What does it take to be lucrative in the freesite game nowadays?

[anteyes]

I've just been kinda pondering this lately and I'm curious what everyone has to say about it.

Let's say someone was to start from scratch today and create freesites for a living.

How many freesites do you think they would need to create and submit to start making a decent living? Or are freesites just not enough?

How long do you think it'd take them to start making decent money if they submitted 1 freesite a day, everyday? 1 month, 2 month, 1 year? And what would you consider decent money (being modest)?

Also, would you do movie or picture freesites?

[anteyes]

btw: let's justsay the cost of bandwidth is not factored in and the person is also already skilled at making/submitting freesites and adult marketing.

basically...if you lost all of your websites today and had to start creating and submitting tomorrow.

[Bill]

To be honest, I have my doubts that it is possible these days. Very difficult unless you have enough of a cash reserve to start out with to allow you to spend a year at least pouring your profits back into your business.

A lot would depend on what your budget needs would be. Those living in areas with a low living cost would have the best chance of success.

[anteyes]

Originally Posted by Bill

To be honest, I have my doubts that it is possible these days. Very difficult unless you have enough of a cash reserve to start out with to allow you to spend a year at least pouring your profits back into your business.

A lot would depend on what your budget needs would be. Those living in areas with a low living cost would have the best chance of success.

What avenue of adult would you take if you had to start from scratch?

[Useless]

Originally Posted by anteyes

What avenue of adult would you take if you had to start from scratch?

Stunt cock

[anteyes]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Stunt cock

Hey Useless Warrior, could you see just submitting freesites as profitable enough after you have about 90 freesites out there (submitting 1 a day for three months)?

[Magnoody]

So much info from UW and Bill

- How much you are willing to start with.
- Select the right niche.
- Find a good reputable sponsor (and try new ones every here and there)
- Trying new things
- Analyzing, analyzing and analyzing <<<< THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT Factor in my opinion.where u are getting the most traffic.which traffic converts best.which paid spots returns the best roy. etc etc etc

[BlackCrayon]

im sure those who have been submitting since day and actually kept doing it are making a living off it. just imagine if you've submitted for the past 7 years daily, that would be over 2500 sites.

i hope to be making a couple grand a month after a few months doing this but maybe that is too optimistic. i remember submitting a few free sites to greenguy back in 98 but things were different then. i was making 7-10k a month off just 2 big free sites that i kept working on, instead of making new ones daily.

i guess i'll see how it goes. its somewhat discouraging tho. freesites, galleries, mpgs: these are all things people say you can't make a living off of anymore. seo is lucrative but i've never been able to figure out google and when i did, it never lasted long until things changed again. what other areas of adult are there for long term income?

makes me wonder how many people really make money in this biz, or just talk like they do.

[ponygirl]

ok...I've been doing freesites for a year now, but only full time for about the last 5-6 months and not one a day, either. Right now, I make enough most weeks to pay for itself & my groceries (I have 2 boys, if that gives you any idea what my groceies cost lol). If this was the only source of family income, we'd be dumpster hopping

BUT...I see the potential. If I have just over 100 fs out there right now & I'm making $xxx, then double that, then triple it, you get the idea. I have my LL that I'm constantly tweaking, and as soon as I have some time I'll be buying more domains & doing more of the same. I sub galleries once in a while to a couple of high traffic places & get some quick sales off those, but as UW said, a lot of my fs sales are from older sites.

It is possible to make a living, for me, anyway. It takes a hell of a lot of time, patience, and learning, but it is possible imo.

Ponygirl

[anteyes]

Originally Posted by ponygirl

ok...I've been doing freesites for a year now, but only full time for about the last 5-6 months and not one a day, either. Right now, I make enough most weeks to pay for itself & my groceries (I have 2 boys, if that gives you any idea what my groceies cost lol). If this was the only source of family income, we'd be dumpster hopping

BUT...I see the potential. If I have just over 100 fs out there right now & I'm making $xxx, then double that, then triple it, you get the idea. I have my LL that I'm constantly tweaking, and as soon as I have some time I'll be buying more domains & doing more of the same. I sub galleries once in a while to a couple of high traffic places & get some quick sales off those, but as UW said, a lot of my fs sales are from older sites.

It is possible to make a living, for me, anyway. It takes a hell of a lot of time, patience, and learning, but it is possible imo.

Ponygirl

Do you do anything other than freesites? How often do you actually submit?

