An Open Letter To All Affiliate Programs That Offer / Plan To Offer Hosted Free Sites
 

Dear Affiliate Program,

If you currently offer Hosted Free Sites (HFS) or you plan on offering them in the future, you really need to read thru this thread:
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=15875

But there are a couple of things that, being a Link List (LL) owner, I've seen pop up in the past few months that have made me scratch my head.

Designers: 1st off, when you pick a designer, do not just assume that because they make Hosted Galleries (HG) that they can also make HFS's. HG designers have a very simple process: they make up a template with general sales text & they reuse that template by inserting different sets of content into them This does not work for HFS's. So if your HG company says they can make HFS's, make them prove it to you 1st by showing you Free Sites (FS) that they have built & submitted to LL's on their own that are actually listed. Make them prove to you that the FS domain is owned by them, that they submitted it to a couple of LL's & where it's listed on those LL's. If they can not show you personal sites that they have gotten listed, run away from them. They do not know how to make a FS & have no business offering people HFS's services.

Titles: HFS's each have a different title. The title is not the name of the paysite. FS's are basically very small sites, but they are stand alone sites none-the-less. They have a theme & the title of the site reflects that theme. These are all HFS's for Local Foxes, a site that AFDollar's has:
Frisky Redhead http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...edhead/?581222
Leggy Latina http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...latina/?581222
Little Red Thong http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._thong/?581222
Nature Lover http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._lover/?581222
Ready For Action http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...action/?581222
Squeaky Clean http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._clean/?581222
Starting Without You http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/without_you/?581222
Sexy Black Lace http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...k_lace/?581222
She's No Angel http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._angel/?581222
Spread & Ready http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._ready/?581222
You'll notice that they all promote Local Foxes, yet the paysite's name is nowhere to be found in the site title & each site title reflects the content of the FS.

Also, while I'm on the subject of FS titles, the title should cover the entire site & not just one of the galleries. For some insane reason that is way beyond my comprehension, some programs are creating titles for their FS's based on the content in the 1st gallery. I've actually seen one that's promoting an amateur paysite that has 2 galleries of pics - one is a blonde amateur sucking cock & the 2nd is a brunette amateur getting ass fucked. The title of this site was something along the lines of "Blonde Wife Gives Head" WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Content on the galleries: If you make a FS using 2 galleries of content from the same shoot, make sure that the 2nd gallery starts where the 1st gallery left off as far as the order of the pics. The order of the content on the site should start with the 1st pic on gallery 1 & end with the last pic on gallery 2. This problem happens a lot when you use 2 existing HG's from the same shoot. If you have 20 pics on the FS & gallery 1 has the odd numbered pics & gallery 2 has the even numbered pics, you're going to run into problems with people listing the HFS because the pics are not in order.

Descriptions: you don't have to offer them, as a lot of LL owners write up their own, but if you do offer them, just like the site title, make it actually match the content on the site. Please! :)

Marketing: Each FS should have a theme to it (see the "title" section above) and the marketing text should reflect this theme. Don't use the same ads/templates/banners/text on each site. Mix it up a bit, even if it's just a little. Your goal here is to make the surfer think that the paysite is an extension of the FS, so word your ads as such.

Meta Tags: LL owners could care less about the meta tags, but if you feel the need to put them in there, for the love of Buddy Christ, please don't try to slip in off topic keywords or even borderline keywords that attract the wrong type of surfer.

Auto Generated HFS's: Don't even bother offering them - no one will use them. Trust me on this.

Rotating content: if for some reason you think that putting random content on the HFS's galleries is a good idea, please see my rant on titles. Rotating content might be fine on HG's for TGP's, but they are useless for HFS's.

Downloadable Free Sites: If you offer FS's that webmasters can download, put on their servers & submit to LL's, please remember that LL owners HATE this & the odds of your program getting a bad rep for the ever popular "over used content" decline reason are very high.

All of this is just advice - it's your program & you can do what you want with it. But if you choose to not take these suggestions into consideration, then you have no right to get upset when no one uses them & you get bashed on this board & maybe a few others. Plus, it's a waste of money & time IMHO.

