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Building Decent Free Sites: AKA 5 Pages of Hell.
Jeremy
Well, yes. The people who like to watch their counters going round and their bandwidth bills going up build TGP pages. The people who are in it for the long haul and who like to count cash tend to build free sites.
Traffic to free sites is less than TGP in the short term, but raw traffic doesn't make you money unless the surfer can be persuaded to click. The Free Site surfer is a different animal to the TGP surfer, they generally like to click on links and have a bit more of an inquisitive nature. Once they start clicking it's awfully difficult to stop them (which is a shame!).
I know how people love stats, so I'll give you some, I've seen non-blind CTRs (reasonably qualified Click Through Ratio of raw surfers) on TGP pages as low as 1:200 (0.5%) and it's generally thought that a good CTR is around 1:40 (2.5%). On a Free Site achieving 1:20 (5%) is fairly straight-forward and I've seen CTRs up as high as 1:7 (14%), and I'm sure some people have had higher. If you follow the numbers through, this means that to achieve the same number of clicks to your sponsors as on a TGP page you need anywhere from half the traffic to twenty eight times less!
Once you reduce the traffic but improve it's clicking quality, even if your income stays the same, you will make more money, because the cost of that traffic is lower as your bandwidth bill lessens. And that's before you even begin to take into account the value of the Links Lists' Archives or Search Engine traffic.
So, with all that in mind, I thought I'd jot down a few tips on building better free sites with the aim of making you more money, based around certain key elements of any free site.
Design:
A free site does not neccesarily need to be beautiful to work well, but in my view it does need to have certain elements about its design.
Clarity & Space:
Always build your sites so they are clear to navigate through, from the enter links to the gallery links and also the advertising links. "Frustrated" or forced clicks tend to have really terrible converion ratios. By making things clear it actually gives your ads room to breathe and can increase click-throughs.
Simplicity:
If you keep your free site design relatively simple, then not only is it easier to navigate round, it's easier to replicate.
Templates:
Try to avoid using the same template over and over again without changing it, remember that these are inquisitive surfers who like to look around and are intrigued by new and different things. I think Greenguy once said, build a template a day for thirty days and then start to rotate through them, using a different one each day. Always make sure that your templates are easy to modify for new sites and easy to keyword up for Search Engine traffic.
Text Sizing:
I've never been a fan of different text sizes for ad links and navigation links. I know that if I have to concentrate to find the link, that's all I care about and I don't even notice any advertising. I'd always reccommend keeping all the text the same size and making the ads seem like a natural part of the site.
Personality:
I've always felt that if you put a little bit of individuality into a site then you will grab the surfer's attention and keep it for longer - this increases your chances of selling to them. Don't be afraid to inject your sites with your own spin.
Layout:
Perhaps the thought of building four or five pages in a day and a complete site scares some people off, maybe it's too complicated for them?
Free sites are quite simple to build, usually they consist of four to five pages. These pages are:
A Warning Page with an Enter link: This is the first place a surfer will hit when they visit and should contain ads as well as the standard Over 18 type warnings. Generally, if a surfer has to hit the page down button more than twice on an 800*600 screen to get to the enter link, there's too much on the page and they'll just back out without looking at your remaining ads. Make it clear where eveything is and make sure this page is keyworded. Gnenerally an ad that takes up a full screen will be counted as a fullpage ad.
A Menu Page with links to the galleries: This is your second page and should have ads as well as the gallery links. Again, if the surfer has to scroll down too far they'll back out without seeing any more ads. Again, make it clear where eveything is and make sure this page is keyworded. Generally an ad that takes up a full screen will be counted as a fullpage ad.
Gallery Pages: These are the ones with the pics and ads on them. You can keyword this page and if your selling tactic is "look at the great pics this site has" then your layout should be optimised to give space for specific site advertising.
You can also go down the Warning Page - Gallery Page - Gallery Page route rather than having a Menu Page. I've always preferred the first way of doing it, but there's probably little difference between the two and it;s good to mix it up a bit.
Ads:
Most sponsors these days provide a wealth of advertising material for you to use and these come in all shapes and sizes. Use them, but use them wisely. I've always favoured small banner ads with text links attached to them, and found them to be the most effective, in terms of both generating clicks (because surfers do read!) and increasing keyword levels. Once you start writing your own text to go with ads, you find yourself talking to the surfer, finding more and better reasons for them to click and talking to them in different way.
Standalone text links also work, but standalone banners haven't really worked since about 1997 - and maybe not even then.
Generally, you will find that if you do not use misleading ads (which tend to look like thumbs or mini-pics) or misleading text (like claiming something is free when it's not) then the quality of your clicks will improve and you will get better conversion ratios. "Misled" clicks tend to have similar ratios to forced clicks.
Always, always, always make your ads relevant to your site niche and your content
Content:
Ahhh content. I've seen good content, I've seen bad content. In fact over the last six years I think I've seen pretty much everything. But still, even with a jaded eye, good quality relevant content always gets me going and makes me want to have a look around. If it does that to me, imagine what it will do to less jaded surfers!
Use good quality content which is relevant to your topic - if you're building a cumshot site, use cumshot content. The quality does not need to be paysite quality unless you are extolling the virtues of a specific site. As a bare minimum the pics should be 500*300, but with bigger monitors ond screen resolutions these days 640*480 is a better minimum size to use.
Some of you will have been told that your job is to tease the surfer (ie bugger all nudity). It's not. Your job is to make money for yourself and the best way to do that is to make sure you have content that matches what you're selling.
Traffic:
Links sites run differently to TGPs. Generally there is less favouritism shown to specific posters and it's more straightforward to get traffic provided you follow the rules. You can be more creative with free sites than you can with TGP pages - and that's no bad thing.
Many of the links sites require reciprocal links and even if they don't you should put one up on your Warning Page to return the favour. They are not traffic leaks, very few of them get clicked on and let's face it, the amount of clicks sent to your site will far outweigh traffic back.
Once you get listed, most Links Sites will keep you on their "New" page for a week or so before you go into their archives. Once you're in their archives, you will be listed in their for anywhere from six months to as long as the site is up and substantially unchanged. This traffic is all good, because of the web of recip links most links sites get crawled by the major SEs several times a day it will also help your SE ranking. The amount of instant sign-ups is not huge, but as I said at the beginning of this article, free sites are a long haul game. To give you an example, I'm still getting sign-ups and checks on sites I built over two years ago and have not touched since, so if you're building a site a day, imagine the cumulative effect. I'm sure there are other webmasters out there who are still getting sign-ups from sites they built even farther back than that.
Rules:
Ooooh, those rules are complicated and long-winded aren't they? How are you supposed to make any money if they stop you from using consoles, FPAs, restrict the number of ads?
In reality they're not that complicated, once you can speak the lingo, and if you follow them and build cleanish sites you will get listed more often than not. They've developed over time and are a result of looking to build more traffic to send to your sites, not out of a desire to stop webmasters from earning money. Almost every site has little quirks and variations, but once you work your way through them there are a few constants such as minimum number of pics and maximum number of ads which usually you can work towards. The people who generally get the best traffic from links sites tend to exceed these requirements rather than doing the bare minimum.
Visit the sites, read the rules, and if neccessary ask questions. The only stupid question is the one that goes un-asked.
Of course, the most important thing once you've read the rules is to follow them.
If you've read this far, then congrats, hope it was worthwhile for you :) In a one sentence summary, I'd say that a clean easy to navigate SE optimised site with decent quality content and niche matched targetted advertising is what makes a decent free site.
Why on earth would anyone want to build a free site? TGP is where the action is, surely?
