When building adult porn sites, you’re going to screw up eventually… and to be honest, if you’re new at this game then you’ll probably screw up sooner rather than later. To help you avoid some common mistakes while developing your ability to learn from the mistakes that you do make, Chef Jeff talks about the most common mistakes new Webmasters make when trying to run their first amateur pay site.

It’s not easy building and managing your own amateur pay site.When building adult porn sites, you’re going to screw up eventually… and to be honest, if you’re new at this game then you’ll probably screw up sooner rather than later. To help you avoid some common mistakes while developing your ability to learn from the mistakes that you do make, Chef Jeff talks about the most common mistakes new Webmasters make when trying to run their first amateur pay site.

It’s not easy building and managing your own amateur pay site. Success means lots of hours of hard work. It’s even more difficult for those amateurs with no background in adult e-commerce. It may make you feel better to know that most amateurs had little or no background in adult e-commerce before starting their first site. Many of us got our start on the Web by simply posting to sites that feature amateur submissions, like VoyeurWeb.com. If you are like most of us however, you may aspire to turn your adult Web hobby into a profitable venture, and that means learning the ins and outs of the adult Internet business, and for most of us that means learning by trial and error. This article will serve as a guide to common mistakes made by newbie amateurs so that you can avoid some of the mistakes made by other Webmasters before you.

The bad news is that you will make many, many mistakes as you are learning the ropes of design, marketing, programming and all the other skills it will take to run a successful site. The good news is that most of the mistakes you will make are not mistakes that cannot be easily remedied.

MARKETING, SCHMARKETING

Post nude photos on your own adult site and charge money for them; sounds simple enough, right? Wrong, it’s not that easy. Have you considered where your paying customers are going to come from? Most newbies don’t; it’s a common mistake.

Search Engines – While search engines are certainly considered the best source for conversions, do not count on search engines as your primary source for traffic. You won’t be in business long if they are the only way you expect to get traffic to your site. You can, however, get more search engine traffic to your site by building additional “gateway” sites, then submitting them to the search engines as well. Other tips for better search engine placement include: link popularity (the more sites that you are linked with, the better for search engine placement), accurate description and keywords, and number of pages (larger sites tend to get higher search engine placement). I also recommend using Web promotion software such as AddWeb (AddWeb.com).

E-mail marketing – A good newsletter program should be part of your initial Web site design. Start collecting email addresses from the first day you open your site. Before long you will have a significant email list which you can then send your newsletter or email advertisements to. You can also sell advertising space on your newsletter once your list is large enough. Do not wait to add a newsletter program to your site, you are just throwing away money by doing so. I recommend this free newsletter program: http://mojo.skazat.com.

Link Trades – Amateurs usually depend on link trades as a main source of traffic, especially if they are not employing any other marketing strategies. It would be a mistake not to purchase an auto rank or recip link checker program if you plan on trading links. Many newbies simply throw banners from sites which they have traded links with on a links page. Eventually that page gets full and usually looks very unorganized. Auto rank pro from JMB Soft is the standard link trade program that most amateurs use. It automates all your link trades, checks for recip links and ranks sites according to which have sent you the most traffic in any given time period. (Jmbsoft.com)

Buy Advertising – Do not buy advertising if you are an inexperienced webmaster. Why? For the simple reason that new adult pay sites built by inexperienced Webmasters do not usually convert traffic to sales very well. Wait to purchase advertising until you have learned more about the business of adult pay sites. The longer you are in the business, the more you will learn about designing sites that convert better and why they convert. When you feel comfortable that your site is going to convert traffic to sales, then go out and buy some advertising.

Spend Wisely – When you are ready to buy traffic, make sure that you have spent some time researching the market. Do not simply buy ads at sites just because they have huge amounts of traffic; instead, look for ad space that will best fit your pay site. I also recommend buying ads at several different sites until you find a few that perform best.

Supply Yourself – You can supply your pay site with traffic by building your own network of free sites. Top Lists, TGPs and directories are types of free sites which require a minimum amount of maintenance because they are all run by automated programs. Advertise your own pay site on free sites that you own. Of course there are many other ways to get traffic to your site, but the main thing is to develop some sort of marketing plan. The money doesn’t just roll by itself in when you open your site.

LACKING IN CONTENT

Most of the money amateurs make is from recurring billing – that is, members of your site that re-bill and stay members of your site for a few consecutive months. The only way you’ll build your recurring memberships is to have a lot of content and to keep it constantly updated.

2257 COMPLIANCE

SO MUCH MORE

The above topics are among the most common newbie mistakes; of course there are a multiplicity of other mistakes that newbies make. These include things like shortcomings in areas such as pricing, exit traffic, 404 traffic and proper use of consoles and pop-ups. You will make mistakes as an adult Web designer, but the key is to learn form your mistakes and the mistakes of others to better your chances of making money.

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Chef Jeff is Editor-on-Chief of TheAmateurVoice.com and a regular guest writer here at The ADULTWEBMASTER Magazine.