Looking for (not so-)free advice :)
 

We've recently run a campaign with Google's adwords on fairly obvious words like "BDSM" and "Fetish", and while we've gotten good clickthroughs from Google, we've gotten *terrible* signup ratioss on that traffic (~ 1%). And that's for a really, genuinely free membership where all they have to do is pick a username and password.

I'd love opinions from fresh sets of eyes; take a look at Bondage.com and let me know what you think the problem(s) might be. Too confusing? Too wordy? Not clear enough about the truly, genuinely free membership? Legal info too intimidating? What?

What can we do to get more surfers to that free registration page, and what can we do to get more of them to go ahead and set up an account?

I'll PayPal $15 to each of the three best suggestions, as judged by me. On top of that, any suggestion that has a dramatic impact on free conversion rates gets $50.

If I can't go to the maxhardcore.com party tonight, I might as well work.

Cheers, and thanks.
-b

Don't use just obvious words. Target better.

Make the join button <font size="6">BIGGER</font>

When can I expect my $50 paypal?

I would make the "Register" in the button blink colors.

I think your site could use a more professional design, in general. I have only heard good things about the experience of the site, but the design should really reflect a more premium and professional position.

Besides professionalism and prettiness, I think the site could be laid out better, in terms of ease of use, and conveying the information. I am not drawn to the right parts of that page when I view it.

All in all, I would recommend a professional redesign by someone with fetish and/or adult design experience, but not a run of the mill adult design. I think that could help a lot.

Well its amazing you mention this (no need for you to pay anything :-)

Ok When I launched my new site 4 weeks ago I tried both Google and Overture and Sex.com (my spanking site) and it did SHIT!

Now my site converts I posted and shared stats with many it did over 25K in the first 4 weeks alone.

I feel that people searching for spanking related stuff are looking for either real VHS / DVD's (because I got tons of emails for that) or they are simply looking for freebies.

I had all types of keywords and propper tracking in place.

Now my escort site is a different story it does awesome with engine traffic because noone expects to get free escorts.

But yes like yourself my spanking site did shit on all engines.

Oh, man...I didn't even see the "register" button.

Well...I guess "bigger" still applies, although "noticeable" would be a better word I guess.

Some more specific stuff...

1. Don't use curly fonts at small sizes.
2. Don't place important images behind important text.
3. Be consistent about the space between things.
4. Pick a few important things, and make them BIG.
5. Make more of a sale. Not just a little text, a tiny register banner. Where's the tour? The sales pitch?

Thanks for the fantastic advice, everyone. I'm not quite ready to declare the first 3 winners (lets give other people some time), so keep 'em coming.

gothweb, I think you hit the heart of our problem -- we want people to set up a free account and use the free features (matchmaker, columns, forums, IRC chat, email, etc) *before* we try to upsell them to a paid membership. That's where the tour and sales pitch is.

However, it doesn't work so well if you don't get them in the front door to start with! Do you think we should have some kind of tour and/or pitch for the free account?

And I think you're right about the overall design; right now we suffer from the "designed by geeks, for geeks" syndrome. More text is better! Stats, numbers, high tech personalized stuff! And so on. I'm trying to learn how to communicate with surfers better, and this helps.

And FATPad, you're definitely right about the register button. Pretty sad, eh?

Cheers
-b

under the members login you should have a line of text

Not yet a member?
Join Now - It's FREE!

linking to your join page


You have the Janes Guide text up top, but the featured in wired and newyork times shit down at the bottom. I would have all 3 up top next to each other.


I'd change the font of bondage.com or get a logo professionaly done.

Even though the site is FREE you still need to have a tour showing what to expect inside.

And make it more obvious where to join.

I wouldn't register for a free password to that site. I'd expect immediate, endless spam. Create the tour, show them what to expect inside, and be honest with them. Tell them WHY it's free.

When selling features...
Font size=1 will kill you every time.

Tell the people the benefits of giving you any info whats so ever.
Emphasize what they get. IN a big way.
Get it?

Nothing personal, but yea. :( I thought it was a banner and I tune out banners automatically now, unless I'm specifically looking for them for a reason.

Everyone else is pretty much right though. Get it a little more organized, show what's inside and why they *need* to see it, and make the link to joining BIG and impossible to miss.

