The more I read the Blogs of other luminaries around this place, the less I feel I have to offer (yeah right !). SO much good infomation from SO many people who REALLY know what they are talking about.

So I figure my intitial approach of throwing in some levity around this place in between the rare flashes of business brilliance I am known for is the way to keep KBlogging !!!


But before I get into that, let me share with you an article posted on my board by my good friend Ian (GayStoryman) of http://www.gaystoryman.com and http://www.gay-story.info fame ...


This is, of course reproduced with his permission - I started to write one similar because I loved what he had written (the best TGP article I have read in a LONG time), but it kept just looking more and more like a bad attempt at a pliagarised college term paper, so I figured "I'll just ask Ian if I can reproduce ad infinitum".. Ian said yes. Thank you Ian - now show him some love and get to his site !


Anyway, TGP'S FOR DUMMIES LIKE ME

Okay, so a long time ago when the Internet was really fun, a guy could toss up a bunch of photo’s on a page and people would come in droves to check em all out and even sign up to the sponsors you had listed there. Course that was also when operating systems weren’t numbered after the year of release or such. Things have changed big time since then, such as the advent of huge search engines and the need for speed and for rankings.

So, venturing into the dark hole of internet traffic there is this model, called TGPs that many people talk about but what exactly is it? Is it the alternative to doing your homework and getting your pages SEO and trading links with funny fellows in orange and black stripes or is there something more to it?

For starters, TGP refers simply to Thumbnail Gallery Post. It is a site that has a collection of links to various pages that have pictures (or as things are moving along, to movie clips now). Now, sounds simple right? Well it is but boy try making a buck off that and many will tell you ‘good luck’ and others will even tell you that it is not great way to spend a few hours a day either, that you’d have better luck trying to snag my black book.

But, (hey come on, you knew there was gonna be a but, didn’t ya?) that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. To begin with, let’s be honest and say that nothing about the Adult Industry online is easy or a cake walk. It all requires research, work, and time as well as ingenuity. It also requires sifting thru a whole bunch of bullshit and opinions that are represented as facts. So let me be blunt, this shit works for me but that don’t mean it is going to work for you nor does it even mean that I know what the hell I am talking about. It simply means that this is one aspect of my own business model that pays off for me. Whether it will for you or not, well, that is something I won’t even hazard a guess at.

Let me be real clear too, this is merely my opinion, it is not 100% gospel according to me or anyone else. Others will have different results or different ways of going about this TGP stuff, and it does work for them too, so are they wrong or more right than me? Again… it comes down to this. Use what you feel comfortable with, try it and see if it works for you then tear it up and make it work for you, using your model.

Now before you start rushing off and buying yourself an auto submission program or a whole bunch of content, take a deep breath and think about this. Venturing into the TGP game is like any other part of the business. There are potential expenses that need to be met and if you can’t afford it, don’t go any further.

To begin with, submitting to a decent TGP will get you traffic, conversions are something we’ll cover later but prepare for the worst. What are you going to do if you get 1000’s of hits but no sales? Do you have the cash to pay the added bandwidth you just consumed for nothing in return? IF ‘yes’ then okay go ahead.

So maybe you like to do things on the cheap like me, but let me tell you that hosting your galleries on a free host won’t work. Most decent TGPs will not accept your galleries so yes Virginia you do need a good domain to use. It does need to be hosted and no it can’t be an IP address either. Again most TGPs won’t accept it.

Alright, so you got a good host (by the way if you are looking for one, check out the one’s listed in the ‘graffiti section’ here in the forums. There are some pretty good cheap plans listed there including Web Gems.) now you need to figure out what to put in your gallery pages.

To begin with if you use tired old content you really are wasting your time. The Surfer despite some opinions is not stupid. If they see something that they have seen a few thousand times odds are they will simply click to another link on the TGP site. So yes, like building your own site CONTENT IS KING!

Now most will use free stuff supplied from an affiliate or sponsor. That is cool but look for stuff that isn’t over used. Look for stuff that is different or unique from them or go to one of the content suppliers to find some ‘filler’ content that isn’t overly exposed either. ((check out the content sponsors in the spam section of this board)) Whatever it is, look for teaser pics and not hardcore stuff. (I’ll get to why a bit further on, so patience)

So now that you have a decent collection of content, what next? Well how about your page layout. Now here is where I am going to most likely get into trouble with some folks, cause you see to me this is where many TGP submitters fail. They don’t take into account the layout, they simply set up a basic 3 or 4 column table and slap in the thumbnails and toss in a banner down the side or on top or bottom. They don’t take into account the aesthetics.

Look, you are selling something, so put yourself in the position of the buyer. Would you really want to buy some expensive piece of jewellery for 'the apple of your eye' from a guy in a raincoat or would you prefer to shop from Tiffany’s? So why do you think a surfer will buy a membership to a site from a sleazy cheap looking web page that has nothing to it but some tossed in photo’s?

There are a couple of things you should know about TGP gallery pages.

1. They don’t allow navigation links on it.
2. They require a reciprocal link back to them plus generally to two or three other TGP sites. (hey they want traffic too, so expect this)
3. They don’t allow certain words such as ‘next’ ‘home’ ‘more’ ‘gallery 2’ and so on. You get the idea. They aren’t too thrilled about losing that traffic or having it go much beyond your gallery page. (there is a way around this by the way, but again… later)
4. No java or scripting
5. No redirection codes
6. Banned words are also a no no, and you know what I mean. Words that would imply under age etc.
7. Maximum number of out going links. (Now this is tricky, some sites allow you one out going link per x number of photo’s while some simply say 4, 6, or 10 or whatever. So you have to make a choice before you design your page as to the number of out going links you will have. (out going links refers to links leaving your page) Some don’t even tell you, they just reject you if you have too many.)
8. Alt Tag limits. Some actually do require NO alt tag so again, another decision you have to make before designing the page.
9. Minimum pics. For most this is around 12 to 15 pics for now, 3 to 4 movie clips (but you’ll have to read their rules to find out more) (Oh, I don’t do movie TGPs just so you know and as such this whole tutorial is slanted towards yummy pictures only.)
10. Thumbnails lead to the image and NOT to an HTML page or dynamic page.

There are some other rules but you can read most of them on their submission pages. AND DO READ THOSE RULES! Seriously, if you screw up at one TGP it can effect your ability to post in more than just that one place. It can get you turfed from tens or more TGPs as they do talk among themselves. They share ‘banned lists’ so again, READ THE RULES CAREFULLY. IF you are unsure if your site will meet their rules or is a risk to being banned, either pass on submitting to that TGP or EMAIL the webmaster. Most will actually answer you believe it or not. Yes, they do because you are important to them. They need fresh galleries so many will actually answer your questions. (I should qualify this in that I deal in the Gay Market and so am drawing on my experiences with Gay TGPs. I would assume Straight TGP webmasters would respond the same way, but heck, darned if I know.)

Now for me, I use a thumbnail set at 74 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. You can use your own scale size but that works for me. Also, try to not ‘over’ compress the images. If they look like shit, are distorted, then odds are you will get the rejection email or simply get a blank ‘bye bye’ page. There are many good compression programs out there, just as there are many good thumbnail programs. I myself use Infranview (for thumbnail & batch renaming of the images) which is a freebie and does quite nicely for me.

You are also going to need to get some added thumbnails together as many of the TGPs use an actual thumbnail to display. Why they don’t have a standard size is beyond me, but most use the following sizes…

a. 88w by 88h
b. 90w by 120h
c. 100w by 100h
d. 75w by 75h
e. 120w by 160h
f. 75w x 100h

Okay this is something you should spend some time on. This is your ‘ad’ that the surfer is going to see. If the TGP uses a thumbnail, you need to make it something that is going to attract the surfer’s eye. Again, I have found that no it isn’t some body feature that works best but the face itself. If the eyes are special or the nose or mouth I couldn’t tell you, but face shots seem to garner more traffic than a nice pair of legs does or (in my case) a nice schlong does. So choose the picture carefully that you are going to use for those special sized thumbs. Take time with them, insure they are crisp, clear and portray a decent feature of your model/image collection.

Bored yet? Hope not, cause this really isn’t about tossing up photo’s and making a killing. TGP is no different than setting up a site except in many ways it is more compact as it revolves around one page submissions with no viable links to your site.

So back to design. If you keep it simple you can do some cool things without really making a major production effort. For example, basic layout is a table with columns in it. But what if you say had a background image in each cell? Say a coloured triangle or circle so that the thumbnail rested in the centre but it looked like it was encased in a shape?

Taking your time here can give you a slight edge on the competition. Seriously, consider how you can make your page stand out from the rest. After all this is Marketing 101. Everyone sells the same mousetrap, you just need to package it differently. Colour is another feature not well used. Find colours that don’t GLARE or make the surfer put on sunglasses. That is going to simply drive them away.

