How long before money flows?
 

I am new to this. It's about 1 month that I started.
I have built about 20 free web sites and I have them listed on 32 different link lists. The current total is 312 accepted submissions.
My first group of web sites has gotten over 350 unique clicks. The other sites range in the 100 andd 200 unique clicks.
I have read and try to closely follow all the rules, as well I check the board and incorporate tips that you guys give out.
However I have not had a single signup,
so the big question is, how long before money flows?

Show a few site examples - it's hard to say anything with just the info you've given so far.

Some niches are just hard to sell. You have to know the exact hooks to use to get the surfer to commit. Are your sites all the same niche, or do they cover several niches?

Your number of uniques sounds a bit low - but that depends on what linklists have listed you. Many small LLs only send dribbles of traffic, submitting to them is a longterm strategy.

But if I had 20 freesites that weren't making any sales, the first thing I would do is look closely at _what_ I'm selling and _how_ I'm selling it.

Be prepared for at least 6 months without much reward, is what i'd tell you if you asked me. :)

I've been at this just over 2 years now, and I"m still trying to make what I would make in a regular job. Seems to be a slow process, or was for me. That being said, after one month, you are quite a bit further ahead of where I was after one month, i was still learning html and building my first freesite at that point.

Just keep building and submitting.

Depends on alot of things. Your marketing ablility, 20 freesites really isnt all that much and it depends who you are submitting those free sites to. Some LL's are good for one type of traffic and others arent so hot. How about a url so we can see what your working with?

P.S.
It took about 6 months for my first sale, but I suck so dont go by what I say :D

Lets just run some quick numbers. Lets assume that the site doesn't have the best click-throughs (7%) and doesn't do the best ads (1:500).

To earn $35 you need: 500/0.07 = ~7200 hits your free site.

It's not always that simple. It can be more, it can be less. But it's a number at least :)

I been at this for almost a year now. I've had quite a few sales but haven't come close to breaking even yet. That is probably a bad thing ;) I'm going to hang in for a few years though and see what happens. I think the ones that make the "big bucks" are the ones that have been around a while and work really hard at it. So after a month I wouldn't be discouraged. As many people have told me you have to keep building and submitting!! Good luck to ya!

I've been in it for a month and a half and haven't worked very hard at it yet cos i've been busy with other things. I've had one sale, but at the moment I'm just trying to get a good knowledge base. I'll be getting serious in a few weeks.

I get about 300-600 uniques and my conversion ratio is about 1:4000 for those that click through.

Many newbies make (including me) the mistake of making their site far too 'good'. You have to make the surfer to be unsatisfied with free porn and go for the pay option.

Show us all your sites and all the pros will offer you some very useful tips.

The money doesn't flow, it trickles at first, and you just can't give up. Also, not everyone works at the same progression and you should consider doing more than just freesites. Diversify yourself and try all the areas porn has to offer, freesites, galleries, Toplists, AVS, etc, etc, etc.

Has anyone ever come up with a plan for making money? In a normal brick & mortar business, you have a business plan. Knowing the types of traffic and which ones generate lasting income and what generates short term income, I would think someone would have come up with an idea to bring in quick cash while building slower cash. Sort of a newbie business plan/guideline.

I know this was touched on in another thread where someone wanted to make $6k/month. MML has also mentioned planning in one of his radio shows. Take the hour to listen to his show -- or listen to the recorded show. There are some great tips there.

Personally, I couldn't fathom getting into anything that wasn't paying my expenses. Deficit spending is something that I have only seen large corporations and governments do. My bank won't wait for my mortgage payment forever.

So, if you took something like this:

TGP Gallery posting - quick money
each 2 TGP galleries become part of 1 free site
post the free site to the link lists
Your freesite links to your hub
your hub's ultimately point to your linklist
your linklist becomes SE food, and you have your blog(s) linked off of your linklist for further SE food.

You mix PPS and Revshare for the fast return and the long dollar.

As MML said, write out a plan but don't be afraid to modify it, but have a plan.

Granted this is an off-the-cuff quick post, but, this board has dozens of different strategies listed throughout dealing with all sorts of traffic -- and has people that have been in the business that are generously sharing their expertise.

And when you learn something, teach two other people.

This is something like the plan I wrote out for myself. I started with TGP's, had my first sale in my first month, by my second month it was covering all my expenses and then some. I took all the earnings and reinvested it into what I was building. So, bought content, increased my hosting, etc, etc, and I'm still turning a good profit from the galleries. Now that I've streamlined that process I'm moving on and expanding what I do.

I think another thing most people don't consider. Time for learning. Studying and learning from others is majorly important. Ask people questions, get opinions, read the posts of important people in the industry.

