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Here are some tips to help people building Freesites (FS) for linklists (LL). Much of this is what I have learnt from experience, including rejection by LL’s and success from making money through FS, and by finding as much info as I can about how to do it. Thanks to all those webmasters who have shared their wisdom and experiences to newbies like me. I dedicate this primer to you all.
1. The Purpose of a FS!
This is where most new webmasters miss the point. You are not just supplying free porn to surfers although this is what occurs. You are trying to sell something. Namely a paysite you own or one that is owned by another. So everything in your FS should be geared towards selling the merits of the site you are featuring. You want the surfer to go to the paysite and sign up. So every page should be pointing the surfer to the goal. Therefore remember the following points:
Pick a good paysite to sell. No point having a great FS that sends thousands of surfers to the paysite only to be let down by a crappy tour which drives them away. If a paysite isn’t converting your traffic then ditch it and find one that will.
Don’t give the surfer such good content that they don’t need to go to your paysite/sponsor. Yes, extreme hardcore FS may not convert well as why would someone buy it if they can get it for free? Use your images wisely and entice and attract without giving it all away. You can do hardcore FS, but chose images that leave something to the imagination (e.g. like a doggy image with the guy at the back of the image so you don’t actually see penetration).
2. Content is King
Content must be on the same domain as your site. There should be naked models on every FS. The content should be of proper quality, not overused and be appropriate for a certain niche. It’s quite enough to have 2 –3 galleries (10-15 pictures in every gallery) in your free site. Big images should be 800x600pixels maximum. Make sure you watermark your images to discourage content thieves.
Sponsors’ free content is very overused as a rule so I don’t recommend using it on your free sites. However some link lists will list your FS with such content. If you are a good affiliate some sponsors can give you free content, as a rule this content is not so overused (contact your sponsor if you think you fit into this category).
Some content-providers have sales where you can buy a lot of content for a little sum of money – this content is quite appropriate for LL listing. You can also mix up some sponsor content with your own cheap content to avoid looking like you have overused content.
Don't think that LL admins wont spot overused content. They are reviewing sites everyday so they will soon pick your sponsor content after they have seen it again and again on different sites.
3. Use Standardised Navigation familiar to all FS’s
Navigation on your site is designed to let the surfer get to the content easily. So if you use complex navigation your site will be rejected. Your site should have:
Index.html: This is the warning page. Now IMO FS warning pages for LL’s differ for pages that are designed for SE traffic. The surfer in a LL already knows what they are looking for so you don't have to design a page that has to grab their attention. SE surfers may lazily click on a link and so you need an eye-popping tour to sell your site. LL surfers want to see the free porn so all you need is an easily recognisable navigation for them. So don't waste your time trying to be too eye popping and keep it simple. One or two sponsor banners at the most.
My basic make up of an index page is as follows (from top to bottom):
1.Centred table 720-760px wide only. (Sites that scroll to the right get rejected)
2.Banner at the top of your page
3.H1 or H2 site Title
4.Reciprocal link table (about 8-12 recips)
5.A link to the main page should be noticeable and look like "ENTER" or "ENTER HERE".
6.Site warning with a notice that under 18 persons should not visit this site or people who have other reasons why they cannot visit this site should leave. You can also incorporate an exit link here. This is better under your enter link IMO.
7.You could use another banner here if you want to but IMO it clutters the page a little
8.Text links at the bottom of the page: contact email, 2257 link, keyword link to your main site etc.
9.A Copyright statement: Copyright © 2006 Web-Wonders Productions.
Other things you can use are cool background images to make you page a little more eye-popping than normal. This takes a little more imagination and can lift a bland looking site to one that looks great. But surfers will hardly take much notice as all they want is free porn so don’t feel this is a necessity.
Main Page: The main page should have 2 – 3 small advertising blocks and links to your galleries. Links to the galleries should be well observed on the page and look like “Gallery 1” etc. The main page is a chance to use some good keyword rich text to sell the merits of a surfer visiting your site or your sponsors. This is another chance to market the content you are showing. Don’t underestimate the importance of writing good copy here. Sure some if not most will just skip it most likely. But that 1:100 people who read it might just go to your site or your sponsors and sign up.
Galleries: The rules for free site galleries are nearly the same as those for TGP galleries. 2 –3 small advertising blocks, big and quality thumbnails (at least 120 pix on the long side.), thumbnails should be linked right to the pictures not to html pages. Use Banners and Text Links to sell your content. You can use text if you want to. Use your imagination.
I use a program called Express thumbnail creator (www.express-soft.com/etc ) to build my raw galleries. Then I just add the banners and text to the html pages afterwards. Makes it much quicker to do. Some people use Adobe Photoshop to build galleries, but this is very expensive software to buy.
4.Things LL’s Hate and why your site is rejected!
No annoying pop-up consoles/windows.
No blind or misleading links what-so-ever
Do not put a LL’s links under your ENTER button.
The Site Title you submit to the LL should be on your site.
No free email addresses used. You own a domain so use that as an email address.
No site will get accepted if it is hosted on a free host.
Most hate auto submitters
Your site should be built to 800x600 screen resolution. Scrolling sites often get rejected.
Use of Video Captures for images is out.
All the content must be on the same domain.
Don’t use wording that implies illegal porn such as “young Girls” etc.
Don’t use javascript or 3rd party counters on your site.
