Continuing forward on how I would make money with the new "super converting" banner I had just saved from Helmy Cash, I realized that I might have a little problem finding just the right spot to place it. I liked the way my site was laid out, and I really didn't want to make it appear messy (covered with lots of banners), even though I knew it might help me to link to a few places that could give me an extra way to profit.
So the next thing I did was to go through my site and find just the right place in which I felt my banner would be most effective. My free story index page seemed like the perfect place; it was on the outside of my "Member's Area" and was where most of my traffic would go. I uploaded the banner to my site's "/images" directory, then edited my Web page to display it in the center, near the top of the page.
The next step would be to link my sexy new Orgy Party banner to my sponsor's site. I went back to my text file (where I had saved the banner linking codes I was given when I signed up for my account), and used it to copy and paste the right code, linking my banner to the Orgy Party site. I tested the link by clicking on the banner. I found that I would lose my surfer to my sponsor, because clicking the banner closed my site and opened only theirs. I still wanted a chance to give away more Free Net Passes, and to keep my site very friendly to the surfer, so I chose to pop the banner link into a new browser window, so that surfers wouldn't have to leave my site to visit my sponsor. This leaves more options open to me.
I decided to write a small caption underneath the banner, because I knew this would increase click-throughs (and hopefully sales). Taking advantage of my sponsor's resources, I went back to cash.helmy.com and picked out one of their recommended Text Links for the Orgy Party site, and saved it to use for my caption. I added this text as my banner's "alt" tag as well, and then uploaded the edited page to my server. I visited my site to admire my work; it looked great, but something was missing:
A Personal Touch
My goal was to make the surfer click on this banner, but I wasn't sure if I would even click on it myself - it needed a little something - but what? Since my site is such a personal one, I figured that what was needed was a purr-sonal recommendation from me. I wanted to see if I could find a few good things to say about this site, and I also wanted to see what the visitor would experience and whether or not I would be tempted to join. After all, if the site is no good, why would I bother advertising it? Only one way to find out:
I clicked the banner and a new window popped up taking me to my sponsor's Orgy Party site. What I found was a beautifully done, AOL-friendly home page, displaying lots of content options and overall looking very professional - drawing me further in to explore. I ran through the tour and took some notes, so that I would remember what features to highlight, and what to tell my site's visitors. Then I wrote a brief but very good recommendation, as I was quite pleased at what I saw. I then added it to my page in a way that fit nicely around the banner, and hyper-linked some of the portions of my text to the Orgy Party site.
That did it! The resulting pursonal recommendation really helped out as far as I'm concerned, but I'll have to wait and see what sort of click-through rate I'll get with this approach. After all, just because I like something doesn't mean that my customers will (but I'm betting that they'll love it).
Another "Traffic Filtering" Method
I wanted to somehow take advantage of the other six pay sites that my sponsor offered, so I went back and took all of the tours and jotted down some notes. Then I built a new page for my site. Adding "screen shots" of the pay site's home pages, I wrote a small "review" beside each of them, adding links to the images, site titles, and captions. This created an extra way for me to filter my traffic, giving them extra options to choose from - options that would pay me $35 to $40 for each signup!
I remembered reading an earlier article at XBiz on Traffic Filtering, and found that the more ways that I could use to filter traffic through to my sponsor, the more chances I would have to profit. Remembering some of the ideas that the article had to offer, I placed text links at the bottom of my site's main page and changed the descriptions a bit to fit my site, creating yet another way to give my customer what he or she wants.
When I had finished and had checked every link, not only was I happy with how I had taken advantage of my sponsor's resources, and used their extra pay sites to increase my chances of making a sale, but also I felt that the addition of advertising was actually an "improvement" to my site! And wait until you see what I am going to do with all the free photo content my sponsor gave me! ~ Ayrora
