BUSINESS STRATEGY

Over the past six chapters we’ve discussed the beginning of creating an online adult toy store, just like I did at NileXxX.com. We’ve discussed the planning, the credit card transactions, the design, the strategy, and even some legal mumbo-jumbo.BUSINESS STRATEGY

Over the past six chapters we’ve discussed the beginning of creating an online adult toy store, just like I did at NileXxX.com. We’ve discussed the planning, the credit card transactions, the design, the strategy, and even some legal mumbo-jumbo. The previous article touched on the design of your site by pointing out some software programs to investigate, some flashy programs to stay away from, and some tips to keep the site looking good regardless of the user’s platform. All of those pieces of advice still apply as we get dirty with design this week.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]

The Nitty Gritty Of Design

Designing a toy store is a little different from designing a traditional site. For instance, most traditional adult sites do not feature a search engine (although, they should). Efficient and successful toy stores are built from the ground up around search engines. When I was planning NileXxX.com, I did some research on other adult toy stores on the Internet and was surprised to see so many of them utilizing nothing more than hundreds of pages of HTML for their specific products. No thank you!

But the better stores are built around a database. We will discuss methods of creating a database in an upcoming article, but basically, my advice is: unless you know how to do it, hire someone. It’s usually less expensive than you think. I used OnTheOutskirts.com for some of my components. They also help with the design and promotion of my site. There are probably hundreds of sites out there that offer similar consulting services.

Regardless of whether you are building a site around a database or not, HTML is still involved. Devise a consistent look within the confines of 800×600 and stick with an appropriate color scheme. Most adult porn sites are bright, colorful, and flashy. While it looks great on a high broadband connection, the reality is that over 85% of the Internet public still surfs with 56k or less. Keep that in mind as you create your site.

There are tricks to make your site graphic-intensive AND fast, and if you look around, you will recognize these tricks on many adult sites. The first is to duplicate images. Once an image has been loaded into cache on your computer, redisplaying it throughout the site is almost instantaneous. Take advantage of this when you create membership, tour, and join buttons or when you create your tour sections.

Adult toy stores are a little different since the graphics displayed are dependent upon the type of products people are searching for, but there are other tricks as well. For one, image compression. Software programs ranging from Photoshop to shareware thumb-nailers offer choices concerning image quality. The higher the quality, the larger the file size, and the longer it takes to load. Experiment with different settings to find a balance between image quality and image size.

Along the same lines of image compression is image resolution. Many adult sites brag about having high-definition images. This may be true, but it’s usually only a waste of bandwidth. Super high-quality monitors can sometimes display 96 dots-per-inch (DPI), but most monitors are limited to 72 DPI. If you are displaying images higher than 100 DPI, the only thing you’re gaining is long load times. Of course, this only applies for website images. If you are selling images for use in newspapers or magazines, high resolution images are still very important!

Obviously, the best course of action is to combine these three techniques. Resample your current images to 72 DPI, compress them slightly, and then use them throughout your site. You’ll have a quick, graphic-intensive site in no time!

Navigation is another area of design which is often overlooked. Navigating through adult websites should be a simple, one-handed affair. Some research will prove this to be true. Most adult sites out there follow similar laws of navigation: An age-verification opening screen, followed by a main home page containing three links: A TOUR link, a JOIN link, and a MEMBERS link. These buttons remain in the same place regardless of what page you visit.

Even though NileXxX.com is an adult toy store, this philosophy of Tour, Join, & Members is so commonplace, I incorporated those buttons and followed those rules for my site, too. People like seeing what they are used to, so give it to them.

Ironically enough, the design of the actual content of a site is not as important as the navigation or overall appearance. Nevertheless, it still requires planning. You don’t want to invest a lot of time and effort convincing someone to join your site, only to lose them in the first month due to a poorly-designed membership section. The first rule is also one that many adult membership sites break: The pay section should be at least as “pretty” as the free section. Many sites, particularly AVS sites, break this cardinal rule all the time. Doing so is a big mistake.

Make your content easy to navigate through the judicious use of menus, graphics, and perhaps even subject searches. If you have a LOT of content, it is important to demonstrate that fact within the first page of the membership section without overloading your new members with information.

Design for product displays within an adult toy store is equally important. Decide which product information will be presented and create the table layout accordingly. Since product displays are typically generated dynamically (we’ll get into that at a later date when we discuss search engines), it is important for the product layout to look acceptable on its own, or among hundreds of other results.

For example, my products at NileXxX.com appear within an invisible table comprised of four overriding sections. The top section is the title bar, which contains the title of the product, the category of the product, and its ID number. For aesthetic reasons, I added two superfluous links for “reviewing products” and “reading reviews” in this bar, too. To separate results, I made this title bar a light yellow color.

The three remaining sections all fall under the colored title-bar. On the left is a picture of the product. In the middle is the price (and a lower “membership price” encouraging them to join), and the description of the product. The right is devoted to the user-action button (either “ADD TO CART” or “CONFIRM SELECTION”). These buttons are bright and big and encourage the users to click them.

And that leads us to one final piece of advice concerning design: Don’t fall into the trap of creating such a beautiful graphic site that users don’t know what they’re supposed to do. If you have a button, make it LOOK like a button. You want them to press the buttons, don’t you? Don’t outwit them. Remember, half of their blood has left their brain.

In Part 8 we’ll discuss programming issues, like databases and search engines.

Article written by Richard at NileXxX.com, home to the world’s sexiest selection of adult toys, DVDs, and clothing.

BUSINESS STRATEGY

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