If your site has clickable thumbs, the thumbnail images have to actually be thumbnails & NOT the actual picture loading at a smaller width & height.
Read the rules of the LL you are submitting to because they can differ from LL to LL.
Check your FS that it all works properly before you submit it. As images that don’t load or broken links, will lead to rejection.
Market sponsors that only use legal porn.
When submitting your site, fill in all fields, such as "Title" and "Description", correctly. When you write these use good keywords in the title and the description. You could look at the sites already listed to get an idea of what the reviewer likes. Take your time and write good ones. This not only will help you get listed but will help attract surfers to your FS in the LL.
When submitting sites, always use the same name. The reviewer will get to know your work, and if you consistently submit good sites, this could help with your listings.
LL’s are frustrating beasts. So when you start out don’t be surprised if you get rejected more than not. Once you break through it becomes easier. The most annoying game they play is that they don’t tell you your FS is rejected. This means they can get maybe 4-6 weeks of a free link from you until you realise and pull it down. You will get mad at these LL webmasters at times. They are a boorish lot who will reject you on a whim at times. But hang in there. Once you get a few accepted it starts to get easier. In the end it is they that have the power, so you just have to do things the way they want and pray for a revolution. It’s a dictatorship and there is nothing you can do about it.
5.Submitting the Same FS to Multiple LL’s using duplicate sites
Submitting to many LL’s is fine, but make a duplicate site for each set - don't just duplicate the index and call in something like index2.html, index3.html etc. This will lead to rejections A standard FS might look something like this on your server directory:
/fs1/images/
/fs1/thumbs/
/fs1/index.html
/fs1/main.html
/fs1/gallery1.html
/fs1/gallery2.html
What you can do is create another folder in that directory path that you can duplicate the FS in but keep the images in the root folder. So know it would look like this:
/fs1/images/
/fs1/thumbs/
/fs1/index.html
/fs1/main.html
/fs1/gallery1.html
/fs1/gallery2.html
/fs1/duplicate site1/index.html
/fs1/duplicate site1/main.html
/fs1/duplicate site1/gallery1.html
/fs1/duplicate site1/gallery2.html……and so on
For the index in “/fs1/duplicate site1/index.html” you'd use a different set of LL recips, but the rest of the site would be the same or you can change the text to target different keywords. All the images in the galleries in the entire duplicate sites link back to the original images in the main FS, so content are still on the same domain. Be warned in terms of SE spidering duplicate sites and content is penalised. But ultimately most of your traffic will come from LL’s not SE’s. I don’t personally use duplicate sites but it is up to you. Thanks to RobUK for the idea of how to set this part out.
6.How To Make Manual Submissions Easier
The process of manual submission to LL's is a tedious and boring part of the work. But you have to do it unless you have millions to hire someone else to do it for you. But if you are like me, then there is no way around it. Bother!
I worked out a way that makes it a little quicker. All submission forms ask for the following:
Site Name or Title ( 5 Words Max With First Letter Capitilised)
Site URL
URL Recipricol link is on (always the same as your site URL)
Description (keep it to 10-15 words without punctuation)
Your Name
Your Email address (never use a free one like hotmail or yahoo)
What I do is open up a notepad page and type those requirements on it before I start to submit. Then it is just a matter of copying and pasting the info into each field of the required submission form. This is much quicker than typing everything in indiviually and cuts down on any submission mistakes. Make sure you check each form before clicking the submit button. Particularly the category you have chosen for you FS is correct.
7.What happens when my FS gets buried?
Yes there will come a time when your FS which you worked hard on gets buried under hundreds of other FS's and the traffic you get from it starts to diminish. What can you do with that site to generate some more traffic from it? Well there is an answer to the question. Your FS has something you can resubmit, galleries. Yes my friend there are thousands of TGP's out there just waiting for your galleries. I recommend an auto submitter (one of the few accepted ones) called TGP Wizards (www.tgpwizards.com/index.php). This incorporates automated and manual submission. So you can submit your galleries to hundreds of TGP's at once and get new life out of your old FS content.
If you own the site you are promoting in the FS consider using your old FS galleries as 'Hosted Galleries' for an affiliate program. Then other webmasters will use them on their own sites to promote your paysite.
8.How many FS's should I make?
If FS's are going to be your main thing (i.e. You are going to sell a sponsors site) then you are going to make lots of them. After a while you will be an expert on them. You may do 2 or 3 a week, maybe more if you have time. In the beginning just do 1 per week to learn the ropes. You might want to consider creating a hub site to put all your FS's on as well. The hub site should be optimised for SE traffic.
If you own a paysite you have a dilema. How much of your content are you willing to give away for nothing? I don't have the answer for that, you must decide. Big affiliate programs give away a lot. Small owner operated paysites (like amatuer sites where the owner is the content) then maybe not as much. If you own a small amatuer site or niche site where you or someone you associate with is the content, then maybe you should look at shooting content that is just for FS's and galleries. That way if someone signs up they will get different content in your members area and may stay a member longer. That is something you have to work out in your business plan. But if you own a paysite then you must regularly submit like anyone else to keep your content and site near the top of the LL's link pages to get that traffic.
cheers and happy FS building
Burgo
This post has been edited by burgoz: 25 March 2006 - 02:18 AM
MultiQuote
Nice One Burgo... see, all that homework and studying is paying off... great post and most of the words are even spelled right.. 