[ponygirl]

I mainly do freesites, that is where I'm getting the sales. I get the odd gallery listed too, but the freesites are what I focus on. I also have my hub turned LL - this mainly sucks time & doesn't return anything yet but it's got good pr & it's for the long term, while the freesites are mainly to get some fast cash.

Up till March I was working ft outside the house, so 2 freesites/week was good for me. Now I try to do 5/wk, but mostly end up with 4.

As you get better & faster at it, you will start to see more traffic, then more sales. I'm sure what I'm doing and making is piddly shit to a lot of people in this biz - in fact, I know it is but I'm not necessarily looking for the big bucks, just to make a living, like I would anywhere else. If that's what you're aiming for then I think it's possible, even probable, unless you give up too soon, or just totally suck

Main thing I have learned is that you have to have LOTS of patience - just like any other business, the first year is going to be the worst, you'll lose money & think of bailing every day, but get over the hump & it gets better.

well, that's my story & I'm stickin to it

EDIT - oh ya, and TIME - your family will hate you & complain they never see you, you will not sleep, your eyes will go buggy and your hands will cramp - just be prepared

[Linkster]

I can tell you that there are two pitfalls a large percentage of people fall into when starting with freesites - they try to use sponsor content and they go with the cheapest lowest bandwidth host they can.
While these sound like good ideas they have caused more problems for free site makers in the last two years than any others.
First - the content(free hosted stuff that is) - while its free and readily available - it (in most of the larger programs out there) has been used so many times that its just not going to get approved at LLs - or at least the LLs that will send sales - they want quality content for their surfers and you should want quality surfers - so I would recommend spending the 5 or 6 bucks it costs these days for a set of content per site and it will pay for itself in the long run

Second - the host - every day I look at 404s and "exceeded bandwidth" pages when Im checking my links - and all because the submitter wanted to shave 5 bucks off the cost of the hosting a month - it is in your best interests to always check around (pretty easy to do here with the amount of posts on the subject in the past) and pick someone thats not going to go out on you in 2 months.

Last - do I think its possible to make a living from free sites alone - not a chance - but then my idea of a living is probably different than yours - if you want to be making $1000 a week in a year - yeah thats very possible with free sites as long as you learn traffic routing and filtering, listen and read everything you can on this board, and do some of the tricks already posted here where you set up hubs of your free sites and work towards your own network of sites that "captures" surfers and builds their traffic.

[2msacras]

I've been doing free sites off and on for the past few years - semi steady since April of this year - but most of my sales come from other methods but I think freesites are always there with steady sales.

[juggernaut]

I submit free sites to promo my site, all I can tell you is I think this would be very hard if not impossible. I see at most 12 to 16 unique’s a day from the sites I have submitted to. I submit to good link lists, not the big boys here but that mainly cause of my niche and the content I can provide for it, so I don’t waste their time submitting to them when I know they won’t take the sites from posts i have placed here asking about it. Personally I feel if you were going to do this for a living, you would have to really bust your ass with a shit load of sites and a really really good plan. There are tuts around on how it can be done with building a submitting around 10 per day, but they are some what old and I really can’t say if they would work as I have not tried them personally. I used them to figure out what I had to do. But look at the numbers people post here in their sales stats and then start doing to math and you will see what it takes to make money on it. Now how much money are you talking? If you are living in a 3rd world country where a pack of smokes cost $1 then maybe yes you can, but if you are living in the USA, you better get a day job cause for the whole 90 days odds are you wont make enough to put food on your table.

[ponygirl]

If you're strictly going to do only freesites, then yes, volume is definitely the key. If you are generally getting even 1:800 with a sponsor & you send 800 uniques/day to them, statistically you should be getting a sale a day. I know there are ups and downs, but if you evened it out over a long enough period, it probably would work out. The only thing would be to work out how many sites you need to build to get to the level of traffic that you need to make the $ you want. Basically, set a goal and work towards it.

What I have found, though, is that building freesites leads to other things...galleries, LinkLists or TGPs, hubs, more and more 'web presence'. All these things are a potential source of income.

The main thing is time. If you have a family to feed, mortgage to pay etc, then yes, get a day job & do this on the side. If you have alternate sources of income & can devote a ton of time to it, it will pay off.

