Greece is either goats or gold to adult webmasters. This land of opportunity has world-class athletes and world wide webmasters competing to please its crowds in 2004. Yet the best results come to those who master the fundamentals.Greece is either goats or gold to adult webmasters. This land of opportunity has world-class athletes and world wide webmasters competing to please its crowds in 2004. Yet the best results come to those who master the fundamentals. In this issue of the World Wide Webmaster we take you to sunny Greece and give you clear, concrete steps for taking home the gold.
Inside Greece
There are over 10.5 million Greeks living on the 3,000 islands and mainland that make up the eastern edge of the European Union. If you were to put all those islands together you would have a land mass slightly smaller than Alabama – with over twice as many people. Today there are over 1.7 million Greeks online. The number of Greek end users grew by 71.8% between 2000 and 2004. This is a golden opportunity for growth, with only 15% of Greeks yet online, compared with the average European internet penetration of 44%.
And, Greeks are big fans of nudity. The most popular nude beaches in the world are found in Greece. Historically, the Olympics were held nude, and according to the book Sexual Life in Ancient Greece, Greeks “felt a covering of the sexual parts, while the body was otherwise uncovered, to be unnatural, and recognized that such a covering only had any meaning if one had ascribed a moral and inferior value to their function.” Greeks know what genitals are for, and are happy to see them and have them be seen.
What’s Hot
What’s hot in Greece? Nude Olympians were hot in the summer of 2004, of course, but what really sells for webmasters on a consistent basis are sex galleries, with new opportunities coming from mobile products including ringtones and games.
Free galleries attract the highest amount of traffic in Greece. In the Olympic spirit, the Greeks prefer their entertainment to come from unpaid amateurs and hard-bodied teens. Put them to work and watch them outperform the “professional” porn stars.
Mobile entertainment has just begun to take off in Greece. According to NetSize, a mobile consulting company, the most common end user price for a ringtone is $2.40 for a monophonic and $3.00 for a polyphonic version. Games for mobiles cost $6.00 for a full color Java version, and $3.00 for a black and white. As a webmaster you will soon be able to make 25% – 30% as an affiliate for each end user’s ringtone and game purchase.
Getting The Gold From Greeks
How do you get Greek traffic and what are the best ways to convert it? Chances are you already have Greek traffic. While Americans tune into Greece for a couple of weeks to watch the Olympics, Greeks have been coming to American-based sex sites in droves since the beginning of the Internet. The simplest way to start making money with Greek traffic is to convert the traffic you already have… then go out and get some more of it.
Site Optimization
How should you optimize your site to increase Greek conversions? First, geo-sort. Next, give Greeks an experience in their own language and let them pay with telecom billing.
Greek Language
Why should you make your site available in Greek? You will convert more of the 1.7 million online Greeks living in Greece, plus the millions more end users of Greek origin living in over 140 countries around the world, according to the Greek Foreign Ministry.
As with every foreign language, a webmaster has two options: translate or partner. Planning to invest heavily in the Greek market? In this case the cost of translating your page is justified. Consider using Porn Translation Solutions (www.pt-solutions.net) where a native Greek speaker (think: Stephano Stephanopolis) will translate your English text into the local language. For the far majority of webmasters, the most intelligent solution is to partner with a telecom billing provider, such as Nocreditcard.com (webmaster.nocreditcard.com), which provides translated and locally customized promotion, content and billing in all major and many minor languages – including Greek and its next-door language, Turkish. Using this type of service is surprisingly simple. Webmasters sign up then geo-sort traffic from selected countries and route to the telecom billing partner. Staff can answer any questions about set-up, geo-sorting, automatic localization of language and billing methods.
Payment Solutions
Greeks pay for porn with a dialer and will not pay in any other way. In fact, it is one of the top 10 countries worldwide for dialer use.
Credit cards do not pay. According to a recent Datamonitor report, the credit card penetration in Greece is less than 0.25 per person. This compares with UK and Northern Europe figures of 1.75 credit cards per person. And, while it is likely that a person with a credit card is also an internet user – he does not use a credit card for e-commerce. Greeks do not trust this payment method. They are well informed about the security risks of shopping online with credit cards. Furthermore, your credit card processor will typically not process Greek credit card traffic.
SMS billing is in its infancy in Greece. Expect development to lag that of premium SMS in Europe by 18 months.
Traffic Generation
Once you are optimized to convert Greek traffic you will want to bring more visitors to your site. The best ways to attract Greek uniques are (in descending order) other webmasters, search engine placement, free sites and creating buzz, or, word of mouth.
Greek webmasters are eager to trade traffic with you. It’s easy to find these webmasters hanging out at the boards you already belong to, as Greek webmasters do not yet have their own national adult webmaster board. Just make a post to meet them, particularly at larger boards such as GFY and PornoJunkies.
Search engine optimization in Greece is a successful traffic generation tool, but a tricky one better left to native webmasters.
Free sites in Greece dominate the top 10 results on sexually oriented searches, and are a great source for boosting your Greek uniques. Translate your free site into Greek or trade traffic with these free sites.
A final suggestion is to generate buzz with unique content that generates its own traffic; for example, being the first to promote Paris Hilton in Greece.
Legal Issues
The birthplace of modern democracy and public nudity shows great respect for the legal rights of webmasters and end users. Greece is a free and fair market in which to promote and bill for all types of content. Greek regulations fully support a webmaster’s right to receive payment for his content.
Adult Webmaster Networking
Adult webmasters in Greece network in international cyberspace. Their community is small and growing – a good reflection of the overall market. As yet, the webmaster community has not become large enough to hold its own webmaster meetings or maintain dedicated webmaster boards. This is good news for you because Greek webmasters are hanging out on the boards with you right now.
The Greek adult online market is certainly easier to decode than the famously difficult Greek language. At the end of the day, a Greek end user is looking for the same experience as your other end users. By making a few key changes – geo target, translate, offer telecom billing – you will be able to give him what he wants and he will give you what you want: more cash. Follow the simple steps outlined in this edition of the World Wide Webmaster to increase your Greek gold today.
This article originally appeared in Klixxx Magazine. Special thanks to Codex and Panos Adams for contributing research and insight into this latest addition to the series.
Andreas manages the German-speaking markets for Nocreditcard.com. Mitch manages the English-speaking markets for Nocredticard.com. Clay manages marketing at Nocreditcard.com. Founded in 1996, Nocreditcard.com works with some of the largest, most respected companies in the industry. It’s a recognized leader in turning traffic into cash both domestically and internationally.
