Webmaster Basics - What Is A Free Site?

Given a couple of recent threads across a few different adult message boards as of late i thought it would be a good idea to explain to some of the newer webmasters in the adult industry what the different types of sites are available to them to not only build but, also to promote. With that in mind, we'll start at the most basic of sites that pretty much everyone should have built at least once while they have been in the adult industry, a free site.

Free Site Basics.

In its simplest form, a free site, is exactly that, a site that a surfer can access for free where you display a small selection of images in order to 'upsell' those surfers to your sponsors paysite and ultimately, make some money from the surfer.

Free Site Navigation.

Almost every free site you will come across on the web, whether via a search engine or, via a link list will have several main traits in common these are as follows:

1) A warning page.
2) A menu page.
3) A selection of gallery pages.
4) A console (optional).
5) An FPA (optional).

The idea of having the above on a site is not only that it makes building your free site quick and easy but, because it takes so little time, you can build many of them in a short amount of time to maximize the return on the traffic each one gets. In the next part of this article, we will break down what each of the 5 sections listed above should have on them in order to build the 'ideal' free site.

Free Sites - Warning Pages.

The warning page of a free site serves three purposes, the first, and in my humble opinion, the most important, is to show due diligence. By that i mean that you are acting professionally by warning people hitting your site that they must be over 18 years of age to enter your free site. The second purpose, is to provide an initial 'text rich' page for the search engines and the third, is to give you a space to 'recip link' places such as link lists or adult search engines where you will be submitting your free sites to. This page should also link directly to your 'navigation page' or, if you so wish, an FPA which links to your navigation page.

Free Sites - FPA Pages.

Think of this page as your first chance at converting a free surfer into a customer, on this FPA page you can offer the surfer your first real chance of marketing a sponsors paysite, whether you choose to utilize this FPA for a single sponsor or, you offer the surfer several options, this is PRIME real estate from a marketing standpoint, if this FPA actually works well, you should see a good 60-70% of your free site surfers making you sales from the FPA itself.

Free Site - Navigational Pages.

This is possibly, the most important page of your free site. This is where your surfers who haven't clicked through the FPA will end up in order to get to the galleries you are offering them for free. With that in mind, this page should have a simple layout, depending on how many galleries you are offering on your free site depends on the navigation style however, that being said, most free site navigational pages will contain a larger creative for a sponsors site in the same niche as the content you are using on the galleries and, a link to each of the galleries in turn. Also, this navigational page is a good place to use a console, if you so wish.

Free Site - Console.

The free site console itself, in essence is no different to any other type of console you may utilize on any other of your sites, it can be linked to your sponsors paysites, your hub site or even to your other free sites, link it to wherever make you the most of your traffic. That being said, rather than having a 'pop up' console, you might want to consider using a 'blur' console, this way, once your surfer leaves your site, they still have a selection of sites or sponsors that you own / use to visit. In effect, this is your last ditch attempt to turn a freeloading surfer into a buying customer.

Free Site - Gallery Pages.

This is possibly the hardest part of a free site to define as everyone builds these types of galleries to their own specification however, lets have a go.

For the most part, a free site gallery, regardless of how many you offer your surfer should all have the the following aspects to them, a selection of image thumbs linked to a big picture itself (or, to a html page containing the embedded picture and a banner or two.) in addition to having a banner at the top, middle and bottom of the gallery. You may also like to place a text link under each of the banners or, remove the banners completely and only use text links, the choice really is yours however, i have personally found that the banner with a text link below it option works the best. Also, you may want to link the gallery back to the 'navigational page' this way, a surfer must always click back to your navigation page to get to the next gallery which in turn, gives the ads you place on that page more exposure and ultimately, a higher chance of being clicked by the surfer.

Free Site Building - An Overview.

Now that you know the basics of how a free site should not only act from a webmasters point of view when building but also how placing specific types of links and text on certain pages can assist you monetize your free sites have a go at building one. Realistically, the site should take you no longer than 15 minutes to build and, if you find a layout that works, you can turn that into a template so that building a new site takes you less than 5 minutes. This article hasn't touched on submitting your free sites to places such as link lists, directories or search engines because, each has their own set of rules and as such, you should refer to the individual traffic sites 'rules' page to find out what they are.

Go forth and build, submit and forget, your bank account will thank you for it.

Article written by Lee.

http://www.adult-traffic-sources.com.