[BlackCrayon]

so how does everyone pay their bills? not that i want answers to that but if the people submitting can't make a living off it, are most people here besides the linklist owners part timers? seems to be a bit much to expect people to used paid content when they won't even be able to make a living off it. i'll never forgive myself for not starting a linklist or tgp when i first got into the biz in 98. all those yummy backlinks i would of aquired over the years...no point in making myself depressed over it though. i make enough to keep doing this full time but i really miss making 10-20k a month. seems there are still lots of people making this, or they make it look like they do. i guess the traditional methods just don't work like they used to. the big money is in seo, creating new ways to spam and drive traffic direct from the source. the question is, how the hell do you do that when things are more restrictive than ever. working your ass off to make 4k/month a year down the road just doesn't seem worth it.

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by BlackCrayon

so how does everyone pay their bills? not that i want answers to that but if the people submitting can't make a living off it, are most people here besides the linklist owners part timers? seems to be a bit much to expect people to used paid content when they won't even be able to make a living off it. i'll never forgive myself for not starting a linklist or tgp when i first got into the biz in 98. all those yummy backlinks i would of aquired over the years...no point in making myself depressed over it though. i make enough to keep doing this full time but i really miss making 10-20k a month. seems there are still lots of people making this, or they make it look like they do. i guess the traditional methods just don't work like they used to. the big money is in seo, creating new ways to spam and drive traffic direct from the source. the question is, how the hell do you do that when things are more restrictive than ever. working your ass off to make 4k/month a year down the road just doesn't seem worth it.

You can always do what I did. Marry a hot chick who works on cam. Then you can sit home and work on sites. She pulls in 5k a month easy. And we pay our bills by check. But seriously its like anything else, work work work. Know the business enough to keep your head above water. But I do think that some if not most have other means of income. IE advertising spots on sites can cost you 1k per month. I don't know why you dont put up a LL? I would think if done correctly in a short period of time you would have some great backlinks. This is just like any other business. Thats why they call it the adult business. There is no way of getting rich quick, but just like opening up a store front it will take time and hard work. I think to many people get into this thinking they will just wake up at 11am, work on their site to 2pm and then call it a day and watch the money roll in. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. The good thing about this business unlike others, is it will still pay off if you work hard and dont give up. You just have to be willing to pick yourself up when you make a mistake and drive on. Other industries are not that forgiving. As far as your 4k a month dont seem worth it comment. I have to disagree. Thats 50k a year. And thats a good living. Not great but good enough to live off of.

[BlackCrayon]

Originally Posted by juggernaut

You can always do what I did. Marry a hot chick who works on cam. Then you can sit home and work on sites. She pulls in 5k a month easy. And we pay our bills by check. But seriously its like anything else, work work work. Know the business enough to keep your head above water. But I do think that some if not most have other means of income. IE advertising spots on sites can cost you 1k per month. I don't know why you dont put up a LL? I would think if done correctly in a short period of time you would have some great backlinks. This is just like any other business. Thats why they call it the adult business. There is no way of getting rich quick, but just like opening up a store front it will take time and hard work. I think to many people get into this thinking they will just wake up at 11am, work on their site to 2pm and then call it a day and watch the money roll in. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. The good thing about this business unlike others, is it will still pay off if you work hard and dont give up. You just have to be willing to pick yourself up when you make a mistake and drive on. Other industries are not that forgiving. As far as your 4k a month dont seem worth it comment. I have to disagree. Thats 50k a year. And thats a good living. Not great but good enough to live off of.

yeah, 4k a month is a decent living but it taking one year of work just to achieve it is what i think isn't worth it. i'd imagine there are other more lucrative things you could work at for one year straight and make much more.

i know the online adult industry isn't get rich quick but it used to be, for me at least. when i first started doing this i was making 10k a month within 6 months. i spent years waking up at noon working for a couple hours a day and partying the rest still pulling in good money. i guess all of that has spoiled me because now all i can think of is how much better it was back then.

as for the reason i don't start a linklist now, its too late to be a greenguy, or a tommy, or xxxjays. no one is gonna submit to a site that doesn't have hundreds of thousands of hits per day.

i've just got to face the fact that things are very different now and will never return to the days of old but if i can't make 50k a year working 8 hours a day at whatever in the online adult world, i think i'll have to find another area of work but i can't for the life of me imagine working for someone else now, after all these years of freedom.

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by BlackCrayon

yeah, 4k a month is a decent living but it taking one year of work just to achieve it is what i think isn't worth it. i'd imagine there are other more lucrative things you could work at for one year straight and make much more.

