Newbie seeking advice

[ScreamingOrgasm]

This is my first adult site and I am having trouble figuring out how to get traffic to my site and how to get the traffic that is there to start participating.

My site doesn't fall most of the categories that are availabe with most link lists and I have too many free pics to qualify for other link lists. My site is a free site but there is a public area and a member area people have to sign up to get into the members area but it is free to sign up.

We have forums, personal ads, thumbnail galleries, member galleries, live chat, erotic stories, etc.

We are also not having many people sign up at this point. We have 30 sign ups out of about 472 visitors. I dont know maybe that is typical.

I just ordered some content cd's and should have them in a few days so I will have some fresh content for the ladies finally! I have several ideas in the works including some interviews, contests and hosted chats.

I would love it if you would visit the site and offer some feedback as to how I might improve the site or if there are any major no-no's that I may have committed.

You can access the members area with the following temp. pass.

username: ANS (all caps)
password: freepass (all lowercase)

I would also love some advice on the best way to promote an adult site. I am used to dealing with mainstream sites and don't have a clue where to begin with an adult site. Where would you send press releases, best places to advertise (that won't cost and arm and a leg), link exchanges etc.

Thanks for your time.

Tina

[MrMaryLou]

I would make a free sites and tgp galleries to fee your main site

[ScreamingOrgasm]

I am not sure I even know how to do that. LOL But I will read more and try to learn how to do these types of sites to feed my main site. Thanks for the advice.

Tina

[MrMaryLou]

Originally posted by ScreamingOrgasm
I am not sure I even know how to do that. LOL But I will read more and try to learn how to do these types of sites to feed my main site. Thanks for the advice.

Tina

By the look of you main site it sure looks like you got the skills free site = warning page main page and two galleries

[ScreamingOrgasm]

That's it? Warning page, main page and two galleries? Sort of like an AVS site?

I did build one AVS site for a contest on another forum
http://www.floozy.redfishmedia.com

So is the free site the same just without the AVS thing? I am not crazy about AVS sites myself but I suppose that is just a personal preference.

Ok what about tgp's what is the recipe there?

Oh one more question. Do these tgp's and free sites all need their own domain name?

Thanks again,
Tina

[spazlabz]

Hi Tina,
I took a quick look at the site, jumped into the members area (thanks for the temp free pass) and looked around. I don't see any glaring problems at all with it. Well except content being a bit thin, but thats to be exspected with a brand new site. and as far as I am concerned, 30 sign ups with less than 500 uniques isn't bad at all, esp depending on where your getting your traffic from. Keep in mind that spam is a major concern for a large number of surfers, so you may want to throw up a privacy statement saying you will not sell, trade or give out any e mail addresses at all, but the idea of giving up an e mail address will still cause a few surfers to shy away. spam is evil and everyones afraid of it heh heh. Content wise, more pics (I see you have guys coming *no pun intended* soon) and content is also posts on your BBS and personal adds section. A friend of mine used to get submitted pictures from surfers, make TGP galleries, submit them and get even more surfers to come to his free site and send in pix. Took him around 2 years but he was making between $5,000-$7,000 a month from his freesite and sponsor links. He turned it into a members area and I understand is doing quite well. May be something you could consider trying if you can handle the bills at first of getting listed like on something like the hun.
As it stands right now I think your site has a lot of potential, just be patient, nurse it along and keep working on it, Never hurts to ask those wiser than I for more advice on it.

Good luck with this site girl, who knows, I may sneak in there and get my own membership to it

spaz

[ScreamingOrgasm]

Thanks Spaz I will write up something letting them know I will guard their privacy and that they will not get Spammed from us.

I am hoping that members will become active in submitting pics and things which will of course add more value to the site without costing me a fortune. My budget right now is literally ZERO! The content I have on the way is somethign that I just lucked into. I participated in a sportspick on another forum that I frequent and won $1000.00 worth of content from scarlett.net which will really help me in these beginning stages and of course I plan to give my business to scarlett in the future since they were kind of enough to sponsor the contest. I always try to give my business to those who support the communities that I frequent.

