GAY MARKET MATTERS

Previously on YNOT News, we discussed the many advantages of creating sites that cater to the gay market. (To view the last installment of Gay Market Matters, click here.) Now that it’s time to make a site, one of the first things you’ll need to do is pick a niche and scout out some good content.GAY MARKET MATTERS

Previously on YNOT News, we discussed the many advantages of creating sites that cater to the gay market. (To view the last installment of Gay Market Matters, click here.) Now that it’s time to make a site, one of the first things you’ll need to do is pick a niche and scout out some good content. Wait. Let me rephrase that…

Not just good content… GREAT CONTENT! You need to find content that will entice your visitor to click further into your site with one hand while the other one is scrambling to pull a credit card out of their wallet. The pictures you use will make or break your site, so you have to know what you’re looking for. But how do you go about finding it if you’ve never bought gay content before?

When searching for gay content the most important factor is definitely the shelf life of the pictures. How long have they been on the market? How many copies have been produced and sold? The fresher the better, so make sure to ask the content provider these questions prior to laying down your hard earned cash. Any honest content provider will tell you how many CDs of the same content are out there circulating. Another good suggestion is to take a look around at some sites to see what’s out there. Look at a lot of sites and you’ll most likely run across quite a few webmasters using the same sets.

When searching for just the right content, keep your most fundamental need in the forefront. This is your moneymaker and what essentially makes a surfer join or back out. Of course, I’m referring to your tour and sample images. Make sure the content you purchase has adequate pictures that you can use to entice your clicks into conversions. If the content provider does not show all or a large portion of the pics for you to view, ask them for a closer look. Most providers will be more than happy to do this.

So, what type of pictures make for good samples on your tour? Depending on the type of site you are making you’ll probably need pics that the model is looking straight at the camera. However, if you’re creating an amateur site, you may want the model to be looking near the camera, but not straight at it. Also, some other good poses to use on your tour are good ‘butt’ shots, poses that show the models pubic hair, and erections in underwear. In addition, excellent facial expressions or simulated sex that does not show nudity make great samples as well.

As time goes on, the search for more and more unique content can become time consuming and exceedingly more expensive. The scarcity of quality gay content has caused some webmasters to produce their own content. For example, the website I work with recruits amateur models each month as part of our exclusive content. The cost of producing your own content is slightly more than buying an off-the-rack CD; but it is still very much affordable for the average webmaster. The average cost to hire a model for a photo shoot ranges from $150 to $300. As for GlobalMalePass.com, we pay our exclusive models based on experience and how well we think they will sell.

Shooting your own content is not as hard as you think. With today’s technology, supplying your own content allows you to cut out the middleman while providing you with exactly what you need. On the flip side, some prefer the simplicity of purchasing content. However, most Webmasters that provide their own content do license content from other suppliers as filler or a supplement to their original content.

If you’re purchasing gay content for the first time or it has become old hat to you, you need to focus on three basic questions. What type of content does your target audience want, will you have enough samples to entice your surfers to convert, and is the content you’re purchasing fresh or over-saturated? There are many great content providers that specialize in the gay market. As always, take time to investigate them all and make sure your content is a sound economic investment.

The authors are, respectively, the Director of Marketing and Webmaster Relations for GlobalMalePass.com.