LifeSelector - Bring it on! :)

https://lh3.ggpht.com/ATB1hhQ9WywL-S...vFikqPoCw=w300

ps. Agree with Stan, consider keeping the "Shap Q&A" on GFY for now, you can always change that in the future, but for the time being, the traffic+platform is already here.

Thanks for that.

When you said, 'feedback' I thought you meant from a consultant or from others - kind of like what you're doing in this very thread.

But here you are talking about stats and opinions.

The video was good too. Thanks for the share. I remember Markus Frind also saying in a blog post to 'not' listen to all the feedback your members give you.

I've always thought this site is a huge mess. It's extremely busy and confusing and difficult to read. Even "life selector" itself has no real meaning and its not clarified in any way... its meaning is left to be assumed once the user digs and reads and tries to solve the mystery.

The best way to think of a website in my view is that its a silent dialogue with the user. You have to answer the users questions, in the order he is processing them by the site layout design, headlines, sub headings, content and call to action.

I.e.
"where am i" = clear logo, and tagline in upper left where eyes are trained to go to first
"what is this place" = a headline that perfectly sums up the site, which speaks to the user (my rule is that it should make them respond "i want that")
"what can i do here" = the content flow is selling the product - answering questions from most asked to least asked.
"how do i get this" = user is led to CTA

Your site makes people start asking questions... and makes the user think and dig and think some more for answers. They shouldn't be thinking "what the hell is this" when they open the site and shouldn't have to start investigating to figure it out.

That's just my opinion. Thrixxx guys hit me up to get me to promote your site (non windows traffic) because you have some agreement with them but i just couldn't get over the fact that your site is so busy and confusing.

Livejasmin was never pretty... it was clear.
The age old discussion "does a pretty site or ugly site sell better" a;always ignored that fact that the site that is the most clear, sells better no matter how it looks.
:2 cents:

Could he be more of a man than you'll ever be and more of a woman than you'll ever get?

I like how you're trying to dominate, it's cute 👍👾

In spite of some of your ass-dickery, you've always seemed to have an inherent understanding of how things work.

Thanks. I can afford to be an asshole because i'm not peddling a product or service. I don't need to pretend. I don't need to be fake. I don't need to pretend to like people I don't. I don't need to pretend people are smart that are stupid. I don't have to call a model pretty that's ugly. I don't need to tell the fucking moron selling SEO services that he's a genius when he clearly has no clue what he's talking about. I don't have to say a new site looks great when its an obvious mess. I don't have to wish everyone luck with their awesome new project which will clearly fail inside of 3 months.

My success or failure is not directly tied to how well i'm liked or how much ass i kiss.

I don't need anyone.

I have traffic.

The simple truth is that I can stab an affiliate rep for a dating program in the face with a rusty fork 25 times and he'll still be hitting me up from the ambulance on Skype "hey bro, no big deal. i've had worse... so... is there any way we can scale up on that AU traffic if I bump up payouts some more". Interestingly, the only people that seem to be deeply bothered by the fact that I don't give a shit about what people think, are those idiots who spend there days on here kissing others asses to hustle a shitty product or service.

Besides... who the fuck am i to anyone here? I'm just pixels on a web page. Who cares what I have to say.... It shouldn't matter at all.

Another one.

ABAG.com

:thumbsup:thumbsup Thanks I know Arock he's cool. Going to get him some feedback.

I agree with most of what you say. You shouldn't have to pretend, or give good feedback when it's not deserved and be fake etc... I also find that that happens too much on this board.

But why be harsh (or in your words above, 'an asshole')?

You can just as easily tell people that their site won't sell or that you think their idea won't work without the added harshness.

I'm not saying you should change, I'm just curious.

All in all I'd rather hear the truth with harshness, rather than fake praise.

Haha thanks yea I was referring to the site I posted :)

I think more for the reasons i stated and moreover, the single reason you stated "fake praise". It's always fake praise, by disingenuous, self serving people, complimenting someone's crap project knowing they are so emotionally invested, they won't want to hear anything else... and they do it for their own benefit, not that of the person who actually sweat blood and tears into his work. In fact, they do it at his direct expense.

The other side is how do you wake someone up? How do you make Sleazy see YesSignals.com as being a bit of a mess that needs a lot of work? You can't do it by ass kissing. You can't be gentle and get his attention. You can't wake someone from their trance with politeness and courtesy. You certainly can't get them to see it completely differently when they are so emotionally invested in what they are doing, by being nice.

He hit up a lot of people on ICQ telling them about his "idea" and showing them his "site" and everyone basically said "looks cool bro" to avoid an awkward, but much needed conversation that an actual "friend" would have had with him. Because this business is so full of fake, self serving douchebags, he then launches a site which makes no sense at all, where it's not even clear what the site is, what it's about, what it's selling or whats going on and that was basically his last chance before fading away into obscurity.

Mickey! Hate the name to be honest. It's a little generic and a little sterile and someone forgettable.

The idea is pretty sweet. Checking out the mia malkova one now. Great idea but i think the layout and way you sell and present it needs work.

I remember yessignals and believing the hype because he made an announcemnet to the whole forum but kept it secret and only told a few 'bros'.

Those bros then commented on what a good idea it was and so the rest of us were 'sold'.

Then, when it was revealed, I wasn't sure what to think. I knew inside that it was a dud but the 'bros' said it was a good idea.

So you are right, it is at their expense. They get fake praise and then go on to spend money and time into a project that is wasteful ... but they too are happy that nobody hurt their feelings.

Thanks for your reply.

Great feedback. Thank you very much. :thumbsup

I'll push the African theme harder.
And also split test the color and bigger thumb tours. Getting rid of the stars and allow comments viewable for members only.

Sorry Mickey that was shitty feedback. This thread took a weird turn and I'm not sure what to make of it lol. I expected smaller guys to post pages they needed feedback on. But as someone else said the second I said actionable they checked out. Now it's big boys like you, Stan and Roald. While I'd love to give feedback I get the feeling the things the three of you are doing are so much bigger than just a single page or single design element that it's a bigger conversation.

Shap,

You started this, now own it, crush it!

He's watching, judging (and recording) you. :1orglaugh

http://i.imgur.com/8hncJah.png

Jokes aside, thanks for the preliminary feedback and I don't think what you gave was shitty. Sometimes all it takes is a few ideas or morsels that other ideas can stem from or pointing out areas that need work.

RE: Brand - Agreed, we can definitely do better and have a plan in place to address that.

RE: Layout - We're rolling out a handful of new tours that should address a good portion of that. So any input on that will definitely be considered.

About the thread, the turn it took and giving feedback on larger projects, I think you have a lot of options to stay sane, a few ideas:

- Limit feedback to X number of specific areas of focus that you think will have the biggest impact/will yield the biggest improvement.
That way you won't feel overwhelmed, there's no analysis paralysis, doesn't take as long and the site owner gets to focus on what will potentially have the biggest impact.
OR
- Ask the site owners to get more specific about what they want feedback on
OR
- Exclude paysites (the worst suggestion of them all) :winkwink:

I'm sure others will have ideas to add to that, so that they can help you help them and everyone wins.

Great initiative, rock on.

You, my friend, are the Kevin O'Leary of GFY. And I thank you for that! Keep the brutal honesty coming (except towards me, we all know I'm awesome and perfect LOL).


Well here's the thing about 'feedback' Shap: for someone like me, who's been peddling paysites going on 7 years now, and whose company has brought in millions in gross revenue during that time period, my feeling is I should know what sells and what doesn't at this point. Big companies like Roald's or Mickey's do indeed deserve a broader more 'macro' conversation while guys like me are 'in-between' the little and big guys. We 'in-betweeners' have neither the time nor the resources to implement broad changes and maintain them long enough to A-B test without losing vital income.

Now, the 'little guys' who could benefit from your advice and experience the most? They're mostly gone, or too new to understand who you are and what you offer, or are just too damn clueless to seek your advice.

(I have benefited greatly from your experience and advice so I personally say 'Thank you'.)

I strongly disagree. I think your range is the range that can benefit the most. Whether you want to or not is a different story.

I think this would help a lot indeed, just posting a url doesnt make much sense either without knowing more about the target market or what you try to achieve.

Cheers guys :thumbsup

Brilliant! I like that

Well, feedback would be great but it would have to be private. Also, having gotten feedback before (and having tried the suggestions) I'm honestly wary that you might end up saying similar things. For example, my #1 site is Eros Exotica. It's been live four years now and there hasn't been a single day since it launched (not one) where it hasn't made multiple sales. That site has gone through several designs, ranging from $500 - $5000 (including scripting). Yet the cookie cutter simple site you see now cost $125 and took an hour to design. After extensive A-B testing on each version the $125 one out-performed all other designs as much as 35%!

Yet when people see that site (professionals) they cringe and start giving me all kinds of 'Do this" and "do that", most of which I've tried and didn't work. (Animated GIFs for thumbs, endless scroll, hot spot pre-loads, add video/remove video, turn the design responsive, try pop-unders, try re-directs, try placing ads in the Footer, get a seperate mobile version, on and on...)

So that's the resistance. But if you'd like to start with that site and let me know your thoughts I would honestly tell you if I found it helpful or not. You can see on the Join page I've already implemented your suggestion of a $99.95 yearly option. So if it's ideas like this you have I'm all ears. :)

Porn Nerd Cash at Geemail.

glad i blasted him for it lol

why does it have to be private?

Third Thunb top row :

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You're welcome :)

Man... people are actually asking for AU traffic? Those fuckers chargeback like no tomorrow.

Because I don't want the keyboard monkeys of GFY jumping all over my site/your suggestions.

I have sent you emails in the past you never responded to so maybe it's you who doesn't want to really give feedback? I'm not interested in a public debate over my websites or businesses. Thanks anyway.

I've replied to your emails in the past. Not all but some. As soon as an email is longer than a paragraph I tune out and usually ignore it.

You've clearly indicated many times here you aren't interested in feedback, so no point in wasting my time.

And I'm not interested in giving anyone feedback in private as that is a selfish way of doing it. If I do it for free it's done publicly and hopefully will help more than just the recipient of the feedback.

If I wasn't interested in feedback I wouldn't have mentioned my site. Clearly you have pre-conceived notions of me that date way back so are blinded by what I actually wrote in this thread.

Sorry Shap, but insisting on feedback being public is a dealbreaker for many, not just me. General feedback for the masses is one thing but specific business strategies should be kept mostly private. When you were running Twistys I'm sure you didn't want to discuss changes or competitive strategies so openly.

Maybe a more general GFY Educational Series-type thing is what you really are trying to do here. If so, have at it.

End of the day trying to hide what you are going to do doesn't really change your level of success one bit. I went through phases where we tried to hide everything and where we didn't. Retrospectively looking back hiding never worked unless it was very specific stuff Ie cover model.

Like I said good luck. Not interested in piping up valuable information in private.

And in the end you lose out on getting valuable insight from one of the best minds this industry has had. It's resistance like this that continues to keep you firmly in the middle and having to work many many hours to keep your ship going, instead of having the revenue to afford talented help to push you further, and reduce your workload.

Which is fine if that is what your goal is.

Actually, you are wrong here. If Shap is going to dole out generalized help - advice which could 'help' many people - then I would also benefit from that wisdom. While it won't be specific to my needs I'm sure there will be enough valuable info in whatever Shap has to say that I could find useful. In fact, I've already praised Shap in this very thread (which he missed or ignored) thanking him for his one year pricing option idea (an idea shared in another thread).

But as I said, it's not necassarily Shap's advice I don't want discussed publicly. It's the haters and trolls here on GFY I would like to avoid. Which btw, is why almost no one else has sought out Shap's advice publicly and why this thread is not turning out the way Shap thought it would. :)

Thanks for your feedback. If you have ideas or specific requests you'd like to have implemented please feel free to shoot them my way mb /at/ lifeselector.com.
I don't have a problem with having custom pages created for high traffic partners.

Alternatively, we can let you know when the new tours/landing pages are live if you want to do a test run. :thumbsup

I've seen this too. I know lots of sites that are messy and unprofessional looking that could use everything you said the professionals recommend above. But sometimes a simple yet organized layout is best.

I do feel a bit bad now. Thanks for being a good sport. I think Shap is very right in that feedback on specifics aren't appropriate when its basically taking a single gear out of the whole machine and criticizing it where everything is interdependent and can only be evaluated properly as a part of the whole.

If these docs don't pique your interest on site design, marketing and testing, then i'd say that nothing will. My sincere advice is to read over this stuff. Print it out, put it on your desk and browse through them. (bear in mind the date on those docs is 2010). They highlight over and over what I always say "clarity is everything".

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/...%20Journal.pdf

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/...%20Journal.pdf

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/...%20Journal.pdf

Then go back and start digging through their studies and materials, watch their youtube channel etc and give yourself time to digest, learn, read, discuss and then you'll better be able to map out a strong plan for execution as well as a solid framework for subsequent testing.