Thank you for your time,
Greenguy

I second GG's statement without hesitation. Do them right or don't do them at all.

Well said GG :)

Yep, in complete agreement here too |thumb

|thumb

Great points GreenGuy :0) Taking notes

Funny you should mention this one in particular, I just listed it or something extremely similiar to this last Friday, but I think I changed the title on my list to better reflect the content, of course now it doesn't match the text on the site. |loony|

I just added a half dozen more if anyone cares to critique. I've been following a lot of the advices offered here. :-)

http://sites.bikinivoyeur.com/bike_w...t/?affilid=518
http://sites.nudebeachmovies.com/nud...py?affilid=518
http://sites.nudebeachmovies.com/hid...am?affilid=518
http://sites.partygirlupskirts.com/u...s/?affilid=518
http://sites.xrayhunter.com/xray_vision?affilid=518
http://sites.xrayhunter.com/xray_see...on?affilid=518

Cheers,
BV

http://sites.xrayhunter.com/xray_vision?affilid=518 - the pics are out of order on both galleries, but other than that, the HFS's are fine.

Hell, you might want to throw a couple more ads/text on the warning pages, as some seem a bit empty.

Some great tips here. I've been working on some HFS for the past few weeks and the help and advice I've received here is priceless! Thanks for posting this Greenguy.

Thanks for the input. I can put more ads no problem. I agree without all the recips you normally see on a normal warning page, some of mine do look empty.

That one xray gallery you mentioned with the out of sequence pics, I knew I would catch hell for that one. I should of fixed it when I first caught it but I didn't have my groove on at the time so I said fuck it. My bad. |violin| My file renamer sort of fuxored that one for from the start.

BTW: I tried to make these as SEO friendly as possible as far as title tags and image and page names. If anyone has any input that i could implement in that dept jlmk.

Cheers,
BV

[BV] - one other thing - on a couple of those URL's you're missing the / before the ? which causes a redirect. Example:
http://sites.xrayhunter.com/xray_see...on?affilid=518
should be:
http://sites.xrayhunter.com/xray_see...n/?affilid=518

I hear ya GG. We've gone thru several designers that feel they can do freesites without a hitch. For me, I prefer specific or niche orientated sales text on all galleries. I can't stand when I'm looking at a gallery, and reading text about something that has nothing to do with what I'm looking at. Obviously you know that the text came from another gallery. Common sales text "one liners" can still be set up niche specific with a little effort.
Anyways...you know we have the "Ace" freesite maker over here. Mr. Spookyx! Go on Spookyx's...tell em.

Hey GG, I see what you are saying. When you copy these urls from our admin none of them will have the trailing slash. The reason some do here in my above post is the result of me copying some of these links from our admin and some from my browser address bar after opening the url (your browser adds it for you)

My programmer said this is a minor http issue and will not cause any problems, but the next site I add I will see if the script will allow me to add the slash when I add the gallery names, if not we'll have to rewrite a little code so our script adds it for me.

Cheers,
BV

The big problem would be when people run link checks, as it'll kick these back as 302's (and some link checkers automatically remove 302's, so your links would be pulled)

Hey GG
great post. this is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for.

I've done TGP for about 2 years but am new to freesites.

Thanks
*taking notes*

I have resolved this issue, all fixed, thanks again for pointing it out GG

Great advice GG. I am thinking about all these things and BAM you make a post about it! GREAT! I recently made a bunch of HFS too. I suppose I should tweak them some more befor posting them! ALOHA

Thanks for all those tips GG. We just relaunched our affiliate program in NATS and have been working on adding free sites. Nice to see we were on mark with most of your suggestions but also gave me the chance to correct somethings before they are released.

When Greenie talks people listen, hahaha:D

You know, I've always wondered if sponsors get special treatment when they submit their stuff. Nice to see that they don't :) gives us "little people" the same chance.

One of the owners, |greenguy| , of hfslinks.com is anal when it comes to hosted free sites.

