"Why do my TGP ratio's suck?"
This is a question I hear from a lot of people around the boards, through friends via ICQ and at shows. While a lot of the people who are saying this are new to the game, a few people that I've heard have been around at least a couple years. I'm going to attempt to shed a little light on the subject and help you try to understand why you are seeing poor conversion ratios.
#1. Look at your gallery
This is one of the biggest problems that I see out there. When I have a look at the galleries of some people, I often say out loud, "What the fuck?". Let me start at gallery mistake #1.
- The oversaturation of advertisements
This is a problem that should be so obvious to many, yet it's not. If you have a gallery, there is no need for more than 2 strategically placed ad's. Switch rolls and become the surfer. If you see ad's plastered all over the gallery, you won't think about the content anymore. You'll just think about getting stuck paying for a membership that you probably won't want because of 1 simple fact: The though of paying for porn is more prevalent than the porn itself. Target your ad's, give them a nice teaser and you'll see a better CTR%.
- The poor use of thumbnails
It never has made sense to me, but I see this all the time. If your index.html is the first page that the surfer sees, why not make every thumb crisp, clear, and 1 size? It drives me nuts seeing fuzzy thumbs that are not contrasted properly and unbalanced color wise. It also drives me nuts seeing some thumbs that are 90x120, some that are 100x100, and some that are 137x95. Your thumbnail creator should have an option to make all thumbs a certain uniform size, and should also crop to fit if desired. If you have a sloppy page, you have an uninterested surfer.
- Sell the sex first and membership second!
If you are a surfer and looking for porn, the odds are that you are trying to get your dick hard. Entice them by using some descriptive text about what they are looking at, so that they can make this a personal fantasy. As they get towards the bottom of the page, mention the price point, what bonus sites they will see, and how much/what type of content they will have access to. Remember... Dick hard first... Sell them 2nd. If the surfer knows what's ahead and how much it will cost, he has an urge to buy, thus improving your ratios.
- Make your gallery unique, yet uniform
The template you use will have a lot to do with establishing familiarity with the site you are trying to sell. While you don't need to make a clove of the tour (most TGP's wont list you if this is the case), it is often a good idea to embed a piece of the destination site into your gallery. Be it the logo, phrasing, or a font; prepare them to visit a site that looks familiar after clicking through. Even if they don't join after they click, they will most likely remember the site they visited and they may visit again later. This is beneficial, as most sponsors embed a cookie which will credit you for the sale at a later date.
#2. Optimize your galleries
Without giving away too many tips that will have SEO's ready to slit my throat, do some basic SEO'ing on your galleries. It will take an extra 5 minutes, but the listings will make you smile in the long run. Think of your galleries as mini websites. If you have various sites linking to this 1 page, this will help SE's notice your page a bit, and it'll possible get indexed. Pay attention to the title of your page, descriptive text, relevant meta's, and maybe throw in a couple alt tags on banners. When the gallery traffic dies down, you still may experience some high SE placements for years to come. As some of you may know, the purest traffic is that from the SE's.
#3. Your traffic sources
The TGP game has a changed a lot. With the advent of traffic scripts and skimming, ratios have dropped significantly and surfers have lost trust. The amount of high traffic volume sites has also increased, and this has made data transfer and click throughs soar, while the sales numbers have dropped. If the majority of your submission list is to sites with high skim %'s, high traffic volume numbers, and not a lot of established bookmarked sites with loads of solid SE traffic, you will see low ratios. You may have 250k uniques to the gallery, but if the quality of the surfer isn't high, you may lose more money in bandwidth than you will actually make. Try and add some established sites to your portfolio with no skim and a high number of search engine traffic/bookmarkers.
#4. I'm new?How do I make any $ with this?
If you are new to the TGP game, it's going to be very hard for yourself to get a foot in the door. The first thing you will need to do is gather a large list of tgp's, start submitting galleries, and log who lists you. As you see who is listing you, you can trim your list and spend less time submitting. After you get consistent listings and get a system for yourself, start applying for partner accounts at various sites. Some may have a yearly fee. If you have the means, purchase some submit passes from reputable sites. You will not only benefit from the high quality traffic, but you'll most likely make your money back after the first few galleries. Once you see what works and what doesn't with your galleries, look into purchasing some quality spots from some of the reputable companies selling spots at established websites. I'm sure my man Mark at GTS will help you, and if you are interested in 1 day spots, Parney at Cybercat will be more than happy to lend a hand.
----------------------
There is more to be said about submitting galleries, but you can learn what you need from trial and error, researching on various boards/resource sites. I hope this shed a little light on this subject, and hopefully helped you a bit. Feel free to leave comments, additions or hate below!
