What makes a great tour design in 2009? Post your fave sites!

[AmeliaG]

What factors make a tour design great in 2009?

What are some of your favorite paysite tour designs right now?

[thickcash_amo]

i like really simple amateur style tours that showcases the content and flows well

[SpyCam]

i believe that signups is the only factor

[Zuzana Designs]

I think it depends on what you're trying to sell. If it's an amateur style site the tour should reflect that. If it's High Def it should look HD. I would like to see what others think are nice tours though. Although sales should be the #1 factor in a nice tour.

[AmeliaG]

I take it as a given that we are all professionals here, so a great tour design has to mean one which converts. Definitely hoping to see some examples of what people feel are designs which help conversions. Some stuff will sell on the content being great or reputation alone, but what makes a really great tour which supports and increases making sales?

[gimme-website]

Anything made by me of course :P :P

[LeRoy]

A lot of hot chicks helps a lot.

and the next time I check out the same site. A lot more hot chicks

[harvey]

Originally Posted by AmeliaG

I take it as a given that we are all professionals here, so a great tour design has to mean one which converts. Definitely hoping to see some examples of what people feel are designs which help conversions. Some stuff will sell on the content being great or reputation alone, but what makes a really great tour which supports and increases making sales?

The easy answer: depends on many factors. Plus, I think those that are in the know won't want to share it, with the amount of competition and the business as a whole in such low shape, it would be pretty dumb to share what works and what not.

Personally, I think anything PRO (even if it implies investing more money) will always be better. And when I say PRO, I think what people perceives as "design" is the least important part of a tour, you can have a bunch of tables and no graphics at all and make a great tour that will kick everyone else's ass when it comes to conversions, or you can have an ultrahigh glossy design which converts as well.

In the end, if you do some research and know where and what to look, you'll notice that great design not necessarily means great marketing, as a matter of fact they rarely go together. Sadly, in this business you just roll the dice and hope you get lucky, because good designers aren't supposed to know about marketing (why would they? out of adult, marketing people tells the designer/s what to do and how to do it based on research and testing) and bad designers aren't good at marketing either: they just are bad.

For sites like yours, well, I guess you'll know better, you really need somebody that knows the niche, I'm amazed at people who say that they can do anything and in every single niche and their designs will always convert. I never, ever, ever saw it happening, of course. And it will never happen, it's simply out of any reasoning.

A decent designer trying to do a good work will bomb you with questions on your niche, on what do you want to see, on what do you think your surfers want to see. Then research on the given niche, study, look for information. And then come with something that will probably need some adjustment but will be way closer than those designers saying "I can have it by tomorrow!". Any designer saying that isn't serious, IMHO. That attitude is just showing that the designer didn't care at all, just throwing a fast photoshop collage and cash-in!, repeat and rinse.

On the other hand, any client asking for a tour to be made in 2-3 days isn't serious either. And even worse, because they later cry because the tour won't convert. Doh! You asked for a marathoner, not a designer, so that's what you got!.

Again, just my humble opinion.

[AmeliaG]

Originally Posted by harvey

The easy answer: depends on many factors. Plus, I think those that are in the know won't want to share it, with the amount of competition and the business as a whole in such low shape, it would be pretty dumb to share what works and what not.

Personally, I think anything PRO (even if it implies investing more money) will always be better. And when I say PRO, I think what people perceives as "design" is the least important part of a tour, you can have a bunch of tables and no graphics at all and make a great tour that will kick everyone else's ass when it comes to conversions, or you can have an ultrahigh glossy design which converts as well.

In the end, if you do some research and know where and what to look, you'll notice that great design not necessarily means great marketing, as a matter of fact they rarely go together. Sadly, in this business you just roll the dice and hope you get lucky, because good designers aren't supposed to know about marketing (why would they? out of adult, marketing people tells the designer/s what to do and how to do it based on research and testing) and bad designers aren't good at marketing either: they just are bad.

For sites like yours, well, I guess you'll know better, you really need somebody that knows the niche, I'm amazed at people who say that they can do anything and in every single niche and their designs will always convert. I never, ever, ever saw it happening, of course. And it will never happen, it's simply out of any reasoning.

A decent designer trying to do a good work will bomb you with questions on your niche, on what do you want to see, on what do you think your surfers want to see. Then research on the given niche, study, look for information. And then come with something that will probably need some adjustment but will be way closer than those designers saying "I can have it by tomorrow!". Any designer saying that isn't serious, IMHO. That attitude is just showing that the designer didn't care at all, just throwing a fast photoshop collage and cash-in!, repeat and rinse.

On the other hand, any client asking for a tour to be made in 2-3 days isn't serious either. And even worse, because they later cry because the tour won't convert. Doh! You asked for a marathoner, not a designer, so that's what you got!.

Again, just my humble opinion.

Wow, are there seriously people who want tours turned around in 2-3 days? I don't think I have ever had one turned around that fast, not once. Partly, I think that kind of design needs to percolate for a while before a designer can really get cranking on it and a tour is just a really crucial piece.

