Newbie Starting Adult Site
 

What advise can you give a newbie who wants to start a adult site. I understand sex sells and some sites make big money and some sites don't. I know it takes money to make money. I know there are lots of webmasters with the right formula that is a money maker. Kinda like the 12 Herbs and Spices in KFC chicken. I know you have worked hard to get your formula right to make your site or sites as profitable possible. I not asking for the recipe. But I know you might have made some mistakes in the beginning of the process. If you could share some advise about content, legal laws, uploading videos, steaming, collecting payments. Anything to do with the biz you would like to share would be helpful.

You are making a lot of assumptions about this business and have really answered your own question in the statement "I know you have worked hard to get your formula right...".

Let me qualify everything I'm about to say with "I'm a newbie too".

I started looking into the adult business about 10 years ago. Never did anything until about 3 months ago. I can tell you there is quite a learning curve if you are new to selling online in general. You will need some basic skill sets and knowledge to get the ball rolling.

Logistics:
1. buying domains and setting up the hosting for it
2. creating a website either in html and/or installing wordpress blogs

If you can do the above, you can get started making websites for the adult business.
There are several free tutorials online and countless books on it at your local bookstore. Once you can get a basic webpage or blog up and running, you can move onto the next steps.

1. figure out a niche you like and can write about. You need to be able to write 3 - 100 words on a regular daily basis. For example, if you like big tits; 3 words would be "natural big tits". 10 words would be "look at the natural big tits on this blonde cutie", and so on. My logic here is that the internet is about information. You want to become the expert on big tits so visitors to your site stick around to see what you have to say about it and will buy from you because they like your or trust you.

2. Assuming you like big tits - find a sponsor who has big tit content you can use on your site and promote on other sites via tgp/mgp/link lists. Research the sponsor via review sites to determine their credibility, webmaster resources, and member satisfaction. Basically you want a sponsor who pays, has good tools for you to build your business, and keeps their customers happy.


Once you have a niche you like, can write about, and a sponsor to sell for, you need to learn the basics of marketing your adult site. I really don't think sponsors know what they are doing when it comes to selling, so this is where you need to spend some time researching.

1. do a search in your favorite search engine for "big tits". Look at the sites that rank well. Take notes on what you like about their sites and try to incorporate that into your site. Be creative and add your own personal touch if you can. It can be something as simple as a color scheme and some catchy phrases, or as imaginative as you like. I'm not that creative, so I create simple sites in black/red and use the words "insanely hot" all the time.

2. Now start building your site. Visit the forums, ask questions and get some feedback on your site. Make adjustments you think make sense, but remember this is your business, make it your own!

3. Once you have your site the way you like it, start researching how to market it properly. Paid advertising, tgp submitting, link building, blog writing, etc... There are countless ways, some more effective than others depending on your site and content. For example, my dating site does well on a blog, but horrible in tgp. My milf does well in tgp, but horrible on the blog. You may have opposite results and kick ass with milf on a blog.

Once you've made an educated guess as to the best way to market your site, start building your site specifically for the way you want to market it. For example, if you decide to go with tgp submits, visit sites that accept tgp galleries and look at listings on that site. Then find the link on that site that will lead you to it's submit page. This page will have the rules about what you can submit. Compare those rules to sites already listed.

Really take baby steps here. Market your site slowly at first, keeping track of traffic, clicks, conversions, everything. Don't blast your site all over the place. Try to build a little history with a few sites or advertising mediums. If you're making mistakes, you can make corrections before getting blacklisted or banned. Once you are comfortably marketing your site and getting results, try to expanding on it. Create your own "formula" for success.

Trying to copy someone else's success is a waste of time. I can tell you that I had a very successful affiliate marketing formula about 3 years ago. I shared everything I knew about it with my sister. She did everything I did but never could make it work for her. She gave up.

Like I said, you've already answered your own question. If you work hard you'll come up with your own formula. Everyone will have lots of answers that worked for them, but will not neccesarily work for you.

Hope that helps some. I've only scratched the surface and take everything I wrote here with a grain of salt. I am far from making boat loads of money. But I am working hard as I can and making some extra cash starting virtually from scratch. Just search for my name in this forum and you'll see the questions I asked and who helped me up to this point over the last couple of months.

