Out of the large pool of the unemployed and underemployed in this economy, many people will be seeking to make a quick buck or more quick bucks from their adult e-commerce business — and you could be the one they squeeze! So we must all resolve to consolidate our online empires and make them stronger for the coming challenges, as others seek to lure away our clients and as politicians seek to hinder the growing revenue and popularity of adult content.
To aid that quest, here are 2009's Top 10 Tasks for adult webmasters:
1. I will go mobile.
Mobile adult entertainment is growing. The fortunate side of this means that there are many new technologies like Google Android that allow webmasters to build quick interfaces that bring streaming media, galleries and messaging to wireless users. The drawback of this new frontier is that there is little government regulation or schemes in place to separate adult content from other broadcasts. Services like AdultMobileSolutions.com will make this transition easier.
2. I will protect my business from government intervention.
With the new democratic administration one might think adult entertainment will catch a breather — and one might be right. Yet the pressure to clamp down on adult content might be too tempting for the Democrats to pass up. Therefore software like Brady & Associates’ MAVIS (available from www.2257ware.com) and services from companies like DLInteractive.com are vital staples if you are employing live models.
3. I will protect my online business from denial-of-service attacks.
Ever had a glamorous rollout for your adult business and suddenly web pages are slow? One of the dangers of this economy is that desperate times call for desperate measures. Unfortunately this means that many competitors of yours might resort to launching DoS attacks. Stopping DoS attacks takes on many forms: activity profiling, change-point detection, and wavelet analysis. If you have a large dedicated hosting plan consider products from companies like Tripwire.com as they can provide an automated response to these attacks.
4. I will become a search engine expert.
Today there are only a few major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. As adult webmasters and other e-commerce types perfect methods of increasing traffic by pandering to search algorithms, you can bet the search engines themselves are constantly changing to penalize page redirects and other tricks that gain their attention. Keeping up with this constant struggle between traffic optimizers and search engine builders is a must for the adult webmaster. Sites like SearchEngineWatch.com offer free advice and news on this ever-changing art of search engine placement.
5. I will consider offshore hosting and domain registration.
With an angry “moral minority” seeking to ban adult content online through legal means or just plain old intimidation, offshore hosting is a great remedy. With the right offshore hosting company it is almost impossible to nail down the adult businessperson who is selling content online. For a “private” domestic hosting service only a simple subpoena is needed to find out your personal information. When you host in a foreign country, it can be much more difficult. Sites like KatzGlobal.com and Shinjiru.com offer good, anonymous services of this nature.
6. I will clean up my websites.
No, we are not suggesting that you remove your stimulating adult content with this resolution. We simply are reminding the adult webmaster how messy a website can become as time goes on. When files, images and even protected documents are disorganized, it is much easier for a competitor to lift your content or for you to accidentally overwrite content when uploading new files. Free content management system tools like those available from Joomla.org organize your content using a relational database and will make your new year less of a headache.
7. I will protect my online content from theft.
With the economy tanking, many adult newbies will try to steal your content. One simple way to do this is by remotely linking to your images. This also steals your bandwidth, since it is your hosting provider that displays these remote links. The easiest way to combat this is using a tool like cPanel to remove links to specific items. For more protection consider an encryption suite like HTML Protector, available to download as a free trial from AntsSoft.com.
8. I will socially network my content.
This resolution is vague simply because it is so obvious. Today everyone is looking for romance on social networking sites. It thus behooves the adult webmaster to place his content in the mix. Automated tools like AIM Account Creator, MySpace Account Creator and Craigslist Email Harvester are just a few tools that you can obtain at Bodeezy.com to promote your adult models.
9. I will make use of Usenet.
Usenet was conceived in 1979, long before the web as we know it existed, as a way to organize articles and posts on the early Internet. Today these groups are crawled heavily by search-engine spiders and posts are picked up by third-party websites. Tools like those available from MightySubmitter.com make posting your content and links to newsgroups easy.
10. I will monitor links to my websites.
For those adult webmasters that advertise or participate in reciprocal link programs or affiliate programs, it is vital to find an easy way to check and see if your links are actually being displayed and whether or not they are broken. Tools like LinxCop from FileHouse.com will assist in this effort — even sending automated email to webmasters that fail to display your linked content.
These ten technical resolutions will prepare our businesses for the tough times ahead. In all likelihood the adult industry won’t get a bailout like Wall Street. So prepare for the worst and hope for the best, as new technologies make it easier for us to employ a more flexible business model.