This really doesn't have anything to do with sponsor's submitting sites - but I will say that they are bound by the same rules everyone else is if they submit to me :)

Unfortunately there are still a few programs out there that are paying good money to someone (looking at the product Id have to say outsourcing) for a bunch of shit sites - and I dont normally name names - but since Ive emailed them and icq'd them a few times to try to help them - deecash - you need to fire whoever is doing your hosted free sites.
Inserting random content inside the same template every day and not changing anything else (especially when there isnt much to start with) is a waste of your good money - might as well just go to a casino and drop it in a slot machine for what youre getting back from them

Please read over this thread and the one referenced at the beginning that was written some time ago - and help your affiliates make you some money :)

Thanks GreenGuy!
 

GreenGuy has been very patient with me and extremely helpful with me over a couple year period and with two different companies. So when I see a post like this.... pure gold advice..... it gets e mailed around to anyone and everyone i am working with to make sure we are getting it right.

The two things I am sure of is;

They probably are not perfect yet

We will keep working on them until they are

To GreenGuy and everyone else who takes the time to reply to a post asking for feedback or who offers me and others advice on how to best fine tune our tools I have to say a Great Big Thank You. It really has a much bigger positive impact then I think you 'help-givers' realize and i am sure a lot of programs really appreciate the guidance.


spaz

spazlabz - I have to admit that I am really backed up right now with work, so I haven't had a chance to go thru your last batch of HFS's, but I'll let you know if I see anything that can be improved.

And just let me also say that's it's great working with sponsors that are actually glad to get free advice (as opposed to a couple other who either ignore you or think that there's nothing wrong with their hosted free sites - lol)

The BV Cash HFS posts have been moved to a thread of their own :)

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=36455

This is good advice. I am sending this to our design team as well.

Frankly, that's often the problem. Programs are using professional graphic designers to build their free sites. They shouldn't. Free sites shouldn't be so graphically heavily and visually awe-inspring. I'm not saying that they should be ugly, but I am saying that ugly doesn't hurt. Pro designers enjoy showing their skills in every project. Keep them designing tours - that's where the awe factor should be - not on free sites and galleries. When a surfer clicks thru to a paysite tour, they should be stunned and impressed by the pure gorgeousness of the site. But if everyone puts the same level of graphic design into every gallery and every free site, the awe factor of a grand tour is diminished and, I believe, it hurts conversions.

Bravo UW - you need to cross post this in the other thread as well- I dont think paysite owners get this - galleries and free sites that are done by graphic designers are getting to the point where they are fancier than the tour - and that hurts conversions in my book.

One thing that I remember from the old days - and it obviously still works today based on a few submitters I have that consistently make great ratios - UGLY DOES WORK - quite well as a matter of fact - text leads to sales - graphics enhances the closing part of the sale - if you are running a paysite you better know the sales game better than your local used car dealer cause thats all it is

For those paysite owners that think that putting up a bigger than FPA size graphic on a warning page helps sales - they are sadly mistaken - but then I guess thats less competition for me :)

If any sponsors would like us to review any Free Sites that a design company shows you, we'd be more than happy to help :)

Please go to the Link List & Getting Listed Forum & start a new thread (otherwise, it'll be a mess in here)

Greenie - unfortunately - while we always offer to do these things - and we make our suggestions based on years of experience in the free site game - most sponsors brush it off as "they know more than we do" about their own paysites - so Ive decided that Im certainly not going to offer to do that anymore. Ive obviously been wasting my time making suggestions :(

I'm in the same boat, because I'm sick of telling sponsors that their HFS's suck (the last one I rudely tried to help kept mentioning how good their galleries are)

I'm just throwing that out there for sponsors that read this thread & then come here & seek advice - I think any sponsor that actually did that (like BV Cash) would get a tremendous amount of help.

Don't post help requests in this thread, please go to the Link List & Getting Listed Forum & start a new thread (otherwise, it'll be a mess in here)

Smith - your post is now here:
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=36506

I do everything myself. I shoot the content as well as do all the designs myself. On this last couple of free sites (which are not for BVCash BTW they are for my other new program BeachModel Ent.) I wanted to try something a little different.