There is money to be made, it's up to you to make it.

Wishing you all the success you deserve.

:)

pretty much what he said + patience ... lots of it

If you're really serious check out the chatroom at http://www.greenguysboard.com/irc/

mark6188 is on point, first get your site and the hosting. any decent host will walk you through the steps and motions regarding what you need to do to make your site a success. If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us.

I don't know of any hosts that will tell you the recipe to be successful and I have been online for over 10 years.

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

Confucious

... and those who can't teach, teach gym.

Newbie Starting Adult Site
 

1. The place you say to start is buy buying domains and getting these ready for hosting. I understand a web hosting companies don't host adult sites, and all hosting packages are different. Once a domian is selected and hosting package selected. The domains are linked to the hosting account. Then it's time to upload the website or site via FTP tools to the site to your hosting account.

2. Now it's time to create a website. When you started making sites. What tools did you use to create the web pages. Did you use Frontpage, Dreamweaver, a free HTML editor? Does the software you use to create the site have to match what the hosting account offers?

I think you have the basic idea down, but your jargon is a little off.

Depending on which hosting company you have will determine the steps to setting up a domain name for hosting.

For me, one hosting company I use is hostgator. Hostgator tells me that any domains I buy need to use the nameservers ns220.hostgator.com and ns221.hostgator.com.

The nameservers are setup with the domain registrar like godaddy. When you buy the domain, they will ask you what nameservers you would like to use, or you can change it later in the domain manager.

Hostgator will also give you the ftp address and userid and password to plugin to a ftp program like filezilla.

There are plenty of hosting companies that allow adult websites, just check out the resources at the top of this forum. I think hostgator is fine for a starter adult site. It's cheap and reliable. I also use webair. There are some bandwidth issues when buying cheap hosting, so be prepared to spend more money on hosting as you business grows.

I prefer dreamweaver and fireworks, but it's a little expensive. I also like nvu which is free. For blogging, you just need wordpress which can be installed directly from the control panel of your hosting account. It's also free and relatively easy to use.

If the software creates standard html, then it doesn't matter what hosting company you use. If you use frontpage, the hosting company needs to support the frontpage extensions. Not sure if anyone uses those anymore. For more advanced things like php, ssl, and other stuff way over my head, you'll need to make sure the hosting company supports those as well if you need it.

You've been given some good advice here but bear in mind you are going to attempt to break into a very hard business in the middle of a recession and seasoned veterans in this business have just had their worst year ever!!

Do no under any circumstances assume this is a get rich quick business, it is not!

You will need determination backed up by probably hundreds of hours of unpaid work to make an impression.

Now don't get me wrong, I wish you well but if your going to do this, do it with your eyes open. This is a bad time to get into the business, so take small steps and don't invest what you cannot afford to lose if your sites don't make money.

Other than that sad but honest set of sentences, good luck and welcome to the board |thumb

This business is saturated. If you can't do something new and innovative then you have to do it 100 times better. Good luck!

I'm curious... I've read quite a few posts about "seasoned veterans" leaving the industry in droves, and having their worst years ever, etc.

How many of those seasoned veterans are using 3-5 year old marketing methods? How many of those seasoned veterans are trying to relive the glory days without having to face the reality of a changing internet?


Yes, the recession is causing a downturn in spending, but there are new markets, new methods, and new ways to be successful. (And I'm not just talking about tubes)

I think a lot of the 'seasoned vets' that I know are doing everything possible to keep ahead of the game and the traffic they have reflects that but as with any business model there will always be room for change and everyone understands that. The fact is that there will always be new ideas (such as tubes) but that does not mean the original model is not still effective, it is.

I was really referring to the obvious fact that the past 12 mth's have been very hard all around and that coming into this business in the middle of a recession when sales are well down across the board is going to take a lot of hard work and dedication. I wanted Mrjfrezy to understand that there is help but its also going to be an uphill struggle.

As for seasoned vets leaving the industry in droves, that's not how I would see it at all and I didn't say that. Yes a few have left but the majority of people leaving the business are those who have started in adult in the past 12 - 18 mths.