If you decide to enter the adult Internet development business, the very first question you should ask yourself is this: “What kind of adult website will I build?” To answer that question you’ll need to know the purpose of the website you plan to create, and how that website will make money. You should always start with purpose, and then address the financial questions afterwards.There are a lot of adult websites on the Internet, but a whole bunch of them don’t get many visitors. Sometimes that’s because these websites exist mostly to grab what traffic they can – only to then send the clicks someplace else. Other times the problem lies with sites that just don’t serve any real purpose.

If you’re reading this article then I’m going to assume that you’re interested in building a destination website, rather than simply trying to farm a few clicks from Google. If that’s the case, you need to decide what purpose your website will serve – and that means putting yourself in the shoes of your desired audience.

It won’t be enough to define your purpose as “delivering porn.” That’s too broad of a purpose for today’s Internet, and if you build a website with that goal in mind it’s very likely to be unremarkable. Your purpose needs to be as narrow as possible, with special thought given to how your site will stand out from the crowd. That’s not an easy task when you’re talking millions of websites worldwide, but take heart from the knowledge that most of those sites aren’t any good. There’s always room for something innovative and new on the Internet.

When defining your website’s purpose, you have a couple of variables that can be tweaked.

First variable, you have the type of adult content that you will be delivering. Will it be pictures? Videos? Both? Or perhaps your content will be more like YNOT.com, delivering information in written form, professional services, or online tools for interaction.

Second variable, you have your own unique spin on whatever type of content you’re delivering. If you’re shooting videos or pictures, for example, can you develop a niche or theme that isn’t easy to find on other websites? We’ll talk more about niches at a later date.

Third variable, you can offer “secondary content” that serves a supporting role. You may have seen sites like hotornot.com, where the pictures are the primary content and the user rankings system is supporting content. If you just want to deliver adult images, is there some kind of supporting content that you can deliver alongside those images that will enhance the value of your primary content?

Fourth variable, you have the mechanisms for delivering that content. How will people navigate your website? How will they find what they’re looking for? Is there an interactive element to your website, and if so what role will that play in the overall plan? Two websites that provide the same content aren’t always equal. If one website is easier to navigate and delivers the content more effectively, that website will likely have an edge in retaining visitors.

Next time out we’ll look at business models and how you might make money with your website. In the meantime, start thinking about the above points regarding purpose. Does the website you want to build have a purpose? Is the purpose sufficiently narrow in focus? Why would anyone want to visit this website? Answering these questions will start the creative process that hopefully ends with an effective and profitable adult website.