Sep 29

1.    Ensure you have all the correct terms and conditions advertised with your number. To comply with PhonepayPlus (formerly ICSTIS) regulations you are required to include certain information with your advertisements. This is very important and getting it wrong can result in a fine being levied by the regulators.

3.    If you are just putting together an advert to put on another site, then make sure it stands out and your number is really clear. Include a call to action with the number like call this number! Or call now! Again, ensure that all PhonepayPlus guidelines are adhered too.

4.    Write unique content for your web page or advert, don’t just copy someone else. It makes a difference.

5.    Make sure your web page has META keywords and a META description; this will enable the search engine spiders that crawl the sites to define your site and index it more quickly.

6.    Use good pictures and make your pages easy to navigate. People want to be turned on enough to call the number and then come back o your site or advert for round two. Why not try to get them to put the number in their mobile or make a note for them to write it down somewhere.

7.    Generally, the dirtier the better when it comes to advertising adult premium rate services on the web. People will come back if you have good content, good pictures and an easy to use website.

8.    Links, links, links. When it comes to promoting your website, you will need to spend some time link building, ideally go for sites that are directly related to yours, or one the same theme. If you are promoting an adult phonesex site for example, why not start submitting your website to adult directories, there thousands out there, so get your site listed on all of them. It will take time and effort and can be quite a boring job but it is well worth it in terms of your website promotion.

Sep 26

If you are anything like me, you know what its like to get distracted from your goals and current direction by the “next big thing”, the next new product, or the next new opportunity.

Staying focused and having clearly defined goals is one of the most beneficial traits an entrepreneur can have. However, it is also one of the most difficult to maintain (in my humble experience).

Here is a great post from onstartups.com on this subject, which many internet entrepreneurs will be more than familiar with.

http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/6739//Entrepreneurs-and-Hey-There-s-A-Shiny-New-Thing.aspx

Sep 25
  • The first thing to do once you have decided that an adult themed website advertising premium rate telephone numbers is the one for you, is design and build it. If you have web skills, you should do this yourself as it costs no money and you have total control over everything from design to content. If you do not have any web skills, there are many web designers out there who can help you, just provide them with a brief of what you want and get it built.
  • If you have purchased your premium rate telephone numbers through a company, then they may have website packages or website templates you can use, make sure you ask them at the time of purchase. (TIP: Bluewave Media has an extensive portfolio of website templates and ready-made sites available to its clients)
  • Target the right keywords. Do your keyword research and find out what people are searching for. This will help you optimise your website for the most appropriate search terms which in turn should get you better and more targeted traffic (ultimately resulting in more calls to your numbers). We strongly recommend signing up for www.wordtracker.com for this purpose.
  • Write original content for your website; make it interesting and relative to your website or website niche page. It will be better for your viewers and better for your ranking with each search engine. The worst thing you can do is copy content from another site. Just sit down and make it up, once you get into it, it’s quite fun.
  • Site layout issues. Make your site easy to use and ensure the numbers stand out from the rest of the page. Use a call to action, like “call this number now!” Or “call me now!”
  • Once your site is up and running and looking good, you will need to start link building. I suggest starting with the adult directories, then moving onto sites that have ‘submit URL’ or ‘exchange link’ pages. Just do a search for ‘adult submit URL’ or ‘phonesex submit URL’ or similar. Your goal here is to get as many inbound links to your site as possible. Keep them relevant and decent.  Start with inks to your index page. Then try to get links to every single page on your site. This will help get each page indexed in the search engine and ultimately get you more traffic.
  • Keep updating! Google loves fresh content and will reward active, quality sites. Add new content to your site and improve it when you can. The search engines like to see websites growing organically, so write articles, add stories and new images. Add new pages and sections that are relevant and interesting for your viewers. Continue link building month after month to see organic growth in your sites popularity.
  • Keep a diary of the work you do and the time you spend on your website and on promoting it. It is always handy as you can keep a list of your linking partners and then use it for other sites. This way you can tally up your time verses your profits over a period of time and see how well you are doing.
  • Once your site is up and running, attracting traffic and generating a revenue, you can look to build or purchase a new one and get that one making money for you too!
    • Sep 23

    Republished Article. (Original Article Written by Scott Van Achte from StepForth Web Marketing Inc.)

    A few months ago I wrote an article about 13 ways a webmaster can go about building links to their site. One of these ways was through the use of directory submissions.