First thing is I'm tired of designing my pages for 800x600 and decided to widen things up a bit. Second thing I didn't like was how sparse my warning pages looked since there were no recips or anything to other sites. This is why I opted to fill up the warning page a bit more to take up some space. I honestly did not think that it was too awe inspiring. Just an over sized logo with a little sales text on it that you can click on instead of having banners.

For the rest of the HFS I basically laid them out how I did my others for BVCash which are listed and making great sales conversions on many link lists including Link o rama. The only thing I did a little different was making a over sized banner at the top and bottom that matched the content from the free site but showed a little bit more explicit shots for the purpose of enticing a click.

I feel that these new free site designs will work great. but if you guys don't think so and want to assume that they will not without actually testing them, then that leaves me no choice but to go back to the old way of doing things because they will never convert if they don't get listed.

Excuse me for trying to think outside of the box and try something a little different instead of the same ole thing day in and day out. IMO these are very basic simple designs.

Cheers,
BV

PS: Linkster you're not wasting your time giving me advice. Don't feel that way. However you were wasting your time trying to see if your codes followed thru to the sign up page. Do you do that to everyone? Did I ever do anything to make you think I was out to cheat my affiliates? I'd appreciate it next time if you are unsure of something like that to just PM, ICQ, or email me instead of doing what you did and giving me and my sites a negative image for the rest of the readers that might not be able to understand that you screwed up.

Cheers,
BV

Don't take that too personally - there are a lot of webmaster (myself included) that do this with every sponsor. We look at as much as we can - hosted materials & the tours being the most important.

Part of it is past shady sponsors, but mostly it's checking for coding errors, because we know how easy it is to fuck up the coding on a HFS :D

In my "shock & awe" post above, I wasn't referring to your HFSs at all and I hope you didn't take offense by it. The big old powerhouse programs are the ones who tend to massively over design their HFSs.

I/we certainly understand why you'd want to place as much marketing as possible on the warning page - and we WANT you to. My advice would be to use multiple blocks/tables of different sized text mixed with graphics, rather than creating a single large fpa. When the surfer hits a warning page, he's searching for the enter link and a solitary fpa is easily passed by as an obvious ad. If you break it up a bit, you are forcing the surfer to slow down his visual scan of the page because the enter link could be in there somewhere between the ad blocks.

BTW, ditto what GG just said about us checking HFS errors. Hell, I've completely forgotten to link my text and banners to a paysite tour on my own free sites in the past. There's nothing quite like having a free site listed at the L-O-R, DD's, and SG and wondering why the sponsor's stats show no hits. Oh, that's right - my links all say :D

No worries, I would encourage that practise also.

My concerns are for other less tech savvy readers and potential affiliates that may have gotten a negative image from reading his posts and may just pass me over because they might not figure out Linkster was using the wrong CCBill affiliate ID for the site in question.

Some sensitive issues such as this are best discussed privately until you are 100% sure, then by all means call me out. |boobies|

Sorry, and thank you for this post. I take note and understand your point about the surfer passing up scanning too fast. This info will be incorporated and will help me greatly on the next HFS I design.

|santa|

BV - yeah I defintiely do check every one of the sponsors - just an old habit :) It comes from having once made HFS's for sponsors a few years ago and the need to make sure they were passing through aff's as it seems everyone uses different coding. And I would agree as has been posted - my statements werent aimed at you - it was really a general statement as there are sponsors that have come looking for help and we freely give it - then they disappear and never implement it or at least try it
In your case - there is nothing wrong with thinking outside the box and trying things - it is something I wish more people would try - the only reason I noted some things is that your interpretation of thinking outside the box is something a few others have tried when they were thinking outside the box as well over the years - to you its a "new idea" and thats great |thumb - to me its something that 5 other sponsors have tried and it didnt work so I just try to use a little experience and pass on some of the knowledge Ive picked up - which is what I think you will find with a lot of the "older people" here (although I think that there are two of us here that are really old!) :)
And again it was a bad assumption to use my bv cash id - that one slipped by