Ok, FATPad and gothweb get at least $15 -- more pending results. I've got your paypal, FATPad, but I need yours, gothweb.

Donovan, you also hit part of our problem on the head, but I need a solution -- we don't even *require* an email address, and if we do collect one we're absolutely best practices about it, don't spam, and don't sell/trade/whatever it to anyone. How can we communicate that, or otherwise inspire trust? WE DO NOT SPAM type copy seems to be counter productive, in our tests; people assume you *must* spam if you go so out of your way to claim you don't.

Cheers
-b

I don't know if you want to use a tour for this, but if you want to get them inside, then this whole page needs to be really efficiently designed to get them to register.

It's too easy to show too much, and have them read none of it. (I should know, I do it all the time. Have you seen my affiliate site? ;) )

I guess my advice would be to make a single page, maybe a bit bigger than that, all about getting people to sign up for the free membership. Show them what they get for free and mention right there what else they get if they pay-- if they want to sign up for a paid membership right away, let them. The presence of a paid version could make the free one more appealing. ("I can get all of that for free"?)

To create that single page, I would work closely with a really good designer who understands how to sell, and understands the fetish scene at least a bit.

Ok, I must be hallucinating. I need your paypal address too, FATPad.

Thanks
-b

I am not too worried about the paypal. I respect your site, and I am glad to help. If you want to reward me, hit me up in ICQ and maybe we can find some ways to work together. (When it's not 4 am, though, I am half brain-dead at this point.) ;)

Don't worry about the paypal. :)

But post the revised version when it's done, please. :)

Hi Aiken,

You have one of the ultra elite key adult domains there but the site needs to be redesigned completely. Everything needs to be revamped top to bottom.

First you need a POWER logo to match the theme of Bondage. The one you have has a week font, week color, no visual impact, is improperly placed, and needs to jump off the screen at the user.

The girl you have needs to go too. You need a whole layout of bondage images to completely stimulate and saturate the viewers mind into wanting to go forward.

All the text over her is impossible to read. Save the text for a stories site. You want power phrases there to create interest, desire and action.

The page needs colors, life and pizzaz. Its dark and dreary.

The buttons all have to sync, be placed perfectly so its easy to navigate, and be easily found. I couldn't find the tour button at all and then I realized there wasn't a tour even.

I'd embed a bondage audio track on there. So when the surfer hits the page he gets smacked, chained, tied down and becomes subjegated to the site.

Get a powerful FemDom with killer eyes that will lock the surfers eyes into total submission. Bondage guys are for the most part submissives or voyeurs who like to just see others submitting to a powerful and dominating mistress.

I would let MikeW do this site for you. You will make a fortune with one of his designs on there and it will be a superstar site.

If you need dom audio, I can get that for you also.

Congratulations on a killer domain, now put a killer site design to go with it and you'll have surfers on their knees craving to join.

:thumbsup

Thanks, gothweb and FATPad. I do remember and reciprocate favors!

KRL, I like a lot of your ideas, but one thing we have going for us is that nearly 40% of our users are women (or at least claim to be!). I don't want to turn it into a femdom / malesub site, and we're already having to combat that perception.

A total redesign of the site is unlikely, at least in the near future, since the the app is so integrated with the presentation (we started before XSL was available), so major design changes also necessitate major code changes.

But at least a redesign of the intro page, register/login pages, and tour (upsell) page is probably imminent. And this advice has really been invaluable.

Thanks, everyone!
-b

Surely a bondage site needs a more hardcore design than that.

I just revisited google adwords and I am pleasantly surprised. My problem is getting the volume of traffic needed. I am converting about 1:50 on the niche I am targeting, max per click 0.05 but I just can't generate a decent volume of clicks.

I guess I need to broaden my keywords.

Hello...

If you own bondage.com....you should be making some bank.

With buying ad words you should be converting way under 1 in 50.

If I was you I would hold a contest on here for the best one page design....offer 500$ and you will get a one page ad that converts like a muther fucker :1orglaugh

No shit...leave the design work to the pro...with bondage.com I am positive they will come up with something kick-ass. :2 cents:

Deeprub

by the way tons of bondage sites promote my site in my sig they convery 1:80 and I can offer you their contact information over ICQ

I am just setting here laughing to myself....

