A Free site is a small site normally consisting of about 4-5 pages. Sites are considered to be free only when surfers don't have to do anything besides click on their mouse to enter it. So no - a couple of preview pictures before expecting the surfer to buy into an AVS/free AVS is NOT a free site and is a sure way of not getting linked to.
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"It's best to choose the niches that you can relate too, or in other words choose the things that turn YOU on..." |
The first page is the warning/entrance page. Here you place a warning attempting to keep minors out and protect yourself from the law. Remember, don't just use this page simply for the warning - this is the perfect place for reciprocal links to the other link sites and also for a few softcore banners/text links. Remember...the surfer hasn't agreed that they can legally view hardcore material so just to be safe...keep away from hardcore banners.
The second page could be either an "FPA" (full page ad) or the main page of your site (the page that contain the links to the galleries). A FPA is a page that contains nothing but an advertisement to your sponsor with a link at the end that usually says - " No thanks let me in". If you choose to place an FPA between you warning page and your main page make sure the links sites that you submitted your FREE site to allow it. Keep in mind that many of the BIG link sites don't permit FPAs!
The main page of a free site - is the page where you will place the links to your galleries (usually 2 galleries). On this page, it's important to place decent amount of banners and text links to your sponsors. Best bet is to place your ads above and under the gallerie's links. The galleries page(s) - Since most free site require a minimum of 20 free pics and a minimum of 10 pics a page, it's best to build 2 galleries with 10 pics on each gallery, this way you can place twice the banners and links to your sponsors then you would normally be able to on one page with all 20 pics.
Before you build your free site; I'm going to go a little off topic and deal just a bit with 3 topics that are on my mind and are very important before you start to build and submit your sites.
Choosing your host: Basically there are 2 types of hosts, free and paid. Most newbies tend to start with the first type for understandable reasons but tend to ignore the many cons that come with free hosting . I'm going to keep it short. Free hosts can be unreliable (VERY unreliable in some cases) and their banners take away the new and fresh surfers that tend to click on everything they see and these clicks cost you money - they should be clicking on your banners!
Unlike TGP's, many link sites don't accept sites on free hosts. Now with that said, I suggest you surf around and try to find paid hosting you can afford. To startup you'll need anything from 30 to 50 gigs of bandwidth . Can't afford it, start with free host and move to paid hosting as soon as you can. If you choose free hosting, surf around free sites and see which free hostings are getting listed the most. You wanna avoid using FREE hosts that are banned on many link sites.
Choosing your niche: Or in other words choosing which type of sites you want to build; teens, amateurs, fetish, etc. Two small pointers about that. First, don't stick to only one niche, choose at least 3 you want to deal with. Second, it's best to choose the niches that you can relate too, or in other words choose the things that turn YOU on :) this way it will be much easier for you to sell them.
Building your link sites database: This part is the most boring part, but you will only have to deal with it once, and just update it from time to time. Link sites are sites that have only links to small free sites. The most famous once are Tommy's Bookmarks, Link-o-Rama, but there are 100's of them. They can send good traffic and all have their own rules in order to get listed with them.
What you need to do is to go to as many resource sites as you can to find as many link sites as you can. Make sure you bookmark the submit pages to make it easier to reference them in the future. Most link sites require that you link back to them. So what do you do? very simple! You build several entrance pages to your site, on each one you place a link back to about 6-8 different link sites. A good thing to do is to place links back to free sites that have similar rules- this way you can make everybody happy.
For example: your welcome.htm will lead to FPA before the main page and will have links back to link sites that allow it, but your warning.htm will lead directly to your main page for those who don't allow FPAs.
After you've dealt with hosts, link site rules etc.. it's time to get down to business and start building those sites and submitting them. The most common questions in regards to this are: Should I build all my sites at once and then submit and how often should one submit sites?
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My answer to this is to build enough sites ahead of time so that you will always be 2 sites ahead. So lets say you submitted site 1 on Sunday, site 2 and 3 are all ready to go for the next couple of days. Build as you go along, but always have 2 in reserve.
The reason is because when your building one site after another you tend to use the same banners and text links over and over again. So what you get is basically template sites, which link site webmaster's don't like and you don't even know if the site design is the best one to make a sale. But if you have some sites ready you will be able to submit as often as you like and you can build fresh looking better sites every time.
Now, how often you should submit your sites really depends on a few factors. If you choose free hosting, submit one site per day, since you don't pay for the bandwidth and it's harder to make money from these sites. If your are choosing paid hosting, it's really up to you- since it's your money going on the bandwidth bill. I suggest you start to submit 1 site every 2 days and see how is it going.
There are 3 important things to do after you submit your site.
1. Find out if you got listed - Some link sites will send you Emails telling you if you got listed or not, some won't but they state how often they update. Either way, make sure to check if you got listed especially with the big ones cause they tend to be more picky. If your site wasn't listed there are some things you can do.
2. Find out why, now like I mentioned above, some link sites will send you an e-mail explaining why, but if they don't you can either take another look at your site and their rules, you can send a polite e-mail to the link site webmaster asking for some advice. After you find out why, just fix what needs to be fixed and re-submit your site.
3. Analyze your traffic and sign-ups - This part is a little tricky but it's very important. Take a deep look at your traffic stats, signup stats, and see which niches worked best with what sponsor. Let's say link site 'A' for example sends you 7 000 hits every time you submit a teen site but doesn't generate one sale. This info might be handy when the bandwidth bill is getting really BIG.
Learn from your mistakes - If you used a similar design for 3 sites and didn't got enough sales - maybe it's time to change your design. If you tried 2 sponsors for the same niche and one converted better then the other, it's time to drop the sponsor that doesn't convert. After a couple of weeks of doing that, you will be able to make much more knowledgeable choices about what kind of sites you want to build, which sponsors to use and how often you'll wanna submit.
Don't forget to keep submitting:) Don't get desperate easily and lose your patience. Like all things in life, it's all about trying something until you find your own formula.
That's it for this one. Wish you all the best of luck, see you again soon!