I feel like I used to have a really good sense of what sorts of design were in style on the web though. Now, it seems like a lot of designs I see are really just a CMS page or five outside the members area i.e. big thumbs or samples from updates on a black background with a logo at the top. Which is kind of all programmer and no designer. Only I see a lot of those sites having great content and not converting so hot. I know people say it is the tubes or whatever, but it seems like certain sorts of design probably still help more than others.

Unfortunately, for my niche, I have found designers who are super into it sometimes deliver less well than ones who just really know their design and pay attention to specs. In terms of niche expertise, I know what text will turn my audience on or off and what they consider a hot picture versus an icky or simply average one. From a taste standpoint, I can tell if I think a site has good content for the niche and know what a good quantity of content is and what image size my audience tends to prefer. But tours are special. My members seem pretty happy for the most part, once they are inside. But I think, no matter how expert someone is, there is always more to learn about getting those members-to-be inside.

[Alf Hucker]

Originally Posted by gimme-website

Anything made by me of course :P :P

Nothing made by you of course.

I looked at your portfolio. I speak from experience.

[aniloscash]

tour design is a lot less important than the content

[Serge Litehead]

This subject can be debated to the end of times and in such rough times no one will share good converters - unless it's a pitch to try something.
experience makes whole lot of difference. you can sense when something is right or done right - that what converts.


excellent converters:

-Professionalism
-Quality
-Integrity
-Clarity
-Originality/Individuality
-Passion
-Great offers / Perks


can be applied on any point of sale in any business - either that's b2b call/meeting or paysite tour, ect..


Things that convert less successfully or don't convert at all:

- in it for quick $
- fake/BS
- something that wasn't well thought through or simply bad
- presentation level of brown cardboard and a marker
- fuzziness
- copying someone else
- too good to be true

[Serge Litehead]

Originally Posted by aniloscash

tour design is a lot less important than the content

poor presentation can that content go unnoticed

[harvey]

Originally Posted by aniloscash

tour design is a lot less important than the content

although I will never deny the importance of content, I can show you what you're saying is simply not true, and I'd go to the point of saying it's quite the opposite. I'm still banking on content from 6 or 7 years ago (and even older) which has been seen 1 million times on static tours made 5 or 6 years ago that were never changed. And they convert 5 or 10 times better than any bangbros, juggcash, nasty dollars or brazzers site with their dynamic tours updated every day with HD content and all the shitnizz.

Of course, if you have good content things are easier, but if you know what you're doing, you can make tours with overused content that convert way better than most exclusive HD shot content. Furthermore, if you know what you're doing, you can use the "perceived" disadvantages as advantages and sales claims.

As I said before, design is not the most important thing in a tour, but it isn't the least important. Or better put, we'd need to define design first. If you call design to just some degree of knowledge of Photoshop (even if amazing skills), then I can tell you that's not what I call design and therefore it's not important. If you call design the conjunction of tools (PS, flash, scripting, whatever), marketing, layout, psychology, content choices, etc, then yes, design is the most important part of any site. If in doubt, look around yourself and see all the stuff you have bought that you really didn't need at all

[AmeliaG]

Okay, I'll share what I'm seeing so far with SpookyCash tour designs. The tour for BlueBlood.com is currently converting the best. I think the factors for this are that the tour page size is larger, the pictures dynamically change so repeat visitors see different images which might trigger a sale, it has a lot more text about the site, it has more pages in the free area which maybe make it stickier, it has a highlighted trial price, and it has some B/G content. I don't know which of those factors is what makes it a better tour than others I have, but I'm guessing some combination.

Wanna see other folks' examples

[Raf1]

the design has to fit the niche and be easy to navigate, That's basically it. I've found that eye candy is more for the webmaster's ego

[DamianJ]

Here you go.

Copywriting is the most important part to get right.

They have all seen pics of boobies before. They have all seem flash movie players.

So what - really - is gonna be your differentiator? Copy.

Point 2. Read Seth Godin's Purple Cow book. The upshot is, all tours are the same, pretty much. Start thinking about what people would NEVER EVER do on a tour and try it.

Test and measure using google website optimiser.

People's opinions on design and marketing are pointless. The $ is the only thing and google website optimiser will help you get that.

[Thirty Six]

lets see some more links! I'm trying to post some of my tour design links but apparently I don't have enough posts yet

[Cherry7]

Shouldn't think the tour would make much difference. If the punter hit puperty in 1992 and is still stuck in a time warp he' ll buy.

It's the girls that sell.

[Serge Litehead]

Originally Posted by Thirty Six

lets see some more links! I'm trying to post some of my tour design links but apparently I don't have enough posts yet

thats right, newbs are not allowed to type "spam.com/meh" ;)

[epitome]

What works best for my traffic:

http://www.dickdorm.com/main.htm
http://www.hazehim.com/t4/

Imagine that ... it looks like a tube!

[JD]

Originally Posted by Thirty Six

lets see some more links! I'm trying to post some of my tour design links but apparently I don't have enough posts yet

I vote ban