You sir have a fucking gold mine...

Man I wish I had bondage.com

Sorry just cant stop thinking about it...Is it for sale? :Graucho

Bondage.com is an easy $ 1 mil a year domain.

100+ signups a day.

Put a message board on their also.

In the interim, you'd make more money with this redirect link I'd bet.

Bondage Pay Per View Movies

Signup on my Pay Per View link below if you like it. :)

Hell...I dont know how much you are making now...but you might even consider have a professional manage that site for ya. Might make more just staying behind the scenes and letting someone like lensman handle it for ya :Graucho

How much are you making?

- The text is too small

- The join for free text/graphic is too small

- You can't read the text over the girl's picture

- Where's a sample of what I'll get inside?

- Put something like "No credit card OR email address needed - simply choose a username and password and you're in!"
And for god's sake make it large enough to be readable.

- I hate to say that black and purple are overused on bondage sites, but at least you could find a way to make your important text pop out. Put it in colored tables. Use different fonts. Use colors to highlight key words and phrases.

- You need a redesign the way the desert needs rain. I agree, offer up a prize for the best design or just hire a GOOD designer to do one for you.

As a surfer, that page has too much small text for me to even bother reading *any* of it. The picture is uninteresting and mostly covered by that miniscule text. The login box makes me think it's a paysite, and I obviously don't have a user/pass. The free registration looks like an ad banner - it got ignored.

Hands down, there is nothing on this page that captures my eye, captures my interest, and most of all, makes me even remotely interested in joining... even if it *is* free.

Get a redesign, quickly! With a good design you could be rolling in it with that domain name. Man, what a type-in opportunity!

Oh, believe me, we do OK on revenue :)

And deeprub, of course, *everything* is for sale, for the right price. ICQ me at 12005327 if you're serious.

And we do have a thriving message board; about 2000 - 3000 posts a day on everything from BDSM technique to politics.

Really, the site gets a ton of traffic (check us out on Alexa), and generates some good revenue, but as everyone has pointed out, some fundamental design issues keep it from realizing its full potential.

I think you folks are quite right about the design issues, and I really appreciate the feedback. I also love the design contest idea. I'm mostly on vacation for the next week, but I will positively be back to solicit (and pay for) more help!

Cheers
-b

yeah I agree - how do you come to own that domain and where's your tour and hire a designer or just sell the site to me : )

Good god man! You own bondage.com and you have that design on it!?!?! Just get a better design is all. If you can't do that you will do better with a sponsor FPA even.

Post some numbers on how much you are making...the more honest you are the more help you will get here. If you anit making enough you will get tons of offers.

How many people work for you?

Do you need someone else...hell go on vacation all you want...ill take care of everything for ya...just tell me where to put the money.

just goto ifriends.com and copy them.. they are masters of SE.. shrug

I really do appreciate all of the feedback.... you folks are great!

What can I say? We're geeks. Technically, we have perhaps the most impressive adult site around; from CDN to ultraDNS to dynamic thumbnails and image generation to complete personalization of every page on the site, hell, we're way ahead of the game.

However, as all of you have noticed, we're not exactly marketing or design geniuses. We defintely don't want to be just-another-adult-site, but clearly there's room for improvement without losing our unique character and community focus.

I'm not comfortable giving exact numbers (for no specific reason other than nobody else seems to), but let's say were a 5-6 person company doing between $500K and $1M per year, gross. We have insane retentions -- averaging well over 4 months @ $19.95, around 6 months @ $16.95. We've got amazing word of mouth. Our chargebacks are tiny, and our users *love* us, so we are doing some things right. The only problem is there aren't enough of 'em :)

But, of course, the whole point of this post was to focus on the things we're doing wrong. Clearly, the intro page is one of those things. I love the design contest idea -- look for something like that the week of the 14th, when I'm back from a much-needed rest.

I really appreciate all of the feedback and help here!

Cheers
-b

Aiken

With a niche like that you can increase your revenues just by bumping the price to $24.95. I don't think you'll see any significant price resistance.

I don't get why you haven't invested a few thou in the design when you're doing close to $100K a month.

Anyway you should get MikeW to so at least some beautification for it. You can see his portfolio at http://www.wyldesites.com. He's designed a lot of the most successful high end sponsor prog sites. And a great guy.