of a page, to set the default border color of a table the list goes on and on. Put simply though, style sheets are used to set the formatting, color scheme and style of an HTML page.

    Style sheets should really be used instead of the standard , < b >, < i > and < u > tags because:

    One style sheet can be referenced from many pages, meaning that each file is kept to a minimum size and only requires only extra line to load the external style sheet file

    If you ever need to change any part of your sites look/feel, it can be done quickly and only needs to be done in one place: the style sheet and furthermore, it is done globally.

    With cascading style sheets, there are many page attributes that simply cannot be set without them: individual tags can have different background colors, borders, indents, shadows, etc.

    Style sheets can either be inline (included as part of a HTML document), or, referenced externally (Contained in a separate file and referenced from the HTML document). Inline style sheets are contained wholly within a HTML document and will only change the look and layout of that HTML file.

    Open your favorite text editor and enter the following code. Save the file as styles.html and open it in your browser:

    Cascading Style Sheet Example.

    h1
    {
    color: #636594;
    font-family: Verdana;
    size: 18pt;
    }

    This is one big H1 tag!

    When you fire up your browser, you should see the text “This is one big H1 tag!” in a large, blue Verdana font face.

    Let’s step through the style code step by step. Firstly, we have a pretty standard HTML header. The page starts with the tag followed by the tag. Next, we use a standard tag to set the title of the page we are working with.

    Notice, though, that before the tag is closed, we have our tag, its contents, and then the closing tag.

    h1
    {
    color: #636594;
    font-family: Verdana;
    size: 18pt;
    }

    When you add the style sheet code inline (as part of the HTML document), it must be bound by and tags respectively. Our example is working with the tag. We are changing three attributes of the ’s style: the text color (color), the font that any tags on the page will be displayed in (font-family), and lastly, the size of the font (size).

    The code between the { and } are known as the attributes. Our sample code has three. Try changing the hexadecimal value of the color attribute to #A00808 and then save and refresh the page. You should see the same text, just colored red instead of blue.

    An Example Of An External Style Sheet.

    External style sheets are similar to internal style sheets, however, they are stripped of the and tags, and need to be referenced from another HTML file to be used.

    Create a new file called “whatever.css” and enter the following code into it:

    h1
    {
    color: #a00808;
    font-family: Verdana;
    size: 18pt
    }

    Next, create a HTML file and name it test.html. Enter the following code into test.html:

    External Style Sheet Reference Example.

    This is one big H1 tag!

    As mentioned above, you can see that the actual code in whatever.css is exactly the same as it was in the inline example. In our HTML file, we simply place a tag in the section of our page. The rel=”stylesheet” attribute tells the browser that the link to the external file is a style sheet. The type=”text/css” attribute tells the browser that whatever.css is a text file containing CSS (cascading style sheet) declarations. Lastly, the href=”whatever.css” attribute tells the browser that the actual file we want to load is whatever.css.

    Conclusion.

    Well, there you have it, a quick look at style sheets and how to implement both an inline and external version. Checkout the links below if you’ve never worked with cascading style sheets before. You will be surprised at some of the things you can do with them!

    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.

  • Converting German Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

    With the rapid development of US companies and webmasters looking to attract a larger percentage of international surfers and, wanting to make money off these surfers I thought it would be an idea to share the most prevalent niches for each of the international markets country specific surfers. In this first article we will take a look at the niches which convert best on German oriented surfer traffic.

    German Traffic – Dispelling The Myths.

    First and foremost I think it would be a good idea to let you know that, strangely enough, not all German surfers are looking for kinky, in your face sex, in fact, they pretty much have the same tendencies towards their online porn as US based surfers do, with that in mind, lets take a look at some of the niches that do convert well on German traffic.

    German Traffic – The Niches.

    As with any type of surfer the best way of getting them to convert is to start targeting them from the second they hit your site using Full Page Ads, localized text links and, consoles, over the last 3 (three) months we found that the niches which converted best on German porn surfers were as follows.