I will be patient and since this is my pet project and something I am passionate about I will continue to nurse it and hope it grows. I never even thought of making $5000.00 a month hell I'd be thrilled with $400.00 a month which would cover my mortgage payment. Antyhing beyond that would just be butter baby


One quick question. Do you think it would help to offer a temp pass to the membership area. One that I could change say every other day or something. This would let them see the members area and maybe convince them to sign up.. on the other hand it may just give them reason not to sign up, I mean why sign up when you can just continue to use the free pass. Maybe I could have them email me to request a temp pass that would only be good for say 48 hours. Whatcha think??


Tina

[spazlabz]

One quick question. Do you think it would help to offer a temp pass to the membership area. One that I could change say every other day or something.

If this were my site I wouldn't give them a pass without having them sign up for it IF I were going to require them to get a free membership at all. The only reason I can see for requiring someone to sign in is to harvest their addresses. I wouldnt sell the info or anything like that, but I would send periodical mails lets call them newsletters, in order to spam them subtle like with my sponsor codes. If i didnt intend to do that then I would personally lose the entire sign in thing. If you give them a free pass and they get into the 'members area' and dont see a mind boggling amount of content you might lose them for good. So if you want them to sign in, keep the addresses, and remind them that they have this free membership to this growing community of open minded people. This would motivate them to continue to visit. These are all just my own opinions on the subject, but it is how I would go about building up a site of this nature

spaz

[ScreamingOrgasm]

Spaz this is the reason for asking them to sign up is so that I can send them our newsletter and periodical emails about site updates, contests, specials, etc.

I suppose I should write this up and make it clear that their email addresses will be used by The Screaming Orgasm only and only for sending newsletters and such. I am even willing to make a promise that they will recieve a maximum of 4 emails a month from us including the newsletter. Do you think that would make them more comfortable with signing in. I mean they can always just set up a free account with yahoo or something specifically for recieveing our mailings if they wish. I just feel that it would be better for us if we harvest the emails to use ourselves to send out gentle reminders and keep them coming back to us. I certainly don't want to spam them to death because I know if anything that will just turn them away from the site. Same thing with ads and banners that is why I am trying to keep those to minimum as well.

Do you think the site would do better just as a free site. Should I lose the sign up part entirely for now anyway or am I doing it right by asking them to sign up?

Just not sure which way is the best way to go with this.

Thanks again,
Tina

[spazlabz]

Hi again Tina
I think you have a great idea all the way around. I also think the site does not look like anyones first adult website, you have put it together very well.
The e mail issue is a toughie. I think the reason you have for getting the addys is a very good one (I would of course also use it as a way of promoting sponsor sales) the only real problem is some segment wont believe you about selling their info.........fuck them LOL I had someone who swore up and down that I sold their e mail address a year years ago. the usual
1)First time he ever used it
2)created it just for my site
3)not on the net anywhere
Well I know no one in our company sold his info, or gave it away, or used it for anything other than his membership to our site. But he could not be convinced of this fact no matter how hard we tried.
If you go out of your way to let them know exactly what the e mail is going to be used for, and include an unsubscribe link on the mails, then I think you have a good idea.
Go for it girl

spaz

[ScreamingOrgasm]

Thank you Spaz. In all fairness this is not my first site I have been building mainstream sites for a few years. This is my first adult site and I tried to take a little from what I already know and a little from what I saw on other adult sites and combine them but mostly I just biult it how I would like a site to be. I get aggravated with pop ups and sites that I can't understand the navigation or sites that just try to put too much into one small space so that is what I tried to avoid with my site. Hopefully others will enjoy it as well but I know you can't please everyone.

I will make a clear notice of what I will and will not do with the members info and just let it go at that if people want to join they will if not I suppose maybe they will atleast enjoy the small amount I offer in the public area.

Hopefully in time people will grow to trust us and recommend us to their friends. I suppose I can't expect people to give us their trust so easily so we will just have to be patient and try to earn it.

Thanks again for visiting the site and for the feedback it really helps tremedously to have an extra set of eyes and a few opinions because sometimes we are just too close to the project to be objective.

Tina