All About Adult Traffic

All About Adult Traffic

 

Quantity vs. Quality
Traffic can be considered both an asset and a cost.  The more people you have visiting your site the more it can cost you in both bandwidth and hardware, as such traffic is a cost.  Traffic is an asset because generally you can turn traffic into revenue.   So there are two main options, one being to try to amass the largest quantity of traffic possible and hope that the sheer numbers will provide income.  If you have 1 million people visiting your site it stands to reason you can convert a decent number of them into income either by sending them to a paysite or trading them for traffic that then turns into income.  This quantity option though does bring into the logistical concerns of managing that quantity and still making a profit because your costs will be high.  The other option is getting quality.  “Quality” being a term that means the traffic that you have is very interested in a specific product and you know it and can sell it to them.  Getting quality traffic generally is a matter of filtering which means you get a quantity of traffic and offer them very specific links such as “midget anal sex” so that when people click on such a link you know exactly what they want compared to offering “teen porn” links which doesn’t filter traffic much.  The simplest way to get filtered traffic is from search engines, which is why many webmasters spend much time doing search engine optimization (seo).  A website that is seo is more apt to get very specific traffic from search engines that can then be sent to paysites that fit their desires.  Also any website with traffic can filter their traffic down by offering increasingly specific links.  Once traffic has been filtered it then can be considered targeted to a specific niche and that makes it very easy to find a paysite offering what the traffic wants and then making the sale. 

The Heron approach: I have been using the quality theory since I started; I built many sites with very specific content targeting subniches.  One of my very first sites was called teenswithbraces.com, which hits on the general teen niche, but then filters to a very specific subniche of teens with braces.  I had this site for many years even before there were many paysites offering content that specific.  However I was still able to monetize my traffic from that specific site simply by offering them paysites with teens because the traffic was interested in that as well.  I have also expanded my network over the years, which gives me some aspect of the quantity theory in that with so many niche specific sites I get more traffic rather than one or two sites. 
 
Search Engines
Search engines should be the first place a webmaster wants to get traffic from.  As discussed in the quantity vs. quality discussion search engines can provide very targeted traffic.  As an added bonus search engines send that traffic for free if you optimize your website for that.  While search engines are wonderful they can be tricky as well hence why many people hire outside webmasters to search engine optimize their websites.  These seo experts can sometimes be a boon to a complete newbie or someone too busy to bother learning however much of what they do can be done by the webmaster with little to no effort.  I won’t go into detail about seo but I will give a few pointers.  Choose a specific domain to what you are marketing.  Utilize alt tags, and create specific text to help the search engines determine what you site is all about.  Don’t try and cheat the search engines by using text that doesn’t relate to your site and be patient!    As a shortcut you can buy placement on many search engines, paying per click usually.  This is something that should be viewed as a business decision though as you will be spending money in the hopes that you can make money from the traffic.  While search engine traffic is a great resource it is also a fickle bitch so as a webmaster especially one relying on free listings you should be prepared to lose ranking, and traffic with no notice as search engines try to tweak how they list sites.

The Heron approach: When I started I built very niche specific sites only because as a surfer I had wanted such a setup of sites to surf.  The approach actually helped me in my search engine traffic though as different sites got higher or lower rankings on search engines they all seemed to even out in the end and my traffic from search engines helped to grow my trades and keep my network stable.  I also always believed that creating descriptive text added quality to my sites and while that helped to filter traffic in my network of sites it also helped the search engines list my sites.
 