    Amateur.

    The German adult surfers we sent to several amateur sites, including live web-cam sites and paysites converted exceptionally well, it would certainly seem from the last three months of stats that German porn surfers like the ‘amateur’ porn angle when it comes to satisfying themselves online.

    Teen.

    As with the US adult surfer, it would appear that the teen niche is truly a global requisite in fact, the teen niche was one of our best converting niches across the globe when we analyzed our international traffic conversion ratios.

    Gay.

    To our surprise the little German traffic we did send to localized German gay sites converted at less than 1:75, bearing in mind that the best converting niche for us was Teen and, that the specific site we sent the teen traffic to converted overall at around 1:138 we will be targeting a lot more German gay traffic in the future.

    Fetish.

    No mystery here, when we started our filtering process we ensured that the various fetish niches were high on our filtering list, after all, everyone seems to know that German porn surfers are looking for the hard to find hardcore scene and, the general fetish niche seemed to work wonderfully.

    Ebony.

    The ebony niche was a vary profitable one for the traffic we filtered to it, in summary, my personal feelings are that it converted so well because ebony men and women in Germany are very few and far between, again the results for this niche would seem to back-up the fact that giving Germans access to something that might be ‘taboo’ in their country converts their traffic well.

    Other Niches.

    In addition to the above niches which converted above and beyond the others we used we did get a few sales to some more micro-niched paysites for example, BBW, Asian, Cumshot and General Hardcore sites had around 3-5 sales per site, per pay period. Given that we did not target this type of traffic as effectively as we could have done and, that the traffic was from TGP’s and Geo Targeted Traffic Brokers we were happy with the results we saw.

    German Adult Traffic – The Results.

    It would seem, given our results from the 3 month test we ran on our traffic that the top converting niches for German adult surfers are the Amateur, Teen and Gay niches. Although, the rest of the niches we filtered out our traffic to did not convert as we would have hoped we still saw a good rate of sales month on month from the previous pay period.

    When all is said and done, as long as you have German porn surfers on your sites you would be wise to start spreading and filtering this traffic to some niches that, perhaps you wouldn’t have ordinarily targeted after all, a sale is more money in your pocket, whether you know the niche or not.

    Article written by Le

  • Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 7

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

    Here we go with Stage 7 in this Surfer Trap tutorial.

    We should by now have a rather complex looking surfer trap, pop up consoles and blur consoles on all of the pages within it, all of these same pages interlinking each other indefinitely.

    So, we are starting to get some traffic to this beauty from our existing sites and the counters we implemented but, how can we get some more traffic for FREE?

    What I suggest we do next to this little baby is to add a banner exchange code to EACH of the FPA’s we have and also, onto the larger table console we created.

    You should sign up for one banner exchange code for this trap, you might like to search around for a banner exchange that lets you have a decent ratio of impressions.

    Once you have signed up for your banner exchange code, you now need to copy this coding into the BOTTOM of all of your FPA HTML pages including the Multi-Site FPA.

    Now you have the banner exchange code on your site you are earning credits. Your account may not be activated for a day or so but, what this means is you are earning credits the entire time you are showing banners on your Surfer Trap.

    Now we have the banner exchange code on our sites we only have one further step to take in order for this project to be completed.

    Making sure it works how it is supposed too along with fine tuning this little beast.

    If you have any further questions or comments please post on the forums here and one of us will be able to help you.

    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

  • Basic Bookkeeping For Adult Webmasters

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

    Knowing how much you are spending on expenses for your online enterprise each month can be a very powerful tool. Taking out that shoe box at the end of the year and giving it to the Accountant is one way. But a very simple bookkeeping system can provide you with exactly how much you made each month after all expenses. In this article I will provide you with the knowledge to setup a simple system to track your revenues and expenses. Not only will you then know exactly what your Net Income or Loss is each month but at the end of the year you will have a nice neat little package to hand your Accountant. Which will result in lower accounting fees at tax time.

