Types of Sites

The adult Internet industry changes constantly. Four years ago, you could put up pretty much anything and expect to be profitable. Much has changed since then. In short, the industry has seen a proliferation of sites, which has made it much more difficult to turn a profit. Fortunately or unfortunately, the industry is in a period of consolidation and many of the "quick buck" people are getting out after losing money on get-rich-quick scams. While painful, this evolution has been good for the industry because it has forced Webmasters to focus their efforts while weeding out the weaklings.

Can you still make money in this industry? Yes…if you do it right. If you research the industry, you will see an evolution to very niche-oriented sites that have a theme to them. Whether it is sex in a bus, or bondage communities, the adult Industry is going niche.

Free Site - There's no sense of urgency to start a pay site. I've seen tons of webmasters make very good money picking the right ad programs. The key with a free site is to pick a niche, then pick a niche within that niche. Be very specific. Search engines will be kind and so will most thumbnail posts. Who cares that you won't have as much traffic as regular hardcore sites? Have you seen the conversion ratios with regular hardcore sites these days? All that matters is how well you can convert the clicks. Let's say you open a hairy site and only collect 1,000 uniques a day. Make sure you send that traffic to an ad program catering to hairy, or start your own pay site if you can't find one. If the majority of your traffic is from search engines or type-ins, you're probably converting 1/100, which means you are getting 10 sign ups a day! It's targeted traffic. If you had a regular hardcore site it would take about 5,000 uniques to match that production (at a 1/500 conversion ratio). Why stop there? I'm sure you can think of 5 to 10 other niches that are not easy to find these days, but hurry up. So quit putting all of your efforts in your 1 site and start 10 different sites.

Pay Site - If you're determined to start a pay site, do your homework. This means you have to check out what content your competition is using. Find what they don't have and exploit it. Niche! If you can't find different content, contact content providers and see if they can make it just for you. Everything has a price. But understand that a small amount of content means that you'll only hold members about 1 or 2 months. The name of the pay site game is keeping members as long as possible, so try to keep them at least 5 to 6 months by updating your site frequently and using a ton of different content. I recommend spending at least $3,000 to $5,000 a month in feeds. If you can't offer as many pics and feeds as the other sites, you can make up for it by providing killer service for your members.

Follow tips to improving your profitability:
• Use daily updates, creative galleries and postings, live sex chat with a real amateur from her house and whatever else you can find.

• Keep your members involved, give them a say, treat them like they're your only member. Create a customer survey to find out what your members think of your site, what they do and don't want to see and how else you can give them more bang for their buck. Remember that it is a heck of a lot easier to keep the customer you already have than it is to attract a new one.

• Pick a good credit card processor. Pay attention to who the larger pay sites are using these days. Always have a secondary processor ready, in case of an emergency.

• Don't be cheap with your hosting! You never have a second chance to make a first impression. Ever notice how many more hits you receive after you switch from a bad host to a good one? I've seen about a 15% difference, at least. What happened to that 15% before? I guess they gave up and hit their back buttons.

• Don't give the surfer enough free content so they can "get off". Tease them. Nothing wrong with a big preview section, just be a tease. The more worked up they get, the sooner they'll buy.

• Don't forget to have a join link on every page.

• Exit consoles - I would recommend using just one exit console. Put them on the surfer pages and your webmaster area. Why use exit consoles? Because you might as well make some cash off the guy who doesn't buy from you but may buy from someone else. Make sure you sign up for their webmaster programs before you start sending the traffic. The trick is to use text links and offer everything you can imagine.