I have to disagree with you here man. Sorry I did not reply to this sooner but I dont get alot of the posts in my email and I guess thats a good thing as it would drive me crazy. But look at what you just said here. Honestly I know people that went to college for 4 years, became lawyers, finanical consultants for huge fortune 500 companies out of NYC and it took them at a minium 3 years to even make that type of money. Hell my one friend thought he would leave law school and start out with a 6 figure gig. HE was shocked and very depressed for a long time when he looked over his bill from school and then saw his 35k a year paycheck.
Sure there are more things someone could do for 1 year and maybe make more money,but are they legal? But I'm going to go out on a limb here and think you are somewhat young and have no idea. Cause if you did you would either be making more money or not saying that comment. When I was in 11th grade some came into my school and asked us what we thought we would be making or expected to make right out of school in a job. I said 50k and he laughed. I thought he was wrong, be he was right. Dude 50k is not something easy to come by in any job. Look in the papers, internet or where ever and tell me what jobs you think someone can pull in that money with 1 years worth of exp or less.

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by juggernaut

I have to disagree with you here man. Sorry I did not reply to this sooner but I dont get alot of the posts in my email and I guess thats a good thing as it would drive me crazy. But look at what you just said here. Honestly I know people that went to college for 4 years, became lawyers, finanical consultants for huge fortune 500 companies out of NYC and it took them at a minium 3 years to even make that type of money. Hell my one friend thought he would leave law school and start out with a 6 figure gig. HE was shocked and very depressed for a long time when he looked over his bill from school and then saw his 35k a year paycheck.
Sure there are more things someone could do for 1 year and maybe make more money,but are they legal? But I'm going to go out on a limb here and think you are somewhat young and have no idea. Cause if you did you would either be making more money or not saying that comment. When I was in 11th grade some came into my school and asked us what we thought we would be making or expected to make right out of school in a job. I said 50k and he laughed. I thought he was wrong, be he was right. Dude 50k is not something easy to come by in any job. Look in the papers, internet or where ever and tell me what jobs you think someone can pull in that money with 1 years worth of exp or less.

wow, juggernaut - I have never responded to one of your posts before but I gotta say this was excellent. You are right - I had a govt job that would be considered 'cushy' and it would've taken me probably another 2-3 yrs to make that kind of $ (in comparable CAD of course )

the thing here is that I WAS making 35k, which is not too shoddy, now me - I consider myself lucky to get a cheque each week

but I know that it's coming along. It's getting there that hurts lol, and a lot of folks can't wait that long, that's all.

Ponygirl

[th3g4me]

I plan on making a living from this stuff in the next 4 to 10 months (I been in again for 2 months) from... Free sites, galleries, some hubs, maybe a fake TGP, or LL, a blog, SE doorways, submit to some link dumps, and forums. I might pick up some google listings on the way?

I don't see it happening from free sites alone though...

I don't see making all these sites and etc as working my ass off. I call working my ass off, working in the mines, factory/plant, welding, being a mechanic, and doing construction, logging, or working on a farm. This... What people do online is... Kind of like being an artist. Set on your ass all day thinking creatively and getting paid for it.

I don't want to be impolite to any one, but when some one says that the new comers can not make it... It would be like the Duryea brothers saying no need for any one else to build a car we have one that works!

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by th3g4me

I don't see making all these sites and etc as working my ass off. I call working my ass off, working in the mines, factory/plant, welding, being a mechanic, and doing construction, logging, or working on a farm. This... What people do online is... Kind of like being an artist. Set on your ass all day thinking creatively and getting paid for it.

exactly. It's a matter of perspective. I definitely made a lot more money working in a 'cushy office job' but...was it fun? did I enjoy myself? did I meet interesting people? well it had it's moments but I'd rather make 4k a month doing this than doing that. I don't need 250k/yr to call it a living, or to be successful.

although there's always those goals

[selena]

~ears perk at the mention of Gorean~

[neveremail]

After some work you should be able make a freesite and submit it in 2 hours (3 hours max) and I'm sure some ppl can do it quicker. If you expect to make a living off 2 hours work a day then you would have to be crazy.

That leaves you atleast 5 hours to do something else and get your hands in many pies!

[Toby]

Some very excellent advice in this discussion. The fetish niche comments in particular caught my attention.

The premise of the question is strictly building and submitting free sites, but there are some other things that go along with that which aren't strictly building and submitting that also need to be done in order to maximize that effort. Namely a hub site or sites and all that goes with it, such as link trades, traffic filtering, etc.