The ONE Factor which decides what makes a successful website...
 

People can come here and preach about how its the design that converts traffic into sales. How certain color schemes and intricately placed text links make the difference.

While all that may effect a fraction of your traffic there is still one factor that remains constant and will ALWAYS be the most important:


CONTENT


Content is what makes a successful site. It is what generates traffic. It is what converts traffic to sales. It is what keeps those sales for 3 - 5 more months. There is NO substitute for content. You could have the most SE Optomized site on the planet, the cleanest and most "scientifically correct" design, but after the visitor signs up and sees that what he just dropped $30 to see isnt really there...you can bet that $30 either will not be there next month, or it will be CHARGED BACK.



I dont want to sound like a prick or anything. Im just bringing this up to refresh everyones memory. The big players...the real players...already know this.

Feel free to discuss...

actually, traffic is king. i would agree that content is 2nd, but without traffic the best content in the world is absolutely worthless.

Billing

a double biller or sneaky billing can outpay anyone else
free sales that are not free upsells that ya cant get out of recurrings ya can not cancel !


no content can compete against fraud !

I don't want design, hosting, or billing.

Just a ton of content. :)

See im a firm believer and its proved to be true in every one of my endeavors online...

CONTENT FACILITATES TRAFFIC

Sure Content is worthless without its traffic, but once you get a few people to see, word spreads. If your content is solid...the effort you spend on generating traffic is reduced greatly because the people you have already brought to your site will bring others...your traffic will multiply...and the same people will keep coming back.

If your content is shit. You have to work harder and harder to CONSTANTLY bring new people to keep making the same amount....


See my point...

As an example.... The Hun.... He makes sales for sponsors all the fucking time....

He doesnt have an out of this world design...hell he doenst even have thumbnails....but his traffic knows that the content is there...they will keep coming back...

Quote, if your not being sarcastic....i will never do buisness with you...

Speaking as the designer who babbles on about guaranteeing conversion rates and all...

It all starts with the content. How you design around it will make a difference indeed but the content is what gets the client hard and ready to pay to see more. It's kinda like this:

1) Member joins most likely to masturbate.
2) Graphics don't get anyone hard (except maybe me and some other designers here =])
3) Designing around good content you can direct a potential member to see your content is such a way as to have the max chance of giving him said boner,
4) Once you got 1 & 3 covered it becomes all about traffic.

It's Lars dude. Of course he's playing with ya!

I am just saying for those people that do that no ammount of traffic or nice lookign high quality sites will be able to make it..

fraud is the engine that drives this industry. Most of the biggest payout pushes have come due to fraud or sneaky billing. just sayign the truth.. And I dont like the truth Cuzz I am not willing to commit fraud to make $$ so I am at a competative disadvantage !

heya Mark :)

Traffic over all else.
Content is there to retain members, but you gotta get them first.

Killer content and 50 hits /day = 5 sales
Crap content and 50k hits/day = 15 sales

Now, if you have killer content and traffic = good times.

I've been on both sides of the content/traffic coin and I agree. Updated content is key. New stuff keeps them coming back and rebilling. Traffic building is the easy part.(build it or buy it) I don't really rely on word of mouth so much as far as adult is concerned. I don't think most people sit around discussing their favorite places to whack it.

See id rather have the 50 / 5 ratio....

NO?, but as another example...BangBus....

"Dude, i saw this site yesterday...where these guys in a bus go around and pick up random chicks...fuck their brains out then leave em on the side of the road...you gotta see it!"

Word of mouth is BIG! But unmeasurable...

Updated Content = High Traffic = Sales

Fancy Logos,Layout and Tables = surfers couldnt care less

:2 cents:

Now it also does come down to UNIQUE content that leaves a mark. I believe that BangBus had managed to brand itself into the surfer's minds like no other qidely exposed porn site.

Content is king, plain and simple.

However-

Take a look at some of most popular websites on line - porn and otherwise - and you'll see most of them are the same color.

The tour still matters, as does site navigation and site features.

A properly designed tour, a good solid members area with tons of original content will always do well.

That is THE ONE AND ONLY.. any other site that became that known.. them and the old busty.. that is it...

Make someone happy they'll tell a friend.
Piss someone off and they'll tell 10 friends.

Very very old customer relations truism.

You know it's true, we LOVE to bitch and complain and share it with everyone with at least 1 good ear :1orglaugh

That is true....

there are alot more sites than just Bangbus which have made great names for themselves with their content.

i agree, traffic is still king but at no time has content ever been this close in importance.

:thumbsup I concur

Dear sir,

At any sales position on any product in the world you will sell 1 out of X leads whether you are selling shit or gold....as long as you have the leads (traffic).

Look at herbals for example, complete shit but they convert 1:XXX as a whole.

Traffic is, has, and will always be king.

Agreed. Good software's somewhere up on there :), nothing like some top-quality code to turn me on in the morning. Well that's just me at least...go programmers! :Graucho

Traffic more then content ...

I've seen sites with shitty member aeras convert very well ... you need the right marketing

totally. they kidna depend on each other.

Anyone can convert traffic, but its the rebills and long term customers that keep your revenue strong...

You're all fucking off base.

Bullshit is the factor (aka Marketing).

the most important part of business. :thumbsup

Of course you're right. But to say that traffic is king is like saying that air is king when it comes to breathing.

You're not gonna make a fucking dime on your site if the guy with the CC didn't have a job, and the economy in Belgium were'n't looking better, and the Euro spot-rate hadn't made your price look good to him that day, etc, etc. etc.

At some point, you have to remove all EQUAL variables from the equation. Sure, no traffic means no sales. But, you have to think of traffic as a given to answer this question.

As economists say, "...all things being equal..."

j-

There is no one factor, (do I win a prize?).

All of the parts rely on eachother. When everything is in sync, you get a highly profitable site.:thumbsup

And without content, all the traffic on the net is worthless.

bullshit. many programs made 10's of millions with absolute garbage for content. promising something that isn't really there. things are finally changing, but that is a new development.

not many people tell their mates about how the site they were wanking over last night didn't quite have the number of BBW's the tour promised. It's not the hot local restaurant.

There's an old adage that it is much cheaper to keep a customer than to find a new one. But the majority of operators in this business haven't bought into that yet.

The flaw in the original premise of this thread is it makes the assumption that every site operator cares about member retention or about sales via word of mouth. But many don't. They expect their members to be gone in a month or two and their whole focus is on pushing cross-sells and up-sells. They know their sites will burn out fast. No problem, just roll out some more.

Sales aren't directly about content, because you can outright lie or at least foster the impression that your site has exactly what surfers are looking for. Which is why it is easier to make the argument that traffic is king.

Retention is when content comes into its own. And as some have said, content also counts for getting a good reputation. But it isn't only quality or uniqueness that does the trick: AVS/AEN/network sites (whatever you want to call them) have some of the best retention rates in the business and their success is almost entirely due to content volume.

Sites with few or no affiliates should definitely work at getting their content right. It would be good if big players went the same route, because then we wouldn't be burning so many surfers. But so long as affiliates are happy to sell rubbish, there isn't much incentive for standards to change.

Gimme traffic.

Yeah.. just look at the sales recently on non existant paris hilton content for an obvious example.

Than you're not like most other webmasters or businessmen for that matter. You care more about ratios than the bottomline.