Setting Up A Directory: My Adventures
 

skip this part if you want ...


I think turning 30 is the reason for creating this thread.

It was August, 2002, that I found myself alone in my home office and in need of a new career. I had just sold my business: a double-glazing firm. I had a home, a bit of cash in the bank, and 2 kids and an almost-wife depending on me. What the hell was I going to do? I wanted to work from home - doing something - and decided I would give myself until the new year to figure it out. If, in January, I was still sat staring at a monitor, it would be time to find myself a boss!

I was educated in economics. Now, anyone educated in economics will understand why I'd want to chose anything but economics for a career. I decided I had two abilities going for me : I was a pervert and I could write screenplays. Since Hollywood wasn't calling, and my uncle (an indie filmmaker) was into arthouse and not horror (my niche), perversion ruled the day! I began to analyse my favorite porn sites (link-o-rama, being one of them) to see how they made money. This led me to my first sponsor, Flash Cash, and my first webmaster-friend, Jim (who ran FC at the time).

In the intervening years, I have literally tried everything: galleries, tgp, free sites, forums, blogs, mail, dating sites, newsgroups, ppc, seo and enough marketing software to make your head spin. A lot of my stuff failed, but - either by blind luck or divine intervention - enough of it worked to make me feel successful.

This leads me back to this thread and turning 30.

I hit the big Three-Oh (Oh-Fuck-I'm-Old) in June. Still in possession (or possessed by) 2 kids and 1 almost-wife, I took a critical look at my career. Financially-speaking, it was all going swimmingly, but something fundamental was missing. I once read Greenguy refering to LOR as his baby. In short, friends and neighbors, I wanted a baby. A bunch of internet cash cows are fine and dandy, but I wanted something more substantial, something to which I could devote energy and enthusiasm, something that was relatively secure, something I could leave to either one of my kids should they become perverts too!

A link list or directory (and I'm still unsure of the difference, so feel free to educate me) is to be my baby. And I intend to be a good father and raise it for many years to come.

down to business ...


The purpose of this thread is to document my adventures in setting up and running a link list. I'm a firm believer in sharing the wealth. If you watch My Name Is Earl, you'll know why. And there is no greater wealth than that of knowledge. I'm sure we can all learn something by watching me succeed or fuck up and, of course, this thread will be a perfect opportunity for us all to discuss ideas, share knowledge, and build lasting business relationships.

I will document every stage and include all costs, all earnings, and all sponsor screen caps for 12 months of the site being active. Nothing at all will be hidden. In effect, the site will be a transparent entity, through which any interested webmaster can look.

When setting up the site, I'll not only provide costs and links to my chosen elements (scripts, design, traffic), but will give alternatives so anyone on any budget can follow the ideas and information here to setup their own link list.

So, there you have it, : my reasons and my mission. If you've ever wanted to setup a link list, I hope you'll find this thread helpful, and will contribute your own thoughts and experiences to make it even more helpful for others. If you're a veteran of the industry, I hope you'll also participate and share your wisdom.

Kristian

1st off, welcome back kristian |waves|

Secondly, this project is backed by Jim & myself |thumb

We feel that this would be a great step-by-step look into what it takes to set up a Link List (which links to only Free Sites & is not this strange thing called a "directory" - lol) kristian has spelled all that out above, but the one thing that will make this work will be the actual numbers. How much it costs him as far as time & money as well as how much he makes - so it's almost like looking at my stats if I posted actual numbers :D

So if you can help kristian with any questions he has, please do so. If you can't help, then hopefully you can learn |shake|

It will be VERY hard to make some noticeable $$$ in the first 12 months of LL's life. Anyway - good luck on your journey :)

Oddly enough, I told that to kristian when he approached me about this project :D

about 3 to 4 years, one of the biggest things a LL needs in search engine traffic and with the explosion of new LL the last 3 or 4 years it's very very hard to get any love from google with a LL of 2 to 3 years old.. I'll tell you what you need the most important thing - loyal submitters that will stay submitting for the long haul, you need there content and most important the back links, thats the thing that you need tons of to rank in google and other engines..

from my experiance you could have a decent traffic flow, but if you don't have any SE traffic for niche terms your not gonna make hardly any sales...

also dont start with a lot of categories that you cant add links to on a regular basis, se's love fresh content so having pages that don't get many submissions to hurts a LL IMO...

plus you gotta be willing to build feeder pages to send some traffic to it..

also dont buy any traffic unless its well stocked with enough links to get a few bookmarkers... another thing that buying traffic once and awhile will help is keeping your submitters interested in still submitting..

also be willing to work on it for next to nothing in return for a long time..

I hope that info is helpfull and on line with most LL owners..

also all those category trades you see on some of the LL's surprisingly dont send a whole lot of hits, and very very few sales as most of all the trades are towards the bottom where most of the free lookers run out of links and go to a trade, but it is also possible to get buyers from trades but not often....

Greenguy -- Thanks a lot to you and Jim for your support on this and cheers for the welcome back!

I agree, although I wish it weren't so! I'm looking at this like setting up a store in town or the local mall. If I break even in the first year, excellent. If not, then it's pretty much par for the course.

