Look for the final part of this three-part article on adult Web site categories when Lopix talks about free sites.Pay sites have great profit potential but they can be extremely expensive to build and operate – so what about those Webmasters who need to get started on a budget? Building a small adult site that makes money through the sale of Age Verification System passwords can be a lucrative proposition for an adult Webmaster with little initial money to invest. Lopix offers his opinions about AVS sites.

Next down the chain of cost and effort is what is called an AVS site (where AVS stands for Adult Verification System). Now, there is still a cost for the surfer to “join” an AVS site, but what the surfer is doing is paying the AVS company for access to their entire network of sites. Thus, it should be easier to get a surfer to join since they are getting access to thousands of sites instead of just one. The surfer will perceive that they are getting more value for their dollar. And a lot of times, the yearly cost to be an AVS member is less than the monthly cost for just one pay site membership.

UPDATES ARE LESS DEMANDING

Updates are another matter, though, since a surfer is much more likely to come back if there is new content posted on the site every week. Make sure that if you update the site regularly that you tell the surfers about it every chance that you get in hopes that they will return and keep returning to see the updates. You are also going to be using your content to drive the up-sells through your sponsor links. Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of AVS sites that were created and then forgotten by those who made them, which is kind of sad and shows their lack of business savvy.

Starting and running an AVS site is way cheaper and easier than a pay site. And you can use your AVS site to promote affiliate programs, thus in a way you are doing a bit of both. In fact, most AVS sites promote pay sites inside their member areas, giving the site owner more chances to cash in on the same surfer. If they really like your content, they may be inclined to pay to become a member of one of your sponsors’ sites. And, since you know that they already put out their credit card number to join the AVS, you know they are willing to pay for their online porn, thus they should be more willing to shell out for a pay site membership.

An AVS site would still have decent hosting requirements, though nowhere near what a pay site would need. It mainly depends on the traffic you send and thus your bandwidth bill, but you are likely looking at the $30 to $50 range. So, in two respects, it is cheaper to start and run an AVS site than a pay site. You are looking at $10,000-25,000 in startup costs for a good pay site, and anywhere from $5,000-10,000 per month thereafter for content upgrades and hosting – while an AVS site can be started for less than $100 and would cost less than $100 per month for content and hosting.

While pay sites certainly have the potential for much larger profits, when it comes to AVS sites, their possible profits can also be quite nice. If you can manage to generate just one signup to a sponsor site each day, and you get $35 per signup from your sponsor, you would be making $1050 a month. And that is not impossible to achieve. If you can keep the same success while building more sites, that thousand bucks can easily double, triple, or more! Mind you, do not expect that you will be making much money on selling the actual AVS accesses to your AVS site – you simply will not, so worry more about getting sponsor signups. Since any AVS company that has been around more than a couple of months has already had the steep climb in joining members, there will not be much of an audience left for you to draw upon and get signups from. The only way you might have a shot is if the AVS company is fairly new and you get in early, right at the start, and be one of the first to get their name out.

A LITTLE LEGAL PROTECTION

Lastly, the AVS sites also fill another need, which is what they were originally designed for, and that is to prevent minors from getting access to porn. There are some countries, with Germany being the main one, where you can not show so much as a nipple to anyone unless they have proven they are 18 or older. So in many ways the AVS also performs the function of bouncer by increasing the likelihood that all visitors are of legal age and helping reduce the chance that the site owner is thrown in jail. Good to know.

Look for the final part of this three-part article on adult Web site categories when Lopix talks about free sites.

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Lopix is a regular contributor to The ADULTWEBMASTER Magazine.