Sponsor FHS's question for LL owners.

[satinchristy]

We are having a disagreement here at the office re: free hosted sites for affiliates.

Everyone agrees we need to vary the templates, but the sticking point here is about "branding".

A majority (3 people) think the sites should use the same elements & logo's. From reading the various threads (free hosted sites) I'm of the mind to just use text and try to get out as many different templates as possible.

LL owners: your opinion counts here (remember, we only have 3 sites, but a ton of content).

Also, does using the really long CCBill URL for the above galleries present a problem for anyone?

[DangerDave]

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...threadid=13706


Free hosted sites are not about branding... I guess you have to think that you are building them for the LLs not for yourselves.

One program I know has FHS that are all a similar template... and they would be the worst converting ones I have seen.

IMO you should forget the word "template" and aim for unique sites - they will sell better.

DD

[Cleo]

What DD said.

Also from this thread.
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...threadid=13706

Make them available in a text file with titles and descriptions separated by the pipe symbol..

Like this

Title|Description|http://adultpaymaster.com/sitename/

Give each site a good title and description. Sites should have a theme with just one enter link on the warning page and galleries that are not too hard to find.

Make sure to give your sites a title both in the meta tags and in text on the site itself as our lists do get spidered.

[Greenguy]

Would those 3 people happen to currently be people that design gallery templates for use on TGP's?

[satinchristy]

Only one GG, Dogface (support). Myself, AA and the owner are photoshoppers. Well, the owner is actually a photographer.

Why GreenGuy?

[Greenguy]

I'm learning that more & more TGP gallery designers have the mentality that everything has to be done with fancy graphics & borders & whatnot & concentrating on the branding & so on - and it sounded like you were fighting them on that

[satinchristy]

First, DangerDave & Cleo,

Thanks for the replies. The info has been saved.

GG, I like neato graphics and a clean design myself. What we're fighting over is the needs of our LL affiliates. I feel, since the program is new, that we should do it right (correct) from the git go. None of us has LL experience, but since this is the board I found so invaluable when we started up the program, I have pushed hard (yelled) to have tools available for the LL owners.

Yes, it could be that the "extra" work to provide FHS's is being resisted. Would primarily text FHS's fit the LL owners needs better and still convert? I'm asking because I don't know. Our content is some of the best out there. I just want it to be usable by affiliates.

[RawAlex]

The more graphics you use, the harder it will be to produce unique sites from the same general layout. A little branding isn't bad, but too much (those fancy TGP style gallery things) is just overkill.

Go look at what is getting listed on link sites. That will give you a better indication of what's going on.

Alex

[MadMax]

Relative newbie LL owner's opinion on the downside of branding regarding freesites:

Just about anyone will tell you that fresh, new sites convert better on link list traffic. That's because the surfers haven't seen it advertised ad infinitum, after which the market starts to become saturated by that pay site and it almost becomes the "same old thing" and no longer as tantalizing.

Hence, the more similar free sites promoting a pay site look, the worse they will convert.

Tons of flashy graphics are all well and good on a paysite tour to close the sale or in the member's area, but they can easily be overdone on freesites. Those of us who live on broadband forget that most of the world still surfs at 28.8k, primarily in more rural areas where the internet is a larger percentage of the overall access to porn. Decent looking graphics (with good sales text attached) that load quickly and some nice tables or css to keep everything looking clean work best for me. Quality thumbs that aren't too big and full size pics that aren't overcompressed. NO VID CAPS.

One thing that irritates me most about sponsor hosted free sites: Changing the background and text colors do not give you a new template...and as GG said, it's best to keep the word "template" out of it altogether.

Another is that sponsors seem to want to use their crappier content (often poorly lit, poorly shot) as the stuff they give away for free so they can keep the good stuff in the member's area. I suggest taking content from the best quality content (since you're only taking 20-30 pics after all) and using that, since it will be more likely to make Joe Average the surfer want to see more.

Regarding the long URLs, if you can just do mouseovers that still show the surfer the paysite name (which is what most of us do).

In the end you should probably build a handful of sites and post them here for review...that way you can get some effective and precise feedback before getting too far down the road.

Just one webmaster's opinion.

[Greenguy]

Well, let's start with getting the terminology correct - it's Hosted Free Sites (HFS) not Free Hosted Sites

A Free Site, in it's most basic form, is a warning page, followed by a main page that links to 2 galery pages of 10 pcis each.

The pages should have a "flow" to them - same colors, fonts, etc. Nothing look uglier than a Free Site with 4 different colored pages

I don't think graphics are all that important, but then again I suck at graphics so I have to rely on my (somewhat limited) marketing skills using text to sell the surfer on at the very least, clicking on the ad.

