Help getting a paid site up.
 

Hello all.

Well this is my first post, my apologies for using it to ask you people for advice, but I been browsing the board and while I see a lot of info about freesites that make money thru advertising, I notice little info about paid sites or sites that make a revenue from a monthy subscription fee.

I believe that I have a product that's little exploted, of wich I have a good and continuos source that will allow me to add new, fresh content for the subscribers every month.

Now I know that nothing comes free and you need to invest in order to get anything back, and while I'm willing to make my investment to get my site started I would like to know from the experts which steps should I follow, an approximate amount wich I should be ready to spend, or any text, link to information on how to get started, any of that could really help me settle my ideas.

Thanks in advance.|thumb

A pay site is simple.

You need an idea or concept, processing like ccbill or epoch and a design by a professional company. Then there is content. It must be good to generate sales and retain members.

So the content is very important but getting traffic is too. Do you know how to generate traffic to a site? If you do not then you will likely fail unless it is such a great site that other webmasters are willing to promote it. And that is not easy.

Hey Ramster thanks for the reply, well to tell ya the true I dont have much knowledge when it comes to websites as a business, I have done basic webdesing for personal sites, but nothing that required the planning and responsibility that a pay site does

I also looked around for easy payment options that could be used in the site and found that with paypal I can take credits cards without a big commitment or upfront payments, is there any reason why I shouldnt consider using them?

And well any other information will be usefull, thanks :)

PayPal does not allow adult content, and also would not handle automated adding of user/pass data to your member access file.

There are no short cuts anymore in this biz. CCBill is probably the easiest and most reliable for a first paysite. Be ready to pay the $750 fee to be able to process VISA. Not paying isn't a viable option.

Odd, I couldnt find anything about content limits for websites that use their Merchant Tools for credit cards charges, about the user/pass data I had thought of some sort of coupon system allowing me to sell a validation code wich the user will use to renew their account, they could purchase a month or more and add that time legth to their account.

Maybe its too much hassle for the users (although it only takes a couple more minutes then the regular registration) but I think it could work, giving the site time to grows and then I could upgrade to a better system confidently.

It's there, trust me. Hundreds of adults webmasters using PayPal have had their accounts frozen.

You really need a system for Instant Access that automatically adds the username/password to your site.

What you may be looking for is an AVS system.

IMHO If you're the "content guy" then its a good idea to just go with the flow and just buy a management front end to run your content, memberships and affiliates. You are not going to want to be responsible for building traffic/promo of your site, shooting content, updating the site AND building a technical platform all at the same time.

Hi Charles,

please don´t feel offended, but reading your post I think you aren´t very experienced in the adult biz. So I don´t think a paysite isn´t a good idea to start with. It´s not content only which you need to be successful. You need hosting, processing and so on, what Ramster told you before.

But the most important things you´ll need are business relationships. So maybe you are better off building them first.

To get in touch with traffic I highly recommend building and submitting freesites and galleries first. Maybe you´ll try AVS, which will provide you with content and you can build an own site with them to learn how things are working.

When you have built your own "little empire" and it´s running, that´s the time to think of an own paysite, that´s at least what I think about it.

Take it from me, I'm one of those webmasters. I own a cam site and let me tell you, people would love to pay for cam shows via paypal. I got into this biz on a whim over a weekend. Wife is a camgirl and was constantly getting requests for payments threw paypal and shows on yahoo. We thought shit, lets put up a site for girls who dont have paypal accounts. First two months we were pulling in about 9k per month. Needless to say I was very very happy, then the hammer came down from paypal. And they held up all our money. We could not pay our girls cause of it and the site shut down. 6 months later I finnally got my money an paid the girls. In fact I paid them more then they made so they would not blacklist me with the other hosts when I started my new site. In the end it was a nightmare and all the money I got went to the new site and I still did not have enough experince to run the site. Main thing is traffic, once again said here, you can have the best site in the world but without traffic will make very little money. Don't listen to get rich quick schemes. It's called the adult business because it's a business. Stick around here, you will learn more in 6 months and save a ton of money if you just take your time and read about this biz. You need a WM program, in todays web if you don't have one you are going to die it's that simple. Unless you have some bottomless pit of money and can advertise like crazy, but even then the return will take a few years.

Thanks for the replies, I do appreciate the help.

@frankthetank:
No offense taken |thumb, what you say is true I have 0 experience about adult business, I been thinking about getting into it for some time now but never put the amount of time for it.

@juggernaut:
Thanks for the link, I thought I had read everything in their site and to tell you the true I had to read it to believe it :P.

Well I'll be sticking around for the time beeing learning from you guys before putting anything in the works, so feel free of putting in any links or information on stuff I should know :)

Think most new people do not realize how time consuming this business can be. Sure you can be part time and do it a few hours a week, but thats what you'll make is part time money, if much at all. To make good money it takes ALOT of time, or as mentioned bottomless pockets, to pay others to do it for you.

ronnie