“Remember that your site can never be too fast, too fresh, or have too much content.”“Remember that your site can never be too fast, too fresh, or have too much content.”

Since successful AVS and paysite tours are always a work in progress, where “freshness” not only helps initial signups but member retention, it behooves adult webmasters to learn as much as possible about maximizing tour effectiveness. So, after reading Oz’ recent article on Marketing, Traffic, and the User Interface, I decided that it was about time I freshened up the tour on my main AgeCheck AVS “Platinum” site, PORNWORKS: The Smut Factory.

I gleamed many of the following tips from the Paysite Management seminar at CyberNet Expo in New Orleans. Combined with what I learned from Oz’ article and other sources, this should be enough to help produce a more productive tour:

Points to Consider
Privacy Policies are important. More surfers are looking for them, especially on adult sites where they face a high risk of “embarrassment” if their personal info was revealed. Make sure that you include a link to your Privacy Policy on your first tour page. And don’t harvest email addresses on tour pages or join forms, save that for “inside” pages and exit consoles. You don’t want to do anything to “frighten” or distract the surfer from joining your site.

Remember that your site can never be too fast, too fresh, or have too much content. A successful tour will be fast and highlight the freshness, variety, and abundance of your content. And speaking of content, always highlight the differences between what is available on your site and what is usually available from typical “free” sites – especially if you offer “brain candy” (that is to say “intellectual” content for the surfer to enjoy after he has checked out your more sexually oriented content).

Whatever style of tour you decide upon, ensure that you use consistently located “buttons” for navigation, with “join” and “next” in the lower right hand portion of the screen. Another neat trick involves putting “Join” in yellow on sites that use black backgrounds. This will increase sign ups – and changing that text to read “Instant Trial Access” (for sites offering trial memberships) will further increase sign ups.

As for the join page, it should inspire confidence in the surfer, not distract him. Assure him there will be no credit card hassles and that he will be billed discreetly. You should also tell him a little bit about who you are, and provide contact information.

Don’t make visitors scroll to see your page! Limiting the size of your tour pages to the viewable area of an 800×600 browser display (approximately 730×340 pixels) may work best for most users, but if you want to accommodate WebTv users as well as those using 640×480 browsers, keep your page size to 540×300 pixels.

Well, I think that’s enough for now! These points plus Oz’ article will guide me to the tweaks I need in order to squeeze more signups out of my tour. In the next installment of this article, I’ll show you a few “before and after” screenshots, and discuss the changes that I made. Until then, check your site to see if it needs a makeover!

Next week I’ll show you the “Before and After” pics!

Reader Comments on this Article:

Comment by:Summary:
StephenWhat do you think?
OzAmen!
BossHawgDesign Question
OzResolution, tour design, etc.
Max WheelerComments on my Site?