One last thing, study your stats, etc. So many people build pages robotically and don't look at what they're doing. If a page you write doesn't sell, examine why, don't just build 30 more pages just like it. If a page does sell, study the reasons why it made sales.

Thanks
 

Thanks for all of the great input.
I really appreciate the support.

Several of you asked to see the web sites so here they are:

http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/02/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/03/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/04/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/05/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/06/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/07/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/08/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/09/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/10/

http://best1.thebesst.com/oc/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/ocb/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/occ/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/ocd/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/oce/01/

http://best1.thebesst.com/pp1/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/pp2/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/pp3/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/pp4/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/pp5/01/

http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/ij01/01/

Please let me know what you think.

These are the names of the link lists that have accepted the submissions:
analbitch
venera
triplexworld
sultans-porn
squirrel-nuts.com
stripteeze.com
smiths lookup
sex-hot-sites
quim.com
absolutelyfreeporn.net
pornranch
pornhitz
pornauthorityofny.com
penisbot
netmaniak
mommaspussy
link-fabulous
linkalotapuss
get-free-sex.com
fetishhotel
fetishphiles
daily porn links
adult-sex-sites.net
69freepornlinks.com
all-sex-links.com
nastyplace
Adult-Porn.org
we-r-sex
uglyworm.com
bookmarklinks.com
Beavers Review
Adult Porn Sex Links Directory
pussybytes

Not all sites were accepted by all link list.
Again any input is appreciated.

Thanks Again
TB

Some things I noticed are:
Those backgrounds are a bit much, they detract from the ads.
The first set only has one ad per page when you are generally allowed 3
Subdomains arent allowed for free sites at quite a lot of linklists
Your ad text could be bigger in many cases, its often the text that grabs em, and you seem to be writing good text so make better use of it.
Hardcore on the warning page isn't accepted at a lot of ll's either.
Hope this helps a bit :)

I gave the incorrect links for the first set. It should read:

http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes02/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes03/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes04/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes05/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes06/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes07/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes08/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes09/01/
http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes10/01/

Sorry about that.

Thank you Natalie for your advice. I will buck up my text and tone down the backgrounds.

Don't expect 100% approvals at all sites. Some reviewers may not like something for whatever reason, while another will like it just fine. Some will interpret a link as blind, some will not, etc..

Just keep up what you're doing, i think you're off to a great start.

I'd really get rid of those backgrounds.

Also... the file size of the images needs looking at. They range from 100KB up to nearly 400KB in size.

Typical example being 387.22 KB (396512 bytes), which for a free site jpeg is too big, you need to compress the jpegs with Photoshop or some other program. This will save you a lot of transfer costs and they'll load a lot faster.

And when you name jpegs you seem to be using spaces in the name. Rename them without spaces because when you name them like this BES 20 091.jpg they end up being displayed as BES%2021%20-%20091.jpg which sometimes won't display on older browsers.

Another problem which I am experiencing is that which urb noticed.
It just started a few days ago.
My .jpg files will not save as .jpgs in ie6. They only save as .bmp which makes the file size way too large.
I have been speaking to my hosting service and they keep telling me it is a local problem, I do not belive it is.
However my .jpgs save the right size in Netscape and they save the right size if you chose to save target as, in ie6.
Has anyone had this problem before ?

Should I be posting this in another forum, or in a new thread?

Any help is always appreciated.

Thanks urb for the no spaces in the name tip.

Thanks cd34 for the quick reply.
I followed the instructions but still no luck, my jpgs are only saving as .bmp
I have been trying to resolve this for a couple of days, so here is a little more background.
1- This problem suddenly occured. Prior to tuesday jpgs saved as jpgs
2- I have the same problem, on the 4 differnt computers I have tried.
3- I have the problem using 3 differnt operating systems (win98, NT4, XP Pro sp2)
4- I only have this problem saving jpgs on that particular subdomain. I have no problem saving jpgs on any other domain on any of the computers.

Any thoughts?

What are you using to edit images?
Do you have any version of Photoshop?

Whatever you are using... you need to import the photos, no matter what format they are in... and then save them as jpegs, using "Save for Web" or whatever will allow you to save them as jpeg files. Kill two birds with one stone and rename them as you do it.

Jpegs use lossy compression which means that some of the data in the photo is lost when compressed, but if you have some way of visually previewing the image before you save it, you'll be able to judge at what point the image is over compressed, when you can see the pixels breaking up.

Don't use bmp or tiff files on the web... Jpegs which are compressed properly will save you disk space on your server and will save you transfer.

I'm using paint shop pro 8.0
As well, when I download the content it is already in jpg format and I have left them named as they were.

