Most major companies are aware of the importance of building their brand, but most webmasters only think about the direct traffic they will receive as a result of any marketing they do and don't consider the importance of developing recognition. Brand awareness building is critical, because it helps you establish credibility and that is important whether you sell a product or service and want to instill confidence among consumers or just hope to trade links with some high traffic website owners.

Webmasters are keenly aware of how prevalent cheating and scamming is in this industry, so they tend to be a little more skeptical. Although not specifically brand related, one mistake that many webmasters make, is to use a proxy service to hide their identities when they register a domain name. Although on the surface it seems like a good idea, the fact is that it makes you smell fishy to anyone that is thinking of doing business with you. Even though you may simply be trying to hide your identity because you live in a conservative community, webmasters that don't already know you will make some assumptions if they can't somehow compare your name, phone number or email address with the info in your Whois profile. This is especially true of TGP owners.

Okay, so back to building brand awareness. If you're simply hoping to make a few extra bucks a month for cigarettes or to take your girlfriend to the movies, this doesn't apply to you, but frankly, we don't want you in this industry anyway. For those of you that realize that this is a business and not a get rich scheme or a hobby, branding is important to you whether you run a TGP, sell sex toys, or run an affiliate program. That means it's important for you to be less concerned about ROI and more concerned with promoting and establishing your brand. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that most of you own large companies with logos and corporate identities and have millions of dollars to spend on advertising like Nike does. Building your brand can be something as simple as getting lots of people to recognize the nickname you go by. If you post on the adult message boards and use the same nick on every one, contribute intelligently to the threads, avoid the pissing matches and maintain a good reputation with the webmasters you deal with, you are building brand awareness for that nickname.

Here are some ways that you can build brand awareness for your company, your affiliate program, your persona, etc.

1. Participate on the adult message boards. Be sure to use the same nick on every board and put something useful in your sig.

2. If you have a new affiliate program, sell a product or offer a service, buy advertising in appropriate places and don't concern yourself with the obvious return you get from those banners in the form of click throughs or sales. Consider the fact that if your name is seen often enough, you are still getting benefit from it.

3. Attend the various adult webmaster conventions. If you can afford it, get a booth, or give out t-shirts and other schwag with your name and url on them or wear t-shirts with your name and url on them if you can't afford to print enough to hand out. At the very least, be sure to bring plenty of business cards and don't just keep them in your pocket.

4. Follow up every email you receive with a response and take the time to develop a professional looking signature. Instead of just signing your emails with Sincerely, Bob, add your company name, title and a link to one or more of your websites.

5. Write your url on bathroom walls. Okay, I'm just kidding, but there are offline ways to build brand recognition as well as traffic for your websites. Consider sponsoring a wet t-shirt contest and print the url of your website on the t-shirts. Buy print ads in industry publications like Klixxx Magazine. Pay to hang your banners by the pool at industry conventions, rent a plane to fly by pulling your advertisement or sponsor a party or event.

These are just some of the things you can do to build brand awareness for yourself or your company, but remember, that whether you spend thousands of dollars a month on advertising or just spend time posting on the boards, a certain percentage of that money or time should be used to promote your brand.

I often hear it said that in order to have a successful adult web site, the owner must know HTML and be able to work on their own sites. Although I do agree that it is a good idea to have some basic knowledge, especially for those with a limited budget, I don't agree that it's a requirement.

In my opinion, the number one thing to know in order to run a successful adult web site is marketing. Designing and maintaining a web site is the easy part. Getting paying customers to the door is the hard part.

I think a good analogy to illustrate my point is a real estate salesman. I assure you that the vast majority don't have a clue how to build a house. Their job is to sell them. They need to know the market, have salesmanship abilities, and work their asses off to find prospects, just like we do.

I'm not suggesting that someone can make a lot of money in this business with a TGP or blog without doing any of the work themselves, but you can certainly pay someone to build one for you and then maintain it yourself and do so without knowing the first thing about HTML. The same is true of a pay site where you can use a CMS (content management system) to maintain the members area and the work is all done for you by the software. You simply need to be able to upload the content to your server and input some information in the control panel.

I'm not trying to talk anyone out of learning HTML and doing all of the work themselves if they want to, but if you're the type of person that is better at selling than manufacturing, you can hire out the grunt work and concentrate on what you do best and still make a lot of money with an adult web site. You won't be able to call yourself a webmaster, but Donald Trump doesn't call himself a carpenter either.