    There are many reasons why you may consider a directory submission. You could be trying to build your brand, focused on links for organic rankings, or simply want to drive traffic to your site. Below we will focus on the link building and organic ranking aspect of directory submissions.

    There are countless directories out there these days, some are free, some are paid, and many are garbage. If you decide to build links to your site using online directories, there are some things you will want to consider before spending your hard earned money.

    Page Rank
    Check the Google Page Rank. The visible page rank is only a very slight indication of a page’s strength, but a PR 6 still represents a site of more value than a PR 2. Do not discount a site solely based on PR, but know that a higher PR site, if relevant, will give you more value.

    Outbound Links
    Check the number of outbound links on the category page you would submit to. If the page has more than 100 outbound links, then chances are it will help you very little but there are of course some exceptions to the rule. Let’s say that the page in question has a few sites listed that are organically ranking in the top 10. The page also has a Google PR of 6/10, and the page is highly relevant to your industry. In this situation, even if there were as many as 150 or 200 outbound links, you would probably still want to get your site listed.

    The same holds true for DMOZ. We know that DMOZ is a great place to get your site listed, and while listing your site on a page with the fewest links will give you the most value. In the case of DMOZ, even if the relevant category for your listing exceeded 100 outbound links, I would not hesitate to continue with a listing submission.

    Category Pages
    Check the number of pages per category. If your main category has 10 pages of listings, you may want to forget it as the deeper you dive into these pages, the less value they will hold – they also add the risk of the directory being downgraded due to spam etc. If you still want to be listed, what page will your listing appear on? If you can’t get the first page, you will probably want to walk away.

    Are listings alphabetical? Are new listings added to the top or the bottom of the list? If they are added to the top, you should know that in time, as more people submit, your site will get bumped down to the subsequent pages, reducing its value with every new bump.

    Success of Other Listings
    Take a look at other listings in the directory. Are any of these sites ranking for related top phrases? Try to assess if other sites in your category are benefiting from a link at this directory, especially if it’s a paid directory.

    Anchor Text
    Does the particular directory allow you to determine the anchor text used, or does it simply link you URL. If you can choose the anchor text, the link will be far more valuable as it will allow more value to be passed on due to the relevance of the anchor text and the target phrase for your site.

    Indexed in Google?
    Are the directory and your preferred category sub page both indexed in Google and the other major engines? If it is a paid directory and they are not indexed, don’t waste your money. If the directory is well indexed including your preferred category, and has a fairly recent last cache date, then it is worth considering.

    Price
    Prices for directory listings can range from free to hundreds of dollars, so you have to ask yourself “is it worth it”. If you find that the directory is in good standing, other competing sites in your industry are ranking organically and listed here, and the page has a decent visible PR, this may warrant paying a higher premium to be listed. Be sure to consider if the billing is a one time or recurring expense.

    If you have only a $300 annual budget the $299 a year for Yahoo may make sense, however if you break that up into 10 listings in other top directories for $30 a year each, this may be a better investment – it all depends on what is available for your industry, how high its quality is, and at what price.

    Can Google See the Link?
    If your focus is on search engine rankings, then you definitely want to ensure that both your link, and the page your link resides on, are both fully spiderable by Google. Ensure that the rel=nofollow attribute is not used on your link, or on the pages that link to the directory page; also ensure that the page is not being blocked by a robots Meta tag or within the robots.txt file. The best indication that a page is seen by Google is if there is a recent cache of it within the Google index. If this page is also noted as a back link for others sites listed, it’s a pretty safe bet that yours will be seen also.

    SPAM
    Ensure that the directory you are submitting to is totally on the up and up. If you find that they are doing anything shady turn the other way. This could be in the form of hidden text or links, or abusive pop-ups, etc. If they are promoting some software or anything that may include adware or malware, you definitely do not want to be associated with this site.

    If the site is free and without an approval process, you may as well forget it. It will (if not already) end up littered to no end with irrelevant links which will drastically downgrade the value of the link to as low as zero. While Free-for-All sites can be a quick source for links, the links will actually be useless, so avoid them.

    There are many ways to build links for a site, and directory submissions are just one of them. By having your site listed in a number of relevant directories you can help your sites overall link reputation to grow. It is important to remember though, that directory links are usually not enough on their own, they are just one piece of the big picture.

    By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO