Debunking Adult Webmaster Myths.

[hybrid]

I came across this article, and it;'s pretty damn informative, check it out. Courtesy of www.tomsnewbiebooster.com
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There's a few notes here that I wanted to make that could help some of our newer readers here. I guess there's a lot of things that could be classed as 'myths' in the adult internet world, but I'll keep it to 10 main ones for today.

1) Banners work.

A banner is a rectangular (wide screen) graphic that appears on a webpage. Clicking it will take you off to visit whichever website the banner links to. Banners are a little like the logos that appear on formula one driver's cars and clothing. But whereas those images are important for getting the companies name out there alone - banners need to PERFORM! They have to send people from your site to your sponsor's site. The problem with banners is that they quickly became over-used on the web and their effectiveness has continued to wane over the years. In today's market - adult webmasters must learn to write text which describes their sponsor's services, and link that to the appropriate page.

2) TGPs don't work.

TGPs, or thumbnail gallery posts, account for a large portion of the adult traffic out there in cyberspace. They list galleries of pictures made by adult webmasters and if you get your gallery listed on a number of them, you'll see traffic flood in in the hundreds of THOUSANDS mark per day. This sounds ideal, but remember the catch here - your gallery is unlikely to be the first one that these surfers have seen. Even if they are new to the web, and have just discovered the world of TGP pages (free porn!) then it's likely that you'll have a tough time selling to them. This puts many webmasters off but it's important to remember that TGPs can be made to work for you too. With such a VOLUME of traffic - if you can send even a small percentage of them to a sponsor - 1% - 5% then you can still make a profit.

3) It's all going to end soon.

Like predictions that you read in the newspapers about the world's imminent demise (which subsequently come and go without any effect) there's always a new threat, or terror that's going to wipe out the adult internet. Don't get jumpy when you read someone predicting doom and gloom in the adult industry on a forum or a board. Consider the bigger picture. Is the Internet going anywhere? Are people going to wake up tomorrow without their thirst for porn? I've been trying to think of how it could all end, and there's very little that could have such a catastrophic effect on something which is in such great demand. Relax - so long as you play by the rules - you could be running the business you're starting now until you're 90 years old!

4) You have to make clean sites.

Clean sites generally refers to sites that have a very limited amount of advertising. Webmasters usually make these sites to get them linked to from lists of links, or the TGPs that we were talking about earlier. Such sources of surfers tend to have a strict set of rules and the more traffic they get, the more strict those rules seem to become. There's nothing wrong with making sites which comply with a link list's rules (especially if you're going to see a lot of traffic from it!) but I think that it's easy to get conditioned into making sites that get listed, rather than websites that make you some serious $$. Remember this important fact: this is YOUR business and you can make your sites ANY old way you want. There's more places out there than you could ever hope to get listed at - and some of them will list ANY kind of site you make. Build them to make money.

5) The surfer is a customer.

While it's true that the reason we're all employed in this business is that the surfers out there spend their hard-earned cash at our sponsors, let's not forget that surfers aren't paying us anything for the privilege of looking at our adult sites and pages. How you view the surfer is really up to you. If you want to give him hundreds and hundreds of high-quality pictures, and refusing to use consoles and other little tricks, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. All I'd ask you to do would be to remember that the majority of surfers you do get will just end up downloading your content, and racking up the bandwidth charges. Get them interested in your SPONSOR'S products as soon as humanly possible. Send them off to somewhere they CAN make you money and then you have a chance to make something from them.

6) You need a lot of traffic.

I love the expression that "traffic is the life blood of an adult site" (and I guess that's also true of our non-adult counterparts too) and traffic, or the volume of surfers you get to your site, is something that you'll devote much of your time in this business to. But remember an important thing at this stage - one visitor to your website, who's interested in the content (and ADVERTS) that you've got to show them, is worth 1000 who couldn't care less. This business is exactly like any other advertising business - you've got to get the right message in front of the right people. Using this highly targeted approach, you don't need THAT much traffic to be successful. If you make a free site all about "midget lesbians" and link to a sponsor about "midget lesbians" - you've got a very good chance that those surfers will check out (and buy something at) your sponsor's site.

7) Good graphic skills are important.

Whatever you do, don't worry about this! Whether you want to do AVS sites, free sites, TGP pages, or ANYTHING else in this business - it's not about making things look pretty. You can get by with little more graphics skills that how to upload and link a graphic that your sponsor provides. As you progress, you might want to learn some of the basics in editing images and graphics - but trust me when I say that there are people making good money as adult webmasters who aren't interested in being great graphics artists. What's way more important is that you understand your surfers, and what you're selling - and that you match the 2 together. Even pages of just plain text can make you the sales you'll need to run a realistic business, so don't worry too much about graphics.

8) All the good domains are gone.

This is something that I heard a long time ago and that I still read on a lot of the forums. Sure, you're not going to happen across something like "sex.com" these days - or probably any other single-word domain names. And you'll probably have a hard time finding even 2-word domain names such as "freesex.com" - but it really doesn't matter. You could buy the domain name "qwertyop1234.com" and still make a fortune from the sites and pages listed there. The domain name is important only if you plan to really do a lot of branding on this name - to get it into people's memory and to build up it's presence on the web. If it's traffic you want - then your surfers will likely never have to type in your name - and will only ever click on it's text title, such as "Horny college tutors" on someone's webpage. Get creative with your domain names - pick 3 word combos that you like and don't worry too much about getting ones with keywords in 'em.

9) You have to be an expert to win with the search engines.

At one time, webmasters would spend hours and hours analysing the numbers of words on their competition's webpages, and working out the keyword density, and other numbers on the pages. These days, I feel things have changed and progressed for the better (if you're new to this business). I say this because search engines have become more and more advanced in recent years and are now more capable than ever of deciding just what a page is all about. Even an 'outsider' (YOU!) could make a page today that could be listed number ONE in a couple of months. There's less analysis to be done these days - and just making a webpage which is about your chosen subject (with the keyphrases worked in there naturally) could be all it takes to get you a lot of traffic.

10) It's too late to start - you had to start years ago.

You'll probably read, hear, or be told this at some point when you're starting out. There's really no logic to this at all. Anyone can start working on their business, and building up their sites and pages in the link lists, search engines - and anywhere else out there that will send you traffic, and get listed. There's no 3-year waiting list to get into any of the TGPs and the newest of webmasters has just as much chance as anyone who's been in the biz for years does of getting their sites and pages in front of the horny masses. There's no special gold cards that get passed out after 4 years in the business, or anything that's kept from or forbidden to new people. We're all at the same starting blocks - just some people started earlier and are starting to see results. Plant YOUR seeds now - today! Stop reading this and GO GET BUSY!
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Hope this gets you all motivated today.

[Dusen]

Excellent post, a few great points, and some I don't agree with so much :D. Good read for all newbs I think.