Newbies, Need a Plan?
Getting started in the adult internet industry and dont know what to do first? Every good business venture needs some kind of outline for success, so heres the plan...
First think about whether you are serious about working in the adult internet industry, if you arent you are just wasting your time here. Things to consider: How family will react -- i.e. you dont want your wife/girlfriend to leave you because you are spending countless hours on the computer working with porn. Also consider whether or not you care if people know you run porn sites. All my friends know I do and of course it sucks when it seems to come out more often than you like, especially around chicks you just meet, but thats the adult webmaster life, so deal with it or go work somewhere else. Alternatively you can try to live the secret life of an adult webmaster and tell everyone you are a web designer, internet marketer, etc... but once people do find out they are going to lose trust in you because theyll think youre a closet perv. So I suggest not keeping your skeleton in the closet to long.
Second, for those of you who decide this is something you want to pursue youll need to decide how much money you want to invest in your project. One thing I suggest you pull for before anything else is hosting, and preferably dedicated. You might think a couple hundred bucks a month is pretty steep for just starting, but if you are serious, this is the best step. If you have half a brain youll be covering your hosting bill within the first or second month with the revenue from your websites.
Third is content, there is enough free content offered by affiliates as to where you dont need to make this a main concern at first. But if you want to invest a little more cash into your venture you can opt to purchase some content sets, the more original the content the better your sites/galleries may convert.
Fourth, start by working the TGP circuit. Gallery creation and submission isnt the most exhilarating of tasks but it will teach you the basics of the biz. Youll start getting an idea of how things work in the industry from the ground up. Also you may want to start up your own TGP on the side. I know there are a million and one TGPs out there, and your TGP may never reach more than a few thousand hits a day, but it doesnt matter, its a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Your own site will give you a chance to play around with some steady traffic and learn to maximize its earning potential. Also if you start to get regular gallery submissions and check them daily it will give you an appreciation for how many fucks out there are trying to cheat the system.
Fifth, dont try and cheat the system, youll screw yourself in the long run. This goes for affiliates, TGPs, link sites, traffic trades, search engines, etc.
Sixth, work the niches! Niche traffic is going to give you more buck for you buck. Higher conversions with less traffic means a lower bandwidth bill. The more obscure the niche the better it will convert.
Seventh, search engine traffic is gold. Learn how the search engines work/rank, etc. Concentrate on Google and dmoz, they are going to be your best bets. Heres a good plan to build steady SE traffic: Couple up your similar TGP galleries into small sites (the kind you would submit to GreenGuys). These small sites can not only be submitted to the link sites, but you can also submit them to dmoz. The largest of the search engines pull their directory listings from dmoz and thats money in the bank for you on a steady long term basis. If youd like you can put each of these small sites on their own domain name, they are cheap enough now as to where you can do this. If you link several of these small sites together (link popularity), especially ones of similar niches, this will do wonders for you in Google.
Eighth, keep your eyes open, analyze what others do and try and improve on their ideas. Also play around with your own original ideas, trial and error will only help you in the long run. Lastly and most important keep an eye on how your traffic moves. Server stats are a MUST. If you cant get decent server stats find a decent counter script and stick it on all your pages. This business is 80-90% marketing and the rest technical. Know how people think, click, move, jerk, etc!
Along with this plan if you keep up with how the industry is moving (which is easy enough if you are a regular to the message boards), you will be well on your way to an independent successful career as an adult webmaster.