    The first thing you need to do is find a way to file all receipts. Your receipts are the backup for all your transactions. Go to your local office supply store and buy an accordion file labeled with monthly slots. Each time you receive a business related receipt, file in correct month. Remember you need to file all your receipts for your numbers to be accurate. When you receive an email receipt for content or hosting print it out and file it. File sponsor cheque stubs, credit card receipts, ISP bill, etc. At the end of each month take out all your receipts and divide into revenue and expenses. Remember you must have a receipt in order to claim the expense. The receipt should show the detail of the purchase, vendor, amounts and date. Ensure that the expenses are needed or used to generate revenue for your business.

    Now the next step depends on how much detail you would like.
    Revenue-Expenses=Net Income or Loss. For a quick snapshot of the month add up the revenue receipts, staple all receipts together and put the total on the front either adding machine tape or handwritten. Repeat with all your expense receipts. You can put a quick summary of the month in a spreadsheet program. Or for a very small investment you can setup a computerized tracking system. I recommend buying a very inexpensive software such as Quicken. Most major banks, credit cards and even paypal are setup to download transactions to Quicken. You can purchase the Personal Finance version of Quicken for around $70. There are several other inexpensive personal finance software packages that you can purchase that will work as just well. But I personally prefer Quicken. The software you choose will have a list of business accounts already setup. For an adult enterprise you will need to customize the account names. This is very easy and quick to do. Add in accounts for content purchase, hosting, isp, traffic purchase, etc.

    Once a week you will open up your program download your transactions from your bank account, credit card, paypal etc. If you have an expense that you pay cash for you will need to add that transaction in. I am assuming that all your sponsor cheques are being deposited into a bank account or paypal. If you receive a check and cash it, manually add the transaction in. After you have finished entering your transactions for the week ensure that the receipts that you have balance to what you have entered in the software.

    You will be amazed at how simple it is to use a software package such as Quicken to track your revenue and expenses. These software packages come with pre-made report tools. Such as income statement, analysis of expenditures, cash flow projections. You can even setup budget numbers for your business.

    If your business consists of a lot of transactions in a month you might want to consider using a bookkeeping/accounting service. There are many online and locally owned businesses that charge a very low rate for doing small business bookkeeping. Remember you don’t need an Accountant to do general bookkeeping. Many small business owners think they need an Accountant to do the monthly bookkeeping. This could result in unnecessary fees. Depending on the size of your enterprise and your passion for numbers sometimes employing a bookkeeper to do the data entry can be a blessing! Most bookkeeping providers will even provide customized reporting based on your needs.

    Article written by Lorna

  • Gay Online Dating – Offering Your Surfers An Alternative

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

    Whilst adult websites remain the most highly concentrated method of making money for affiliate programs we have slowly started to see a trend over the past few months of affiliate programs adding a new kind of site to their regular lineup, online dating sites however, as webmasters working in the adult industry how can we successfully market these sites on our existing traffic base? This is what we are going to look at in this article.

    Gay Online Dating – Some Facts And Figures.

    As mentioned above many affiliate programs now offer some form of online dating site whether it is for gay men and women or for their straight counterparts there is very little mentioned about the target audience these types of site attract so, with that said lets look at some figures from a recent Nielsen report in respect of online dating sites.

    The online dating market is expected to grow to become an estimated $642 Million dollar industry by 2008.

    On average, a user on a dating site will spend 1hour 45 minutes on the dating network itself.

    The highest ranked age group (27.64%) for online dating sites is between the ages of 35 and 44 years old.

    Men are more likely to a) Browse online dating profiles, b) Post a profile on a dating site, c) Respond to a dating profile and, d) Pay for access to a dating site than women.

