Menu

• Dictionary
• Hot Shots

Directory

• Sponsors
• Billing Options
• Content Providers
• Web Hosting
• Traffic Counters
• Website Designers
• Resource Sites

Sometime I probably sound like a real dick here in my column ... especially when I'm jumping up and down about how good business is for us. I guess it sounds as though I'm bragging about how good we are and it must sound really disheartening if you're facing some tough times right now.

And undoubtedly many adult webmasters are facing tough times. It's summer time so people aren't spending as much time in front of their computers as they normally do plus there's the global financial crisis and people either don't have as much money to spend or they're more cautious about spending the money that they do have.

A glimmer of hope
So times may be tough but there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. In some parts of the world ... including America there are signs that the situation is improving and people are beginning to spend again.

Here in Australia economists have some highly technical way of measuring consumer confidence and that measurement has begun to climb. Hopefully we'll see more of that and signs of that in other countries too because once consumers are confident that it's safe to spend they will and our industry will see an increase in sales too.

But you shouldn't wait till those numbers begin to improve before doing anything. Now is the time to prepare for that return of confidence with new sites, new hubs and maybe even a portal. If you've been in the industry a while you certainly should be starting to build your own traffic pumps so that you reduce your reliance on link lists etc for the traffic you need to make sales. If you haven't built any yet then now is definitely the time to get moving and get those hubs and portals up there.

Add search to your sites
Obviously if all your building is free sites or galleries the link list and TGP rules that you have to comply with are probably not going to allow you to add a search box to your site but with your own hubs and portals you can do whatever you like.

Perhaps that sounds a little technical for where you're at but look around for some tutorials and you will see that it's not all that difficult. Just be sure that the search box only turns up links to your sites ... or your affiliate links to sponsors' sites.

It may only take an hour or two to get the search box set up and happening and you could pay for that time with just a handful of signups so it's definitely worth doing.

Add reviews to your sites
Review sites are very popular but genuine review sites take a lot of time to set up and cost money too and it can be a while before you begin to see a real return on your investments even if you do have the time and money to set up such a site.

But don't let that stop you because quite a few sponsors these days have reviews already written and they make them available to their affiliates. Building those pre-written reviews into your sites can take time and you would be well-advised to spend a little time making those reviews look more original. However, if you don't have time to download and/or edit those reviews at least one major sponsor now gives affiliates their own review site that's already stocked with reviews ... all you have to do is link to it.

Using something as convenient as that seems like a no-brainer if you don't have time to build your own review site.

Webmaster tools on Bing
For a long time now MSN/Live has been a search engine that really hasn't sent a lot of traffic to anyone because not all that many people actually use it to search. However that may change now that it's changed its appearance and been re-branded as Bing.

It certainly seems that Microsoft is serious about getting a bigger share of the search market with Bing and let's hope they do ... a monopoly isn't good for any market.

So what do you know about Bing and how can you encourage Bing to actually find your sites?

Well Bing has its own webmaster tools section and you can find it at bing.com/webmaster. It's certainly worth looking at although to get access to the webmaster tools you first have to sign up for a Windows Live ID. Once you have jumped through that little hoop you're in and you can start helping Bing find your websites.

It doesn't take long and you would be crazy not to do it because the hits you're missing from Bing just might be the ones that actually go on to sign up with your sponsors.

And that's it for me this week - this is a weekend that we'll spend working even though the weather is going to be wonderful.