This is a question I hear from a lot of people around the boards, through friends via ICQ and at shows. While a lot of the people who are saying this are new to the game, a few people that I've heard have been around at least a couple years. I'm going to attempt to shed a little light on the subject and help you try to understand why you are seeing poor conversion ratios.
#1. Look at your gallery
This is one of the biggest problems that I see out there. When I have a look at the galleries of some people, I often say out loud, "What the fuck?". Let me start at gallery mistake #1.
- The oversaturation of advertisements
This is a problem that should be so obvious to many, yet it's not. If you have a gallery, there is no need for more than 2 strategically placed ad's. Switch rolls and become the surfer. If you see ad's plastered all over the gallery, you won't think about the content anymore. You'll just think about getting stuck paying for a membership that you probably won't want because of 1 simple fact: The though of paying for porn is more prevalent than the porn itself. Target your ad's, give them a nice teaser and you'll see a better CTR%.
- The poor use of thumbnails
It never has made sense to me, but I see this all the time. If your index.html is the first page that the surfer sees, why not make every thumb crisp, clear, and 1 size? It drives me nuts seeing fuzzy thumbs that are not contrasted properly and unbalanced color wise. It also drives me nuts seeing some thumbs that are 90x120, some that are 100x100, and some that are 137x95. Your thumbnail creator should have an option to make all thumbs a certain uniform size, and should also crop to fit if desired. If you have a sloppy page, you have an uninterested surfer.
- Sell the sex first and membership second!
If you are a surfer and looking for porn, the odds are that you are trying to get your dick hard. Entice them by using some descriptive text about what they are looking at, so that they can make this a personal fantasy. As they get towards the bottom of the page, mention the price point, what bonus sites they will see, and how much/what type of content they will have access to. Remember... Dick hard first... Sell them 2nd. If the surfer knows what's ahead and how much it will cost, he has an urge to buy, thus improving your ratios.
- Make your gallery unique, yet uniform
The template you use will have a lot to do with establishing familiarity with the site you are trying to sell. While you don't need to make a clove of the tour (most TGP's wont list you if this is the case), it is often a good idea to embed a piece of the destination site into your gallery. Be it the logo, phrasing, or a font; prepare them to visit a site that looks familiar after clicking through. Even if they don't join after they click, they will most likely remember the site they visited and they may visit again later. This is beneficial, as most sponsors embed a cookie which will credit you for the sale at a later date.
#2. Optimize your galleries
Without giving away too many tips that will have SEO's ready to slit my throat, do some basic SEO'ing on your galleries. It will take an extra 5 minutes, but the listings will make you smile in the long run. Think of your galleries as mini websites. If you have various sites linking to this 1 page, this will help SE's notice your page a bit, and it'll possible get indexed. Pay attention to the title of your page, descriptive text, relevant meta's, and maybe throw in a couple alt tags on banners. When the gallery traffic dies down, you still may experience some high SE placements for years to come. As some of you may know, the purest traffic is that from the SE's.
#3. Your traffic sources
The TGP game has a changed a lot. With the advent of traffic scripts and skimming, ratios have dropped significantly and surfers have lost trust. The amount of high traffic volume sites has also increased, and this has made data transfer and click throughs soar, while the sales numbers have dropped. If the majority of your submission list is to sites with high skim %'s, high traffic volume numbers, and not a lot of established bookmarked sites with loads of solid SE traffic, you will see low ratios. You may have 250k uniques to the gallery, but if the quality of the surfer isn't high, you may lose more money in bandwidth than you will actually make. Try and add some established sites to your portfolio with no skim and a high number of search engine traffic/bookmarkers.
#4. I'm new?How do I make any $ with this?
If you are new to the TGP game, it's going to be very hard for yourself to get a foot in the door. The first thing you will need to do is gather a large list of tgp's, start submitting galleries, and log who lists you. As you see who is listing you, you can trim your list and spend less time submitting. After you get consistent listings and get a system for yourself, start applying for partner accounts at various sites. Some may have a yearly fee. If you have the means, purchase some submit passes from reputable sites. You will not only benefit from the high quality traffic, but you'll most likely make your money back after the first few galleries. Once you see what works and what doesn't with your galleries, look into purchasing some quality spots from some of the reputable companies selling spots at established websites. I'm sure my man Mark at GTS will help you, and if you are interested in 1 day spots, Parney at Cybercat will be more than happy to lend a hand.
----------------------
There is more to be said about submitting galleries, but you can learn what you need from trial and error, researching on various boards/resource sites. I hope this shed a little light on this subject, and hopefully helped you a bit. Feel free to leave comments, additions or hate below!
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