TRAINING CAMP

More times than I can count I get emails with this question: “I just put up this site, blah-blah-blah.com. Is it going to make any money for me?” People come into this business everyday expecting to throw up a little porn site and start raking in the big bucks.TRAINING CAMP

More times than I can count I get emails with this question: “I just put up this site, blah-blah-blah.com. Is it going to make any money for me?” People come into this business everyday expecting to throw up a little porn site and start raking in the big bucks. I, too, was not immune to this delusion when I first started two years ago. My perceptions were exactly the same!

I learned very quickly that to actually make it in this business, you have to WORK at it. When you make that decision to get involved in the adult industry, to be successful you must also make a conscious commitment to making it work for you! You are actually starting your own business, and as with any business venture, it takes sacrifices of time, effort, and money. However, this is one of the very few businesses that you can get started in with a minimal investment.

OK-so you are willing to put in the time and the effort. What about the money? There will be a few investments that you should make if you really want to get things rolling.

1) Domain Names and Hosting

Free hosts have their purposes, but I can guarantee you that you will not see the success you wish to have by using these services. The old saying, “you get what you pay for” rings especially true in this situation. Go to a registrar service, (I recommend Domain Name Systems, $15 for one year registration (http://www.domainnamesystems.com), register a domain name, then get yourself some good, quality hosting. There are several quality hosting companies listed in the YNOT webmaster resources section. Read through them, make contacts, and ask questions! The hosting company you choose should be more than happy to answer all your questions — if they don’t, then apparently they don’t need your business … find one that will, and stick with them.

2) Content

You MUST buy content! To make your average free site, you must have approximately 20-30 content pictures. Several content providers offer special “free-site” packages which contain a small amount of content for a very reasonable price. For example, CD Babes (CDBabes.com), offers several “content mini-packs,” some of which are under $20. One thing to remember … there is NO SUCH THING as public domain porn! You cannot scan images of copyrighted material onto your computer and use them. In addition, newsgroups are simply a mass collection of stolen images. Those pics belong to SOMEONE, and if you use them you may get prosecuted. “I didn’t know” is not an excuse. So save yourself some time and money by getting your own, legal content!

Now that you have the materials that you need to get started, let’s go through a few points on how to actually MAKE money from your investment. Go sign up with an established, well-known sponsor (or two). My personal experience has shown that MaxCash and CashQuest convert very well for me, have great customer support, and are on-time with their payouts. There are several great referral programs out there, just be SURE to read the Terms of Service agreements when you sign up with ANY sponsor.

So now you have your free site. You have your domain up, the content, and sponsor ads in place. What can you expect back from your investment? We will start with conversion and click-through ratios.

Conversion ratios (average*):

Thumbnail Gallery Post Traffic: 1:1,500-1:2,000
Link List Traffic: 1:900-1:1,5000
Search Engine Traffic: 1:200-1:500

*remember, these figures are just averages from personal stats, and can fluctuate wildly!

Click-through ratios (again, average):

Thumbnail Gallery Post Traffic: approx. 2-5%
Link List Traffic: approx. 15-20%
Search Engine Traffic: approx. 50-80%

*Click-through ratios fluctuate even more wildly than conversion ratios! Factors include type of ads placed on pages, where they are placed, time of day, sponsors used, ability to get “targeted” traffic, and moon phase (well … maybe not the moon phase).

So given these numbers, this is a general synopsis of what you can expect. Example: You have ONE site. You post to a TGP and get, say 4,000 hits per day. You post to a link list, and get 2,000 hits per day. You are LUCKY enough to get a fairly decent ranking on a search engine and pull in maybe 200 hits a day.

So let’s break this down here.

TGP Traffic: 4,000 hits
Click-through: 80-200
Conversions: 1 every 7-11 days (approximate)

Link List Traffic: 2,000 hits
Click-through: 300-400
Conversions: 1 every 3-4 days (approximate)

Link List Traffic: 200 hits
Click-through: 100-160
Conversions: 1 every 2-3 days (approximate)

Conclusion: You could end up averaging MAYBE three sign-ups a week. Hmm … even with top-paying sponsors, that averages out to $105 a week. And that is IF you can actually get that search engine traffic in there. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it, though. It can take your site weeks, or even months, to get listed in the engines, much less actually have a good listing. Oh, and this doesn’t mention the massive bandwidth bill you would receive at the end of the month!

So how are people MAKING MONEY in this business? The answer is very simple … BUILD! BUILD! BUILD! Build a small free site … nothing much, index page, two gallery pages, and html pic pages. Submit to Dmoz, search engines, etc. Build a small free site. Submit. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Get the idea?

This is the best way you can get started in the biz. Once you have your “empire” of free sites built, you can begin to move on to other things (by the time you have 100 sites built, you will have learned A LOT!). Keep an eye on the boards. Ask questions. Keep communication open with other webmasters (and never, ever, burn your bridges, baby!).

It all boils down to this. The days of throwing up a little porn site and raking in $30,000 a month are LONG GONE. You can’t come to this business thinking that in six months you won’t have to work … in fact, the exact opposite is true. You will work harder, longer hours than you ever have in your life. 12-14 hour days will become the norm … and I don’t mean just 5 days a week. Make that more like 7 days a week. Pay will be low, hours will be long, and family will bitch and moan at you spending so much time on the computer.

So WHY do we do this? If you throw enough hard work and common sense into it, you CAN make it work. You do this long enough, it becomes a way of life. You will work from home, on your computer. Sure, you could get up and go somewhere anytime you wanted … but you won’t want to. You could say perhaps that webmasters have more issues with porn addiction that the surfers do!

Time…work…common sense…an open mind… You have these things, and you have it made!