Personally, i have never found a more useful site online for internet marketing and testing, methods, data and results.

There is also a leaked consultants evaluation of myspace's new design from the time they were reworking their site (08' or so). If you can find that, its well worth having at your side as it will really put into focus a lot of common user UI and usability mistakes. 95% of which are things you'd never think about until its pointed out. It was called something like "Myspace Heuristics and Usability Evaluation" or something like that. I can't find it anywhere online now. They worked pretty hard to remove it when it leaked but its a great doc. I know i have it on a drive somewhere if you want it.

I'd say this from experience. Assume you have a live chat site. Cute girls. A soft, pink-ish/blue-ish theme. Soft language etc.

Then you test a new design... you've been watching livejasmin launch and grow and the odd, monochromatic red theme or littlec's all black theme has you curious about user behavior and color/langauge. You go for solid colors, hard angles, Red/Black, very uhm... severe language like "make her do anything you want..." here is what tends to happen as some of them did at the time...

Revenues might stay exactly the same. But because you are now dealing with people and can actually read their conversations (chat logs), talk to models and witness their behavior directly, you'll see a dramatic shift in the types of users and the personalities of users. One type will be less likely to join and spend and another will be more likely to join and spend. Net revenue can stay the same in spite of massive shifts in WHO is joining the site.

If I was The Porn Nerd, i'd look at each individual niche site he has like its catering to a specific personality type.... and then first try to fully understand that personality type for each site... then market to those exact people.

I figured out a fascinating way to do this with dating. I created a facebook page, downloaded a bunch of content from tumblr... lets say it was "fit girls". I then posted daily from the perspective of a giggly girl and her girlfriends "what do you think boys? you like my shoes" - when its showing a cute girl showing off her ass, but who might have yellow athletic shoes on.

Then, i started boosting the posts - this is basically turning that post into an ad with all the ad targeting ability of facebook. So say you have no targeting but "males" and you post a latina chick and spend 100.00 boosting that post and getting page likes. You can see the profile of every single person that liked the post, their name, their age, their job, their relationship status, their friends, their hobbies, their taste in music, in movies, in tv and so on. Those posts linked to a dating site. (not allowed by FB)... so i could also gauge traffic quality and lead quality based on what i posted and which posts i boosted.

Then i got weird with it. Started organizing girls by latina, black, white.... ass shot, tits, etc etc etc and started doing the same and watching the patterns of who was liking the posts, commenting on the posts and liking the page. Imagine that for a moment. Not only can you figure out "who they are".... but you can basically dig into each persons life and give them a call if you wanted to. Adult sites are dealing with "uniques", but this way, you can evaluate "people".

If i was going to launch a product, I would do this every time. I would gather as much data as I possibly could about who represents the largest group of people responding to that product and THEN, i'd build a site targeting EXACTLY those people, presenting the product in a way that best appeals to those exact people and using language most used by those exact people.

Bingo! That's exactly what I do. People who join Eros Exotica looking for sensual erotic sex education videos are not the same people joining Screw My Wife Club (amateur swingers). Of course, all my sites are linked together so surfers see all the sites they get when they Join but the specific language, marketing etc is focused for each site.

Thanks for the marketing links!! 2010 is a tad out of date but tons of really get info there. I am mostly interested in marketing tips and the psychology of selling online. Everything else is a subset of those things, I think.

(BTW: Tad Outofdate was going to be my onscreen porn name!)

We had neighbors who's last name was Tyme. Of course, they named their kid Justin.

Can any of you mofos go back to your high school friends and be like...

Look what I did bitch...

... and they are awed.

If you can't, you've created nothing.

Poor kid. Hope he changed his name to 'Nick' at least. :D

Should be good now, an update of one of the sites was not added properly.

Cheers :thumbsup

I can :upsidedow

I show them my morning poo :thumbsup

Interesting.

It certainly explains the results difference or lack of. That facebook idea is fantastic. But when you did include a link were you able to tell which types of surfers tended to buy? I know FB must have terminated your account reasonably fast but if you were able to see, for instance that 30-35 year old males purchased dating memberships when they saw Latina boob pics then you know you could start a site with that theme and attract buyers.

Thanks also for the pdfs in the post above. I've been looking for some good reading on that subject.