I don't use Paint Shop Pro... :)

BUT
import one jpeg that you downloaded into Paint Shop Pro
and then saving it as a jpeg under a different name (without spaces in the file name)
making sure that you have the Save Options set at "Standard Encoding" with the Compression Factor set in the middle.

When this one file is saved under the new name, try it out on the server, check the quality is ok in relation to the file size etc...

My good deed of the day. Download Easy Thumbnails to compress your images. It's what I use. It does a great job.

Thanks for all your help and good deeds. I really appreciate the input.
I have re-saved all of the jpgs for one site. They are now properly compressed.
However I still have the same problem, that I cannot save them as a jpg in IE6
I only have the .bmp option.
Any other web site I go to I can save jpgs as jpgs in IE6
That is what has me so confounded.

Here is the web site that I re-saved:

http://best1.thebesst.com/tb/bes01/01

Can any of you save the pics as jpgs?
If you can, then I know my problem is local.
Thanks again for all of your time.
I apologize for being such a newbie.

When I check the properties they show up as jpgs, but when I right-click and save to my computer I only get the option as bmp file. I downloaded one pic which was 2.75 mb. I can't really tell what the problem is, but the physical (pixel) dimension is way to big (1200x800). Half would be enough.

Here's an afterthought. What is set as your default program to open jpgs in Windows? Try changing it to PSP and see what happens. I'm not that familiar with PSP but I know it's fairly high end and you shouldn't have any problems creating normal jpgs.

IE6 / sp2 saves them fine as jpegs from here.

However, you may wanna try deleting you cache, including offline content.

Another thing you can do is select, Tools, Internet Options, Settings, View Objects... then if there is anything that doesn't have a status of "Installed" delete it.

Then close the browser, open the browser and try saving the jpeg from your site with IE again.

Ok the jpg problem is now resolved.
There was a problem on the server side.
My hosting company has fixed it.
I thank all of you again for all of your help and suggestions.

Lemmy, assuming you are from we-r-sex, how do I re-submitt sites to your link list?
You originaly brought this problem to my attention by declineing my site submission.
Now when I re-submitt it returns a link already sbmitted response.

Shoot me an e-mail to lemmy at we-r-sex dot com with the site details and I'll see if I can get it in there. Glad you got the problem fixed. |cool|

I've had the same problem with only being able to save as bmp, some times I've had to reboot. Well you know how to fix it now. It can be quite frustrating.

I agree with the backgrounds, to busy, too much, and as said take away from the ads. Of course your ads should be the most important on your pages. Do you know how your ads pull? Thats the biggest mistake I see people make. You should be tracking your ads to make the most of them. Honestly your ads are not real exciting, exciting enough to be clicked on, just my two cents. To me, using or even finding the right ads, is one of the most important parts of making money. That and to get the most out of your traffic with the right ads.

Looks like you've got the getting listed and traffic, just need to make the best of the ads. Often it is trial and error.

Did I read that right, your conversion is 1:4000 at the sponsor? Or did you add any extra zero? Should be around 1:400, but could vary.

ronnie

More info requested
 

Ronnie, how do you track your ads and what makes an ad exciting?

I use phpadsnew to track mine. It's an incredible script and it's free..:) Course the new one takes a little learning. I am still using an older version, shows me how my ads work, so works for now. One of these days I need to upgrade. The script has been mentionedon this board a few times.

As for better ads, usually it is trial and error. Not a real good answer. An ad might do well for me, while it does'nt for another webmaster. Just like a sponsor might do well one one person, but not for another.

The biggest thing I see people do wrong is not targeting close enough. If your doing a site for mature bbw's, show them mature bbw ads and of course sites that have mature bbw's on the tour. I know it sounds like common sense, but many people miss the boat. I saw one site the other day, that had a lesbian banner, but the site had nothing to do with lesbians. If your doing a footjob site, have ads and a sponsor that show footjobs or talk about them. You might get away with a foot fetish site, but with one that actually shows footjobs, you'll have a better chance of getting sales and clicks.

Of course some animation in the ad can help. Bigger ads do better some times. Keep them fresh, ads will go stale over time. Odd sized ads can make a difference. Great text or good smack with an ad can make a big difference. Talk to the surfer, get them excited, give them a reason to click. Watch tv, read magazines, read newspapers, how do they motivate people? You'd be surprized, you'd think an ad would pull great, but it might pull crap, you dont know sometimes. But if you track, your one step closer.

When I make a ad rotation, I add at least two if not more banners, when possible. Thats rotating in one spot. For one you have something to compare too. Also, if one is weak, you have another that might get some clicks instead of losing them all on one ad.

Some times you can track your ads, like for tgp galleries. But if you use banners you've already tracked elsewhere, you shoiuld have a better shot at more clicks and sales.

ronnie

Thanks!