Hi, everyone. Figured I'd stop by and update folks on what we've been up to, and do a little "send us traffic" pitch.
Redesign
We've recently launched a completely redesigned site -- top to bottom work, with a great deal of attention paid to the
splash page,
main index page, and
free user registration page. Many props to the people over at Mansion for an excellent job on all three.
Like any community/dating site, our sales cycle is longish, so it'll take a little while to see the full imapct of the redesign. However, free user signups jumped 40% literally overnight with the redesign, so I'd say we're on to something good.
Affiliate Tools
We've improved our ability to deep link with affiliate codes; you can now link to any page on the site (blogs, forum posts, columns, you name it) with your affiliate code in the querystring. It's pretty straightforward, but if you've got any questions don't hesitate to ping me or Gateway.
We've also updated our
RSS feeds, and they all support affiliate codes now. Just add ?track=yournatscode to the RSS request, and every link generated by the feed will have your affiliate code.
As always, when someone you refer sets up a free account, we permanently link your affiliate code to the account. If they wait to upgrade to a paid account in 5 years, you get paid.
Geek-out
It wouldn't be Bondage.com if we didn't geek out for a minute, so here goes: the new site is entirely XML/XSL based, meaning that the code and the presentation are totally separate. That's what allowed us to use a real designer this time around (and wow did that pay off). Future improvements like greater internationalization and AJAX personals searches will come about much faster using this technology.
Our switch to XML/XSL also means that anything you see on the site can be easily exposed as an RSS feed; if you don't see the feed you want, just ask.
Sales Pitch
Geek-out finished. Here's where I should go into the marketing song and dance, but fact is, I'm terrible at that. So here goes: Bondage.com by far the largest BDSM community, with everything from forums and groups to stories and vids to personals and blogs. We're not just a dating site -- people actually keep their memberships after meeting someone. Plenty of couples have two paid memberships! We retain like you wouldn't believe, and have incredibly customer loyalty and satisfaction. Our affiliate program (which itself needs some real work as far as design and UI go) runs on NATS.
We're responsive to both our affiliates and customers, and work on software development literally around the clock. Our technology is second to none -- XML/XSL, geotargeting, CDN, collaborative filtering, social networking, you name it.
So (here's where I go into used car salesman mode) give us a try with your BDSM/fetish traffic. And feel free to hit me up if we can do anything to improve our offerings.
Cheers
-b