    So what does this mean for us marketing our sites to gay men and women well, straight off the bat you can see that there is going to be a considerable boom in the online dating world and, with that boom will come a rather satisfying chunk of change also, the age group that spends most time on a dating site as mentioned above is also within the demographical group for the ages of gay online surfers. In addition, males as mentioned, are also more likely to respond to, post, browse or, more importantly here, pay for access to an online dating site making this an ideal opportunity for those of us who actively promote a gay site lineup to start supplementing our income by offering our surfers access to dating sites too.

    Gay Adult Dating – Affiliate Programs.

    So now we have the figures where do we go to find a gay adult dating affiliate program? Well, there are a couple of options for us, there is the highly recognized outpersonals.com as well as the gay.com dating area however, surprisingly enough, the more ‘mainstream’ dating sites such as date.com, match.com and even adultfriendfinder.com all have sections within their sites for gay men and women as well as gay specific tour pages and promotional materials.

    Gay Online Dating – Where To Market Our Sponsor.

    As with any type of new affiliate program the best way to start marketing them is to place a link on a less prominent page of your site so as to not send your high converting traffic off to a sponsor that may not work for you however, if you have a good network of sites then you might like to try adding your newly found dating affiliate program on your sites ‘exit’ links or even create a TGP gallery specifically for your dating sponsor utilizing softcore content. Also, one thing that I have personally found is that using text links always garners more clicks thru to the dating site than a regular button or banner so again, this may be something you would like to try. In essence though, first test your gay dating sponsor on a minimal traffic source to see what effect it has on your overall site then, once you have ran a test period you can adjust your marketing efforts appropriately.

    Gay Adult Dating – Recap.

    As we have seen above the marketplace for online dating is going to grow to a multimillion dollar industry and, whilst we already know that gay surfers are more affluent and willing to spend money if we can match our sponsors to the type of site they are looking for, why not also offer them an alternative to porn? Many webmasters often overlook the basic principles of marketing that is to say, don’t just give a potential buyer one option but rather, give them several options, by utilizing dating affiliate programs on our sites we are not only giving the surfer an option but, are also giving us a potential opportunity to make more money.

    Article written by Le

  • Domain Name Registrars – Saving Your Business

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    The one thing that all webmasters rely on to make their money is something that all of us have, a domain name however, what would or should happen to your domain names when and if, your registrar files for bankruptcy or just disappears, surprisingly enough i do not recall this ever happening in the industry to date however, being prepared for the worst case scenario is always a good thing.

    Prevention Is Better Than A Cure.

    As the age old adage goes.

    The first thing that you should do before even registering a domain name is to check out the background of the company you are considering using, you need to ask yourself a variety of questions about this company including the following:

    1) Is the registrar ICANN accredited?

    ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a non profit corporation which was formed to assume the responsibility over the IP and entire domain name structure as we know it. This in essence means that if your registrar is ICANN accredited then you at least know your domain name registration will be handled professionally and, should be reasonably secure so far as your registrar going out of business.

    2) What are you paying for?

    Many of the domain name registration companies packages vary greatly, with some companies you register a domain yourself, some companies register it on your behalf and, others will register your domain including some form of hosting etc, check with the company you are using to see what added services and support features they offer.

    3) What is their transfer policy?

    Some domain name registration companies have specific policies so far as transferring domains to other companies, registrars and, individuals go. Check with your registrar before you buy your domain to see what this process involves and, as always, check with one of the other registrars to see which registration company offers the best ‘bang for your buck’.

    Saving Your Name – Help And Advice.

    First and foremost, if you discover your domain name registrar has closed its doors you should immediately send an email to them and ensure you keep a copy of this email for your own records, ask them what is happening and, more importantly, what controls / access you still have available (if any) to manage your currently registered domains.

    Usually, you will receive some form of communication within a few days from your registration company letting you know what is happening and how you can continue to use your domain name.

    In most cases, when a domain name registrar company closes what you will find is that they will already be in the process of transferring the management of your domain to another registration company.