Some AMAZING articles in those journals, loving the documented tests and results. Not outdated at all. Thanks for posting :thumbsup :thumbsup

+1 good stuff :thumbsup

The facebook thing was interesting to me simply because now they weren't "clicks"... they were people with friends, family, likes/dislikes, pics, hobbies etc. I just has this really weird moment of "oh shit... all these "clicks" are people just like me".

They don't ban your fb account, they ban the advertising account associated with it. They also save every single scrap of data associated with it - every access, everything you did etc. So if you fuck up even one time and break the rules, they will know. You can do this stuff... just don't use your own account, create a new one, proxies/fake user agent info, use prepaid cards to fund it, block anyone under 21 from seeing the page etc. But i also tried hard to keep it super mild with pics and text. You don't have to worry about them policing, you don't have to worry about the people liking it, you have to think "what is the guys mom going to say when the pics he "likes" and his racy comments show up on her page" or "what is the bitter, cunty fat chick going to say when her circle of guy friends is liking a chick with a perfect body". I think its good for just getting a high level understanding of who appreciates what. You'll see right away how race specific or age specific content and behaviors can be. And you'll stop thinking of it as "traffic" and start wondering, "are these unique visitors 18 year old inner city gangbangers or 40 year old IT professionals... because that's going to make a MASSIVE difference in conversions and sales". People really forget these days that with mobile traffic and prepaid phones, every idiot, even kids can visit any site. In the early days, they had to be computer geeks with some strange thing called "an internet connection". People love to blame tubes nad anything else they can, but the pace of change in terms of who is online, who is visiting sites etc has been staggering and peoples blame really reflects their poor understanding of the constant demographic shifts and ways people use the web.

I don't know that it would be a fair comparison to users/user behavior on a tube site to what you might learn on facebook. But it was sobering to post a pic of a girls ass in yoga pants and see it immediately blow up in circles of 18 yr old latino gangbangers or black or whatever. So it was weird visiting all the profiles and seeing the pics of their lives, wishing someone luck that was going to prison or whatever and you're thinking "holy shit, are these the people using my other site???... no wonder revenue is slowing down and traffic is climbing quickly". It was just a unique way to look at what might be site visitors and it was certainly interesting to humanize every single one of them and see their life story.

I have yet, in all these years to find anything online that even comes close to being as useful as that site and their studies when it comes to online marketing.

Hey Mike ,what plugin you are using to show similar posts (thumbnails) under content on page? I had few but they didn't work 100%

I'm not sure off hand, it was built into the Pinbin theme. I usually code my own based on categories/tags.
whatwpthemeisthat.com says it's https://wordpress.org/plugins/related-posts/ :upsidedow

As you know, I deal in paysites so the psychology of why someone would pay for something they can get for free (remember that oft-told argument?) is something I focus on. We, as Webmasters and people who use the Internet to make money, often forget:

1. The Internet isn't "reality". It's virtual reality that, at best, blends 'real life' with cyber graphics and, at the least, acts as a type of alternate Universe for people to play in, scam in, live out their ego fantasies, etc. But it is not 'real life'.

w. How a 'civilian' (someone who doesn't make their living online) incorporates the Internet, mobile devices, Twitter, etc into their everyday lives is not something most of us think about when it comes to marketing. We see numbers, numbers, numbers ONLY - and get lost in them, forgeting that those numbers represent living, breathing human beings.

So I often wonder, when I get a sale to one of my paysites, who is this person who just joined? I look at their names, where they are from, which kind of subscription they purchased....then also look at this data when I get a chargeback or refund. It helps me to remember that these are actual people spending actual money for something I am selling them. But what makes that ONE person who bought different than the other 999 who visited the site but did not buy?

We spend so much time in this business analyzing data that we overlook the simple, basic human motivation that's at the heart of all those numbers.

I often had similar thoughts. The reality is men do not act with any logic or reason when aroused. I would almost venture to say a large percentage of men are completely different when they are horned up vs not. Making sense of the decision a horny guy makes is so hard to do. The only thing that makes sense and is rational is the cb or cancelation. When the guilt sets in then they react with the other extreme

Hi Mike!

I see the banner at the bottom. First question is this a new blog or existing one? If you are building up a traffic base I'd pull the banner as it detracts a bit from the experience. If you have a base then go for it keep it up :)

If this is a new blog I highly recommend trying a variety of content and seeing what pops. Be sure you can track it but be aware of what content is getting the most traction on the site. that's going to be the key. Make slight changes weekly to the content you post based on what is having the biggest impact on your traffic.