BUSINESS STRATEGY

Over the past five chapters your website has grown from a twinkle in your eye to a collection of licensed images on your hosting provider’s servers with a domain name to call your own and a credit card processing company lined up to password protect your content.BUSINESS STRATEGY

Over the past five chapters your website has grown from a twinkle in your eye to a collection of licensed images on your hosting provider’s servers with a domain name to call your own and a credit card processing company lined up to password protect your content. Now it’s time to make your free section as visually appealing as possible.

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

Dressing Up Your Baby

When it comes to designing the look of your site, you have a number of options. You can always hire someone to do it for you, but if you were going to do that, you would have done it already, so we will assume that you are undertaking this adult toy store on your own. That means you’re going to get your hands dirty (figuratively speaking, of course). That should be good news! Getting dirty is half the reason you wanted to do this, remember?

A new design trend in the adult business is utilizing Flash. Flash is a design and graphics tool created by Macromedia, which allows relatively complex animation and visual images to be compressed and downloaded onto a web page relatively quickly. And, the good news is it’s all relatively easy to do! Notice how I say “relatively” quite a lot? That’s because, as with all applications over the Internet, EVERYTHING is relative. It’s true, a professionally designed Flash file is visually appealing, but due to the nature of the Internet, the “cooler” it is, the longer it takes to download. And the typical adult user (i.e., potential customer) is generally looking for instant gratification that will not be satiated by a “LOADING” screen. Additionally, while the Flash software allows for some nifty effects in the hands of a proficient designer, it is a daunting task for the layman. Add those facts together and I recommend staying away from a “Flashy” site, at least right out of the gate.

That said, your only real recourse is to utilize a more standard graphic design program like Photoshop by Adobe, Fireworks by Macromedia, or others. I prefer Photoshop because it is a little more intuitive, although they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Use whichever program you are already familiar with. If both are foreign to you, I recommend Photoshop.

The trick to designing an appealing adult web site is integrating cutting-edge graphics within the limitations of the Internet and HTML. If you’ve seen a lot of adult web sites (and presumably you have), you have probably noticed that the majority of sites have a few design elements in common.

1) Every page of a specific site is designed within the same “resolution box.” A resolution box is the predefined maximum width and height dimensions of the graphics. Some adult sites use 640×480 but the majority now use 800×600. This is based upon the latest Internet statistics that claim that nearly 95% of Internet surfers have their monitor resolutions set to at least 800×600.

2) Every page of a specific site shares the same general lay-out, and there are typically three buttons that are easily identified: The “TOUR” button, the “MEMBERS” button, and the “JOIN” button.

3) Almost every adult site has a number of pages for the “TOUR” and they all end on the “JOIN” page, which is a “call-to-action” for the user.

4) Every “TOUR” page is a specific, slanted sales pitch containing samples images from within the member’s section.

On top of these similarities are the consistencies among most adult toy stores. They all feature extensive photos of the products for sale and they all offer a search engine to locate those products within a database. (Well, at least, most of them do – the number of “mediocre” toy stores is astounding and is one of the reasons I chose to do one).

The bottom line of designing an adult site is to stay with what works. There is no reason to redefine the wheel, so your site should share the same basic design philosophy as other sites, whether it is a toy store or a more traditional content-related site.

In the case of an adult toy store, plan on using as many of the product images as possible, and design the store to exhibit those items. With NileXXX.com, for example, I wrote a simple script that places random product images into predefined spaces on the page. This keeps the design clean and elegant while allowing for multiple images. I also allow full searching and purchasing from within the “free section” to increase revenue. While most adult toy stores don’t have a “membership section” per se, I wanted to open multiple revenue streams, so I created a toy store on top of a membership site. Don’t let the “simple script” or “search engine” phrases scare you. We’ll discuss those in detail down the road.

But since I also had a traditional membership section, I needed to develop tour pages, join pages, and consistent buttons, just like most typical adult sites out there. I began with an outline and determined how many “pages” my free site would have. A page is a single HTML document. In order for the user to move from one “page” to another, they will need to click on a button (preferably either the “TOUR” button, the “JOIN” button, or the “MEMBERSHIP” button), although there is nothing to prevent them from clicking on the browser’s BACK button (and in a later chapter we’ll discuss how to STILL make money even if they do that!).

A good rule of thumb is to have one tour page devoted to each “element” of your site. For example, at NileXXX.com, I have a page devoted to promoting the store, another for promoting the membership discount I offer, another for promoting the pictures, one for promoting the streams, the live chats, the updates, and so on. On every page of the “tour section” is a flashing button that says JOIN NOW, along with another caption that says TRY IT FOR FREE that allows them to search the products of the database. Whether they choose to join or shop, the pressure is on for them to spend money. And that’s the real goal.

You now have an overview of designing your new site. Look at examples. See how pages load differently, and how various sites use consistency and cutting-edge graphics to attract customers. Since this is a complicated (and very important) step to a successful adult site, we’ll discuss it more and in greater detail in the next installment of this series.

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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