Over the years I’ve been in the business, the lesson I’ve learned is this… your success is related to the success of your clients, whose success is reliant upon them satisfying their clients.Over the years I’ve been in the business, the lesson I’ve learned is this… your success is related to the success of your clients, whose success is reliant upon them satisfying their clients. Simply put, this is the porn business and our job is to get the consumer to satisfy his or her sexual fantasies and to pay for that pleasure. On the Internet some think the potential for success is all about the traffic, design or even the price. This is like saying that a clothing shop in the busiest mall, with the greatest shop window and a well laid out interior stocked with the cheapest clothing in town will succeed. What if the clothes are unsuitable for the times or of poor quality? Buying the right goods to fill the shop ensures success. Sadly, there is a clear misunderstanding of what should be considered good or bad porn out there.

I’ve been producing porn (pictures and video) since 1977. Magazine or video sales depend on two things – the cover shots and the content within reflecting the cover. To increase the chances of selling content we make a point of including “cover” shots in our sets. We know our clients take lot of time and effort to make sure their covers are as good as they can be.

Here are a few simple rules to follow that I hope will improve your site’s success rate. It’s based on the advertising and selling rule of AIDA:

ATTENTION
INTEREST
DESIRE
ACTION

When designing a front page, examine all of the shots available. Find the most eye-catching and thought provoking shot or shots. The best shots are required here and the ability to recognize what is a “hot shot” is essential to a successful website.

When choosing cover shots, there are a few simple guidelines you should go by if you have a website with a database. The content that is most often looked at and has the longest viewing time, and the TGP pages that are giving you the best conversion rates are your best bets. Ensure they fit the niche AND style of the site, since within each niche there are many styles. Teens can be co-eds, amateurs, girl next door, sluts, innocents, etc. This is where you need to grab ATTENTION.

Use a few words that are hard-hitting and confirm the fantasy the site satisfies. Front pages have to give a very quick sharp message and should use words that best describe the content inside. This will help pique INTEREST.

Now go for DESIRE. The tour is the best place to broaden this message and show the depth the site goes into to satisfy the fantasy of the surfer. The number of photo sets, videos, and the selection of content, (ie. singles, multiples, indoor, outdoor, etc.) will help your surfer decide if he wants to get “off” now that he has gotten “in.”

Finally, ACTION is what we’ll need to close the deal. Again, use a good picture or video to continue to tease the surfer… something hot enough to make him get out his wallet and start paying to see the full story. Is your “join” button present at this point, and the payment options easy to follow? They had better be.

These simple rules can also be applied to TGP pages, except there is no tour, and in its place is the selection of pictures and/or video. The layout of the page and the text that is used to send the surfer on his way is largely all you have to work with.

We are continually being asked for single pictures to use in design, usually because several Webmasters do not want to pay for the full set. The idea of enticing someone into your website with pictures from sets that are not even inside the site is foolish and misleading. If you do not have content good enough to put on your front page then how do you expect to keep your members and not get charge backs? They will feel tricked and entitled to a refund since you promised more than you delivered. If you bought a set of 100 pictures but only 50 pictures were unusable, how would YOU feel? Give the consumer what he wants, but most importantly, give him what you promised.

Most producers of content have a style, and some of the best producers have years of experience in shooting and knowing the niches they work within. Choosing the right content will affect your success, so take time to look at as much as you can. Don’t look at a girl and think, “I would fuck her.” Instead, look at her and think, “Would she fuck me?” This is the normal fantasy of most porn surfers. Make sure the content fits not only the niche of the site but the style as well. Teens have to look under 20 years old; amateurs are women we see every day, in a domestic setting; big boobs or leg fetish require lots of shots that show these body parts from angles that emphasize them.

In closing, it also helps to understand and be a fan of the niche you are selling. I’ve been a consumer of porn since I was a teenager, and I know and understand the glamour, amateur and teen niches. I don’t understand gay, latex, femdom and several other niches. Guess what you will and will not see on my site?

Paul has been a professional photographer for nearly 25 years, first published in 1978.

Paul Markham Content Store is a registered Czech company, Banapro, owned and run by Paul and Eva Markham. They have been working in the Czech Republic for four years and employ six people.

Producing “teeny” style photos, you can see their sets in the top “teeny” magazines. Look out for the name Banapro, Charlie Pollack, Eva Gazdova, Paula or Paul Markham. Sales have now been expanded to the Internet, so now you can have good “teeny” images from top producers on your site. Paul also ran the video company ASTRAL BLUE from the UK so they have many video titles too. Paul can be reached via email at paul_eva@paulmarkham.com.