My last two articles were very general, trying to give you the best concepts I could come up with on how to build free sites that get traffic and make the most sales. In this article I will get to the flesh of things ;) , and try to give you detailed tips about Site Design!

I don't think I need to say much about the importance of your site design. The design of a site affects the type listing you'll get on link sites, the amount of sales you'll generate, and the bookmarks you'll get. That is if you are looking for bookmark traffic.

So let's get straight to it!

General Page Design Notes

"Build your gallery pages with many tables. If you build it using one big table, the thumbnails will load faster then your banners."

1. First thing to remember when you are designing your site is that you need to match it with the niche you are focusing on. What do I mean? Well let's say you build a bondage site, you need to set the atmosphere for this type of niche. For bondage you can use a black background, gothic fonts and red links ;). On the other hand you won't use the same design for an amateur site. If you are not sure on what color, fonts etc.. to use, visit some pay sites, there are some really great designs that can help give you some ideas. ;)

2. Ever since many webmasters realized that banners are not what they used to be, I see a lot of sites just swamped with text links. Although I'm a big fan of "Text Links", a page filled with text the same size and color is very confusing for the surfer and he will most likely ignore the text. So first off, don't use too much text, and make sure you use different text sizes & colors to attract the surfer to read though your site.

3. Don't put your advertisement around your content (pics, gallery links), place your banner/text links, between the pics, on the side. Anywhere where they can't be easily ignored. Just don't over do or it may cause link sites to delete your listing on their sites.

4. Give your pages a unique look. We all know how most sex sites look, try to make yours different. It will be more interesting for you to build and for the surfers to surf, and when people are interested in something, they tend to pay more attention to everything including your banners and links.

5. Build quick loading pages. Many surfers and link site administrators will leave your site if it's saturated with slow loading graphics. It will also help your bandwidth bill at the end of the month. You don't have to use a graphic logo for your site, there are some nice things you can do with HTML, and if you do use a graphic logo, try to use it only on your first page. Keep in mind that you're your traffic increases, every bit of bandwidth saved will be well worth it when your hosting bill comes along!

Some Small Design Tips

1. Build your gallery pages with many tables. If you build it using one big table, the thumbnails will load faster then your banners. So divide it to small tables, this will cause the page to load table after table, and will make your banners visible before all the thumbnails load .

2. If you have a recip table on your front page (a place where you link back to all the links sites), you can get many hits if you place a small button banner under it. Many surfers will think it's just another "link site" and will think to click on it more often. Use this one with caution, it will provide really bad ratios cause the surfers think they are going to a free site. So you might want to avoid it, or use it to send hits to your own free site, free AVS site, FPA …

3. Pay special attention to your first page. Surfers that will click on your first page are most likely to be newbies that haven't been around enough to know to just scroll down to the enter button. These surfers are more likely to buy a membership, plus the most traffic you drive from your first page to your sponsor and away from your own bandwidth bill is great.

4. Use a main pag. I see many sites that link the enter button directly to the gallery page. These webmasters are missing out on a whole page that can be made with nothing but advertising and links to the gallery. Another thing to keep in mind is making sure your gallery links are failry easy to find. Make it clear and easy to figure out or else you won't get listed, but making your surfer scroll a little while looking at your ads won't hurt.

5. Speaking of your main page - don't make your gallery links TO EASY to find. Make your surfer scroll a little trough your sponsor ads. You might want to use small buttons for the gallery links so they won't load before your banners do. Just don't make them too hard to find or you won't get listed on many link sites.

6. There are two things you might want to use for gallery links. First don't place a link to the second gallery page on your first gallery . You want to send the surfer to your sponsor so why help him find more free content. Second if he has to click back to find the second gallery he will have to take another look at yoursponsor ads. Now after you've done that, avoid having the surfer click back on the browser. Setup a small "text link" between your gallerie links or under them to direct him back the the main page.;)

7. Does your sponsor give away nice free content, do you have licensed hardcore pics ? Great. Make your own banners. A little larger then the normal thumbnail makes a great banner. I use it a lot on my amateur sites. When you want to show how many sexy amateurs your sponsor has. Just make sure you add a little text on those "banners" so they wont be considered as blind links. This way you will have fresh banners in any size you want.

Alright folks, I can go on and on with tons more design tips, but the most important thing is for you to figure out what works the best for you. So I hope I gave you something to work with. Next step now is to build, build, and build some more.. ;)