There’s a formula for building the standard adult pay site. In fact, it’s rare for a webmaster to step too far away from this formula. First, you pick a niche. Next, you build a tour focused on that niche. Then you put up a few prominently-featured image galleries or video clip collections based on the selected niche theme, and you fill out the rest of the site with plug-in content from third parties. This filler content may or may not relate to your selected niche. That doesn’t really matter because it’s just filler. The niche galleries fulfill any promises made in the tour, and the filler content helps retain members by drowning them in quantity – even if it’s off topic. When it comes to up-sells, that’s what live video is for; members who want a little one-on-one time can wander over to your live video plug-in content and purchase some attention. It’s a nice bonus when it happens, but you don’t expect it to happen too often.It has always puzzled me that live content so often gets treated like “just another add-on package” when, in fact, it should occupy a much more prominent role with the average adult pay site. Your websites should never fail to leverage the unique qualities of the internet.

We all know that the internet provides buyers of adult entertainment with a private, reduced-shame avenue for purchasing porn. Think of all the porn sales that were lost before the internet, not out of a lack of desire, but out of a lack of will to feed that desire at the expense of public humiliation. For many people, porn is a private matter, possibly shared with a partner or a friend, but usually it’s a solo experience. The privacy protection offered by the internet is one of its biggest assets. All websites benefit from this truth by default.

You also have the “immediacy” of internet porn purchases. Seriously… why take that trip down to the local video store when you can score your porn online – and likely at a fraction of the cost? Sex is one of those impulsive things. Wait too long to deliver your product and other thoughts might take root in a buyer’s mind and spoil a potential sale. Porn would sell like crazy if it were allowed in the “impulse item shelves” at the supermarket checkout aisle. Almost all adult websites offer instant gratification for buyers.

But there’s another advantage that the internet brings us, which I have not yet discussed. Interactivity. The only thing better than a picture of a naked hottie is a video of a naked hottie. The only thing better than a video of a naked hottie is live video of a naked hottie. The only thing better than live video of a naked hottie is interactive live video of a naked hottie. The traditional video porn format – meaning porno movies – was left out when we moved to the realm of “live.” It’s a shame that more websites don’t find creative ways to utilize this quite significant advantage they have over plain old video store porn.

That doesn’t mean solutions aren’t available. In fact, a lot of pay sites already offer the solution that I’m talking about – they just don’t feature it properly. Live and interactive video plug-in packages don’t have to be all about the up-sell. The content that these programs provide is frankly too good to be pushed to the back of a members area, buried in with those “ten thousand porno clip” plug-ins that aren’t impressing anyone anymore – and probably aren’t helping your retention rates as much as you’d like. If you carry live video feeds then it’s time to bring them front and center. If you don’t carry live video feeds, it might be time to add live content to your pay site. Unless you’re running a heavily-themed reality site that is constantly updated, your pay site probably could use the hook. Live content that provides users with the opportunity to interact with models is highly addictive to some of the biggest spending porn fans on the internet, but maybe not for the exact reason you’re thinking.

I recently spoke with Dan from CamZ.com; his company has been providing live interactive cam content to adult webmasters for several years. I asked him if live cams helped pay site retention rates because of members getting hooked on certain performers; he said the hook was more in the general interactivity and live nature of the content over the draw of any specific performers.

“I think more than getting attached to certain girls, they get hooked on the live interaction with these gals, guys, and swinger couples that we have on the network,” said Dan. “They do have their favorites and will be sure to log in the next time that gal is on, but overall it is the fact that they can, at anytime, log in and see something new and live no matter when they come back.”

Live video has a number of advantages over recorded video, not the least of which is the perpetual freshness of the content. There are signs to indicate that live content tends to be the reason why many surfers continue to visit their favorite pay sites; in other words, it’s not just another novelty that loses its luster rather quickly.

“The biggest thing that we noticed was the stats and how, over time, they go up and up,” said Dan. “Normally when a site adds new content it gets a rush, then people tend to move on and the stats will drop down. With CamZ content, we have regularly seen an increase with the stats over time. As people find the content, it seems to be what they are returning to. That is the best testament to good content there is.”

So then the problem with live video content isn’t the quality or desirability of the content itself, but rather the manner in which it is so often presented to users of an adult pay site – as just one of many content packages that are available to that user. Yet live content is so compelling that one could conceivably create an entire pay site based around live video feeds first and foremost – any additional content then is “filler” and would be delivered in a manner where it does not interfere with the prominence of the live feeds. How many live feeds are necessary to build a pay site around this content? Clearly you would need to give your site’s members something live to watch all throughout the day and night.

“With a combination of AmateurCamZ and HouseCamZ, we can give the members something live to look at 24 hours a day,” said Dan. “With AmateurCamZ and the addition of the new niche-specific country sites we have just started to add, we cover the majority of the hours in a given day with at least one show. There are times of the day when there are as many as four shows on at the same time. Selection is a plus, but having something live to see is the main thing.”

Those webmasters who do make some money with live video up-sells might be concerned about cannibalizing sales by offering free live video to their members. Yet the question remains: Do surfers buy up-sell live video time because it’s live, or because they want one-on-one attention from a model? If it’s the latter then offering live video isn’t going to interfere with up-sells since surfers will still have to purchase “private” time if they want the model’s attention on an exclusive basis. In fact, throwing a bunch of surfers together in a room could certainly serve to enhance any sense of competition they might feel between each other – and those surfers who are willing to pay for the attention will come out on top. So many roosters, so few hens.

“We have proven time and time again that having live content does not hurt the up-sells to pay per-minute [content],” said Dan. “In fact, the data supports the claim that we help encourage new customers to the up-sells by converting the ‘I would never pay for that’ crowd to paying for it. When they get a taste of these gals in their hardcore shows with 500 to 1000 other people watching and chatting, they very often want to get some additional attention with these gals, and [they] get to a point where they are willing to pay for it. We do have a PrivateCamZ system that CamZ has been feeding since we started. The conversion rates off the traffic from the [CamZ] content are proof enough that the [PrivateCamZ] sales are not hurt from the [CamZ] content.”

If a webmaster were to build a pay site around live cams then it would be imperative that the site were constantly updated in a manner that promotes the live nature of the feeds. The main page of the member’s area might prominently feature a picture and bios of any models who are currently performing, and below that might be a “teaser picture” of a performer who will be starting his or her show next. You want your surfers to understand that your site offers a live and interactive experience with models – at no extra fee beyond the standard membership rates.

If you do decide to focus on live video, make sure to provide an ample test period; you need to allow enough time for surfers to discover your content and get hooked. Good live video content should show consistent numbers over a long period of time – you want to see a steady increase in retention and sales. Your first responsibility is to grow and maintain your pay site’s membership base; any up-sells you manage to generate are a nice bonus.

So if you haven’t thought about live video before – or if your pay site’s live feeds are presented as just another content package – it’s time for a change. The internet is an interactive medium; take advantage of it, because your competition certainly has done just that.