I tend to use whatever the sponsor gives me as far as banners/ads, trying to work what they have into my templates.

Templates are a big thing - if you use too few, the sites will become old & my thinking is that the surfer will become confused, thinking they have alreadyseen the site that they are on. So we tend to tell people to spice things up using a variety of different templates - and not "site templates" - I have 29 warning page templates, 14 main page templates & 27 gallery page templates. Way back when, I started by using #1 for each, but eventually I got to a system where the next one I build, I'll be using warning page #12, main page template # 6 & gallery page template #23 - this way, each Free Site has a different set up & I'm not just using the same 30 "site templates" over 7 over & over. So that should be a goal of yours (or any Free Site builder - variety)

I have this feeling that I'm rambling

[Mishi]

Originally posted by Greenguy
Templates are a big thing - if you use too few, the sites will become old & my thinking is that the surfer will become confused, thinking they have alreadyseen the site that they are on. So we tend to tell people to spice things up using a variety of different templates - and not "site templates" - I have 29 warning page templates, 14 main page templates & 27 gallery page templates. Way back when, I started by using #1 for each, but eventually I got to a system where the next one I build, I'll be using warning page #12, main page template # 6 & gallery page template #23 - this way, each Free Site has a different set up & I'm not just using the same 30 "site templates" over 7 over & over. So that should be a goal of yours (or any Free Site builder - variety)

I have this feeling that I'm rambling

Yeah, but rambling in a useful way...crap, I was all excited 'cause I'm up to FOUR WHOLE MENU PAGE TEMPLATES! Go me! Except, not!

I know what I'll be doing tomorrow...

[satinchristy]

THIS IS 'DA BOARD. You are the "go to" guys (& girls) for, well, everything! Got any stock tips?

Sorry, it's 6 AM, the coffee device is gurgling, and I woke up just to check this post. Woo Hoo, high quality, no BS answers. Thank you Thank you.

RawAlex & MadMax - Bango, I fully understand what your saying and it makes sense. Great info and I feel the same (unknowingly of course).

Greenie - HFS, HFS, HFS, got it!LOL I understand everything your saying, but I seem to be hung up on Qty. Should I tell Dogface to do a different HFS until he reaches say 30, then start the juggle or is it - WAIT ONE - - - - - - - - -

Which is more important? Variety in the HFS's or getting, at least, some HFS's out to the affiliates?

[Linkster]

satinchristy - best bet is to get 5-10 out there for the WMs to use - as GG said - I would concentrate on just using text to sell the sites - with regular banners mixed in - although I always try to make sure the banners are sized a little different than "standard" sizes to avoid the banner subtracting software and to jog the surfers eyes a little

then watch and see the conversions coming in from the WMs that use them - should give you an idea of which approach sells better. Then you can go further with more "template" pages to fine tune the sales.

[Greenguy]

satinchristy - if I was going to open up an affiliate program that had HFS & basing things on how I build now & ways to speed up the process, I'd build 4 or 5 Free Sites using the same template & just swap out the pics - but don't release all of them at the same time. Put one out this month, one out the next month, etc.

This will be very slow going at 1st, depending on how many pay sites you have to promote (I'm assuming you'll want HFS for each paysite) but down the road, the work for that month's HFS will already be down & you can work on something else or start the process all over again to prepare for the coming months.

I'd also suggest not releasing more than 7 HFS a week - I know when I'm adding them, I rarely add more than one per day per sponsor.

I'd also put them on a surfer friendly domain - the domain the paysite is located on would be best

[Chop Smith]

Originally posted by Greenguy
I'd also put them on a surfer friendly domain - the domain the paysite is located on would be best

Greenguy, would you expand on this? I'm sure you know why I am interested.

What do you consider a surfer friendly domain?

What is you reasoning for the HFS's being on the paysite domain?

BTW, there is good stuff in this thread.

[Greenguy]

If you set them up on the "friendly" domain, then you don't have to fuck around with mouseovers.

This one might just be a personal pet peeve of mine

[satinchristy]

Greenie - "Friendly" = the same domain as the site being promoted? Just making sure.

Ps. Everybody here left on Sunday to shoot on location in the Bahamas for 2 weeks. BUT, they gave me a book on basic HTML and said I should try building those HFS's I've been driving them nuts about. I'm going to give it a try and post a couple here for a critique.

[kobay]

so mouseovers on free sites are ok?
i see some wm's use it

[Greenguy]

For the most part, as long as the mouseover says the site your going to instead of the actual link code - like:
http://www.twatvalley.com/enter.html
instead of:
http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clic...com/enter.html
then you'll be safe

[kobay]

if link going to http://www.mysponsor.com/index.html?...up&blah&1&blah
and mouseover show www.mysponsor.com
is that still ok?

[Greenguy]

That's perfect