    If however, you are still able to control the domain yourself then you should immediately seek out a new registrar with whom you can manage the domain / domains that you own. At this point you should contact them and ask if they have any fast track solution to transferring your domain to their company.

    If All Else Fails.

    If after everything else you are still at a loss as to how your domain name transfer or registration is being handled then you should contact ICANN ( http://www.icann.org ) directly. Ultimately it is their responsibility to ensure that once you have registered a domain name, you are able to access it as you would like, in most cases however, contacting ICANN is always the last move you should make and, only use this form of information should you exhaust all other methods mentioned above.

    Article written by Lee

  • Search Engine Optimization, Is It Worth It?

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Search Engine Optimization | Response: 0

    One of the trendiest takes on Internet marketing these days seems to be the notion that securing top search engine rankings “no longer works.” Where it started, I have no idea.

    But rarely does a week go by when I don’t see one or more Internet marketing “experts” claiming that search engine positioning is largely a waste of time and should not be a primary focus of Website owners.

    Well, as the saying goes, “there are two sides to every story.”

    But let’s not make this article about my side, or your side, or anyone else’s side. Let’s forget about my opinion and other “expert’s” opinions and stick to the indisputable facts, as reported by highly credible third party sources:

    According to a Forrester Research Media Field Study, getting a loyal audience in the first place is best done by Search Engine Placement.

    According to a GVU Users Survey, 84.8% of Internet users use Search Engines to find Websites.

    In a study released by ActivMedia Research in September 1999, Search Engine Positioning was ranked as the #1 Website promotional method used by eCommerce sites.

    And look what I just found in the April 2000 issue of Target Marketing Magazine.
    “Top Ways Websites are Discovered”

    Banner ads: 1%

    Targeted email: 1.2%

    TV spots: 1.4%

    “By accident”: 2.1%

    Magazine ads: 4.4%

    Word-of-mouth: 20%

    Random Surfing: 20%

    Search Engines: 46%

    You’ve now seen the numbers and know that search engine promotion is very much alive and kicking. But let’s take this a step further. Let’s talk about the *quality* of prospects coming to your Website through search engines as opposed to other advertising mediums.

    Every time your potential customers use the search engines, they qualify themselves as *hot prospects* by conducting searches on keywords that are directly related to your product or service. Their choice of keywords is proof that they have a genuine interest in what you offer. These people spend their valuable time exploring the search engines for your type of product or service.

    Think About That.

    They didn’t stumble upon one of your ads, or wander past a hyperlink to your site. And they didn’t get a banner ad thrown in their face. They made the *decision* to actively search the keywords that brought them to YOUR Website. And when they get there, they are ready and willing to do business with you. At the very least, they’re seriously considering it and, that’s the most powerful sales tool you can have!

    But merely getting your Website “indexed” or listed in the search engines is not enough. In order to get any significant traffic from the search engines, your Website must be listed within the top 30 search results (preferably the top 20).

    Very rarely will anyone look beyond the first 30 results returned from a search. This makes perfect sense because the most relevant sites are always listed at the top. So if your prospect doesn’t find what they want within the first 20 to 30 listings, they’ll simply do a new search.

    If your site falls anywhere below the 30th listing, you don’t stand a chance against anyone in the TOP-20. Hence, it should be your goal to achieve Top 20 positions.

    How Do You Get Your Website Listed In The Top 20?

    1) You can attempt to gain these Top 20 rankings yourself. However, this can easily become a full time job. (I think this is why so many marketers advise against focusing on search engine positioning.)

    2) You can hire a reputable company who can achieve AND maintain your Top 20 rankings for you (be sure they guarantee their service and have several verifiable clients that currently have multiple Top 20 rankings).

    3) You can do nothing at all. But as you’ve seen from the third party statistics referenced above, search engine positioning is something you can’t afford to ignore.

    Whatever choice you make, I hope that your eyes have been opened to the tremendous profit potential that exists with top search engine placement.

    Article written by Lee

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