Now text. Yep, text is something you can use but keep it simple and once again, I most likely will get screamed at for this, but SEO the blasted page too. In other words add an H1 tag with a supporting paragraph. Add an H2 tag with another supporting paragraph. Use a decent keyword phrase in your Title Tag too. Remember, Title Tags, H1 & H2 tags, are not just for SE (search engines) but for SELLING! Good advertising copy in these tags can make a difference. And while I can’t prove this 100% some TGPs don’t just mangle your URL either. I mean come on, if they have PR showing they have to be SE conscious too so some might flow to you. Why waste the opportunity?

Another reason for text is to entice, to sell the surfer. Now for me it is a bit easier to do, but seriously, simple little phrases can help push the surfer into becoming a customer. Use short words that will elicit a positive response. Remember, your goal is to get the surfer excited but not make them blow it then and there. For that you want them signing up or buying something… so TEASE THEM, which is one more reason to not use EXPLICIT images. You don’t want to GIVE IT AWAY.

Keep in mind that you have one page only to work with. So keep your text to under 200 words total. This will allow you to highlight the images and not overwhelm the surfer. In addition you need to be aware of page load times. Too long and they simply won’t stick around. They are there initially to browse at your goodies, if they can’t see em or see enough to make them look longer, you lose and have wasted valuable bandwidth.

Most HTML editors like Dreamweaver will tell you how long your page will load at various connection speeds. As much as many are moving to broadband there are still a great number using 28.8 and 56.6 connections. I’d recommend a page load at 56.6 connection at 10 to 15 seconds maximum. Now this has to include the recip banners, your thumbs, your sponsor banner, and all coding content. In short, the longer it takes to load, the greater the chance you’ll lose the surfer.

By the way did I mention that ToyBoy is buying drinks for everyone who reads this? Just don’t tell him, he doesn’t know yet. Okay, so feeling bit overwhelmed? Relax, it gets worse.

Now when you design the page, you have to also figure out where are you going to put those blasted recip links to the TGP and 2 or 3 others. Most prefer them right up at the top, so that pretty well answers that. Okay, sounds bit harsh of them but if you have a nice layout you should get them scrolling down because the TGP banners aren’t all that large… generally around 120wx60h so run them across the top of the page. Leave a small 2pixel cell spacing and personally I go with ZERO border for the look to match the main background colour of my page. Again, I use a total of THREE (3) Recips per page.

So, we have the recips on top, then comes your thumbnails and text. Mix it in so it doesn’t look standard. Again remember you need at least 12 to 15 thumbnails to qualify for acceptance.

So what about the affiliate/sponsor? Where do you throw their link? Banner?

Well I put one banner with a short keyword sentence at the bottom of the page. Now I tie in both the sentence and banner under ONE SINGLE ‘a href’ to the affiliate. That means it counts as only 1 outgoing link.

Sounds simple right? Well I differ a bit with many at this point. See, my main objective is to not just sell to one affiliate or sponsor. I want to grab as much of that surfer dollar as possible, so what I do is I lead the surfer to me. I make the main purpose of my TGP pages to link to my own website. In that website I have DVDs, Books, Paysites, VOD, etc. In short as much porn as possible where I can more easily sell them something instead of just ONE SINGLE UPSELL.

I use TWO outgoing links to achieve that end. I use a larger odd shaped graphic for my own upsell as well as text. Again I link the text with the image as one ‘a href’ link plus I generally throw in another separate ‘text link’ to my own site.

Why do I do this?

Traffic.

Without traffic no site will sell much. I want as much traffic as I can get to my own site and if I link directly to the sponsor or affiliate, well I might make a sale or two but I lose the traffic totally. If I designed my main site properly, and I send all my traffic to it, I might make more than one sale from each surfer. In addition, I get them to a ton more options where I stand a chance to make a sale rather than relying simply on 12 to 15 pictures to do it for me. In short, each TGP page becomes really a ‘feeder’ type site of its own.

Keeping in mind that TGPs don’t like scripts or ‘bookmark’ stuff and specific directing words, linking to my own main site I can entice the surfer to spend time with me, instead of just sending them off to a sponsor. It increases my options of what to sell as well. I can do a TGP page that say concentrates on my own books, or the next one can be about DVDs or perhaps about a sponsor, but whatever I choose for that page, it leads to my site.

Another note on your page. Please, don’t call it ‘gallery’ as it really should use a keyword phrase. I mean as much as most TGPs don’t hard link to you, some do and so why miss out? Make the page name valid for you.

Also I would put the page H1 tag above the recip banners. I mean let the spyders find your keywords first, not a bunch of images. Then use a short paragraph after the Recips and then the H2 tag to further enhance the keyword phrase.

Part 2 follows.....