Traffic Trading
Trading traffic is the act of sending one visitor to a different site in the hope that the other site will in return send you one new visitor.  There are nearly an infinite amount of techniques for trading traffic and each way has its perks and drawbacks.  The simplest way to trade traffic is to simply find another site similar to your own and ask the owner to place a link to your site and you do the same for him this is called a link exchange.  The problem with this technique is that if one site has significantly more traffic or if one site puts the link in a more visible position then the trade will be uneven and one site will be getting more traffic than the other.  To alleviate this problem there are many scripts that can help webmasters to trade traffic.  The more simple scripts will simply help a webmaster to rank his links in an order so that the sites sending in the most traffic will have their links in the most visible position.  More complex scripts can display links in any order a webmaster wants.  Now growing from the basic link exchange you can also use blind links which would be an image linking to another site so that a surfer is more or less tricked into visiting the site.  This method is generally viewed as not good as the traffic it sends is not targeted at all and is more likely to simply leave.  Blind linking is banned in the Non Nude niche because of its low quality.  Another traffic trading method is called skimming which is when there is a site that lists galleries (either thumb or text) and when a surfer clicks a gallery link they are sent to a link trade instead some of the time.  Generally the skim is set so that a surfer clicks the gallery links and gets a gallery a number of times and then is sent to a link trade.  This method is also not as high quality as a simple link exchange and is also banned in the Non Nude niche.  The key with trading traffic is to create the perfect mix of incoming and outgoing traffic so that your overall traffic grows.

The Heron approach:  Since I started so long ago there were no scripts used and traffic trading was very basic.  As time progressed I had to progress as well and buy new and better scripts to allow my traffic trades to compete.  My network of sites is so large and diverse it has always been difficult to concentrate on one specific site and grow it large traffic wise through trades.  While I believe trading traffic is a good way to gain a large traffic base it also has risks, such as if a site you trade lots of traffic with dies suddenly your own traffic will suffer.  Also if you use a script and for some reason it has an error that can affect all your traffic trades and can completely destroy a sites traffic which I have seen happen before and then the problem becomes rebuilding.  I have always had a decent amount of search engine traffic and trading between my own sites allows me to always have a stable amount of traffic that I can use to help an individual site if it needs more traffic if trades die but other people with only one or two sites don’t have such luxury.
 
Domains and Traffic
Domains can affect how successful your website is.  Just like any business name a domain is something that should be memorable and brandable.  A domain though can also be a tool.  The right domain can almost assure you a #1 ranking on search engines, for instance I own nippingteens.com, which shows up on search engines anytime someone searches for ‘nipping teens’ and because the domain is such a specific term it makes the traffic I get very targeted and easy to sell to.  Also a good domain can help your site pull more clicks from link exchanges if it is very specific or very interesting.  For instance, consider a site called boringteens.com if you saw that link on a Non Nude site you might click on it, but if you saw bigboobtits.com you’d probably be more likely to click that even if it was lower in a list. 

The Heron approach:  I have always believed that having a descriptive targeted domain is the smartest thing.  While many of my domains may seem almost too specific they do exactly what they are supposed in that they filter traffic and I end up with only the most interested traffic on my site which I can then send to paysites and make money.  Also I have never seen the wisdom in naming a site one thing and offering them something different on the site.  Why make a site called clockwhores.com and then try and sell teens, why not make it named something specific and make your job easier?  Though there is some wisdom in having an odd name if you are willing to put effort in branding it.
 
Bookmarkers
Once you have traffic you will start to notice people that return day after day, that is if your site is interesting these people are called bookmarkers.  Many webmasters consider bookmarkers a waste or freeloaders because these people continue to visit the site instead of simply going off and buying a paysite membership.  While this is a valid theory they fail to recognize the value of the bookmarkers who can help to fuel traffic trades and when you add new marketing material to your site there is a good chance a bookmarker will turn into a buyer as well. 

The Heron approach: When I started I built sites that I as a surfer would enjoy and I strove to provide the content that I thought surfers would want.  As I continued to build sites it became difficult to update all the sites in a timely manner so I lost bookmarkers.  With scripts and automation I am now able to provide a fair amount of interesting content to bookmarkers without driving myself insane working all the time however this is not as unique as surfers always like and so over time bookmarkers leave.  The key to getting and keeping bookmarkers is the personal touch only a webmaster can add.

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