Plateman -- Your LL rocks, dude. Hope you'll keep giving advice as we go along. As to your advice so far: excellent stuff. I'm going the 1980s route here in my office and jotting down stuff in my shiny new notepad. Have added all of that. I might be asking your advice on feeder pages when I am active, if that is alright. :D

Wow, this is going to be a very interesting thread. I'm especially interested to see how your experience stacks up to mine. My guess is you will do better having one foot in the door already, with traffic trades, feeders, networking and whatnot.

If you're curious about anything a new list goes through or anything, from a new lists perspective, just ask. :D It can be a frustrating road sometimes, toolbar-PR drops, traffic drops, loss of good submitters, loss of decent rankings on something you ranked well on a week ago.

But hopefully patience will be rewarded. |thumb

Choosing A Niche
 

We have a ton of options here. As I will make a habit of doing, I'm just going to write what's on my mind. I'm not trying to educate here or anything, just brainstorming, and looking forward to suggestions, ideas, you name it.

One philosophy for choosing your porn niche is to go with what you know and love. Another philosophy is to decide on a gap in the market and fill it. I might try a bit of both.

Here are some options:

- General Link List
- Niche Link List
- Micro-Niche Link List (shemale midgets, for instance)
- All Pic Link List
- All Movie Link List
- Blog Link List

Cracking the market as a general link list might be creating extra work for ourselves, I think. And the problem with going too niche-specific would be getting the content. I'm thinking not too many of us submit shemale midget free sites. :D

I think the gaps with the greatest available content exist in movies and blogs.

Since a blog link list would (IMO) require a customised script to make full use of syndication possibilities, I think I'm going to take the movie route.

Lots of competition, sure, but not as much as pics and movies. There also seems to be interest in the niche from submitters (scanning the threads here on gg&j).

Right, ok, so I'm decided : MOVIES! |attention

I already forgot one of the reasons for this thread. lol Although I THINK I'm decided on movies, if anyone has better ideas, just hollar!

Hi Preacher |waves|

Very pleased to have you here! I hope we can all do well together - with sharing info and networking together. Now that you've made the offer, you can count on me picking your brain. I really know bugger all about running a LL. You'll get sick of me bugging you eventually :D

I recently opened a general movie link list - http://www.pornmovielinks.com/ - go chew on that for a bit :D

I'd actually suggest a niche specific movie link list.

Trust you to have the best domain already |cry|

Going to study that for a bit anyway dude, thanks.

Do you think I'd get the content for a niche movie list? I must admit, I like the idea.

No worries, though sometimes my brain is too adled to pick. Feel free to add me to your ICQ, I'm online a lot.

And good luck! |thumb

Great idea of starting a thread on this subject. I started my first LL 2 months ago and I need a lot of knowledge/advices on how to grow it. I wish I'll find them here and be able tp participate with my little experience and knowledge.
You're right kristian when you say there's "Lots of competition, sure, but not as much as pics and movies" in the movies only market, however, if possible I'd love to talk mare about Niche Link Lists as I have 3 older domains that I turned into niche LLs but haven't had much success with them so far.

Great to have you here alessandro |waves|

I like Greenguy's idea of a niche list for movies. Getting enough content is all that bothers me but it's probably not a problem for the more popular niches.

You're right regarding the most popular niches being easy to find content, but also referring to plateman's statement regarding SE traffic, how hard/easy do you think it would be to get some traffic for popular niches keywords + movies ?

EDIT: my guess is, not so hard if you have a netword of 100+ domains already running and with some traffic on them. I would take some time thought to find good link partners and quality backlinks.

Great idea for a thread, should be interesting. I think your ahead of the game because your really planning and really thinking it out, believe thats where most people drop the ball.

You've got to set goals and believe in them 100% and do what it takes to make them a reality, taking massive action. My new word this month is "Power Goals", I like it..:)

ronnie

Hi Kristian
This is a great idea for an ongoing thread. I will watching and chiming when I can put a coherent comment towards things.
I agree that a movie linklist is a great way to go, if it was niched though what niche are you thinking of? I have recently started trying out movie free sites so I would be happy to help you fill her up when its ready. I only submit to 32 but I always leave a spot or two that I change to test new (and old) linklists.

You gave me some good ideas there dude. Will expand when I'm done.

For some of the general niches you will - like blonde or teen or pornstars off the top of my head.

They you make sub categories for those - like blonde amateurs, blonde lesbians, solo blondes, shaved blondes, teen blondes, petite blonde, bbw blondes, etc

Thanks for the encouragement, Ronnie :) Your sites kick ass. Glad to have you here!

Hi Natalie |waves|

My first submitter! |party

I'm not sure of the niche yet. I'm basically torn between a general movie list and a niche one. I can see pros and cons for both. But if I do go niche, the chances are that we'd be talking asian, bbw, mature or shemale. I'll make up my mind soon and would be glad of your sites thats for sure. :)

Looking into this now dude. I can see how it would work if I break it down like that. Will post what I come up with soon.