Back to basics - linking up a banner

I was talking to a new adult webmaster on email yesterday, and giving him a hand with linking up a banner. After you've been doing this for some time it gets to be second nature, but when you're just starting out - it can be a bit tricky. With that in mind, here's some help on getting a banner on your adult website, complete with your link codes.

PART 1: Saving banners to your hard disk

Most sponsors out there will advise on their sites something to the effect of: "You must download this banner - and NOT link to it on our server!" When you see the banners available at the sponsors site, they are currently being transmitted from the sponsor's webspace. We need to get them on to YOUR webspace.

The way we do this is kind of ass backwards. The reason I say that is because you have to get them down from the Internet (on to your hard disk), then beam them back up to the Internet onto your webspace. As I'm sure you'll soon find out - NOTHING is easy when it comes to the internet!

Saving banners.

It doesn't matter what type of banner you're going to work with (GIF or JPG), or how large or small it is - saving them is always the same process:

• Move the mouse pointer so that it is positioned over the banner you want to use.
• Right click on the mouse. (Shift + click if you're on a Mac).
• Choose SAVE AS

At this point, a familiar view should pop up. You can now save the banner to your hard disk.

Where to???

Good question! Let's imagine that you have some kind of folder on your hard disk for the website you're making. This is the folder which will contain all of the webpages for that site. Now, there should also be a folder in that folder called "images". THIS is where the banner should be saved to. The layout should look something like this:

sexy-website/
sexy-website/images/ <-- banners go in here!
sexy-website/index.html
sexy-website/main.html

OK so now we've got a folder called images, and a banner in there.

Renaming banners...

When you are saving the banner, you will have the option to change the name of the file. You can save the banner as any name that you like. This is often a very good idea, because some banners are named:

ab000pt3d.jpg

... or something else similar. This title could have made sense to the designer at the time, who had many banners to create in the same sequence, but it is of little help to us now. Something more helpful could be:

obscene-facials-02.jpg

That tells us which Paysite this banner is for, and also gives it a number. Much more helpful than it's "birth name".

When you upload your webpage files, don't forget to FTP up the images/ folder too. This will automatically beam all of the images in that folder up onto the web.

PART 2: Adding to your webpage.

I want you to forget about the code which you are given by your sponsors for now. Most sponsor sites will generate the HTML code which you must paste onto your webpage to get the banner to work. This can sometimes be confusing however, and it's much easier if we learn to add the banner to a webpage without relying on that code. Here's how:

In a text editor:

1) Add the following line to your webpage:

<IMG SRC="images/obscene-facials.jpg">

And that's it! That's all it takes to get that banner loading on your page. Obviously, you'll need to change the obscene-facials.jpg banner to the name which you saved your banner. The images/ part tells the browser that the banner lives in a folder called "images" - and to go and fetch it to load onto this page.

You do not need to put your domain name anywhere in that code. We are using a relative path (which you can read more about here: http://www.tomsnewbiebooster.com/absolute-and-relative-paths.html)

In a WYSIWYG / visual editor:

This will vary somewhat, but you'll have to click the "ADD IMAGE" button, and then navigate to it's location on your hard disk. Check the documentation of that package, or give me a shout and I'll help you more on this one.

PART 3: Linking to the sponsor's Paysite:

Great. We've now learnt how to add a banner to a page. But that's pretty pointless if it doens't take the surfer anywhere when they click it. We've got to get surfers who click on this banner off to your sponsors AND get you credit for it.

The first thing we need is a "link code" for this site. This is a special web link which will send people to the Paysite in question, but also run a computer program telling the sponsor that YOU send that person there. You'll then get credit for anything they buy when they're there. Go to your sponsor's site. Each one is slightly different, so you might have to hunt around. Look for "LINK CODES" or "BANNERS AND LINKS" - or something like that. The line you need should look something like this:

http://www.oralcumshot.com/index.php3?x=201&l=username

• Select that code (but highlighing it with the mouse pointer).
• Press CTRL + V.
• Go back to your webpage editor.

In a text editor, add this code around it:

<A HREF="http://www.oralcumshot.com/index.php3?x=201&l=username"><IMG SRC="images/obscene-facials.jpg"></a>

In a WYSIWYG / visual editor:

It's ususally a case of selecting the banner, and the clicking on the LINK / ANCHOR button. Again, you might need to check the instructions here.

And that should be about it. Please let me know if you have any problems...

TOM ^"^

ICQ 12616560
Email tom@tomsnewbiebooster.com

Enter TOM'S NEWBIE BOOSTER

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