This is a sponsored post By John Campbell - Affiliate Manager, BlazingBucks.com
Porn Star Crissy Moran
I won’t sugar coat it: the adult online business has grown immensely and continues to do so on a daily basis, making it increasingly competitive and requiring a great deal of carefully thought through, creative, and innovative marketing techniques for a new webmaster entering the field to obtain an edge and advantage in a highly saturated market. It is therefore imperative that every webmaster starting out has a plan to succeed: as a good friend has told me repeatedly, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
The fact that there is such a wide selection of sites and programs to promote does not by any means indicate that developing a strategy which will result in a profitable endeavor is impossible, it just requires the beginning webmaster to think outside of the box and be very creative when planning a marketing strategy. There are numerous methods by which a beginning webmaster can maximize their efforts and rapidly increase both incoming traffic and profits.
At BlazingBucks.com, we constantly endeavor to develop mutually advantageous partnerships with our affiliates-both the established who have been in the business for years, as well as those just starting out. As someone who has worked for an extensive period of time on both sides of the equation-as an affiliate and an affiliate manager, I am able to bring a level of understanding the challenges faced by webmasters who are just starting out as well as tools which will be useful in successful promotional efforts.
To be successful in this industry today, one must abandon the concept of being a successful adult webmaster as being a “get rich quick” type of operation (although the gold is definitely there for those who are not hesitant to mine for it) and resist the temptation to “throw up a page with a few links and banners”, or expect results without the investment of the time and effort necessary to make your business successful. With the volume and level of resources and tools available to today’s webmaster, there is often a strong draw to those who enter into the business thinking that it requires a very minimal amount work to create results. While it does not necessarily always require “hard” work, it does require smart work, and that is where I try to take the opportunity to offer suggestions to implement such a strategy.
In general, I have seen that those who are the most successful are not only those who have a creative and carefully thought out plan and who are willing to invest the time and effort to create a unique site and do the necessary work but those who have a clear idea of what their niche is and think of new and interesting ways to present it. You have to not only be inventive in coming up with a concept that is unique to you but be willing to invest the effort to make your business work for you.
Here are five suggestions based upon that mindset which I would recommend for someone just starting out:1. Go with what you know-If there is a certain type of girl or type of action you particularly find interesting, or get excited about, then there is a great indication of what types of content/sites/niches you should be promoting. These would be what I refer to as “action niche” sites; if you have a thing for busty babes, then by all means a site dedicated to the busty niche is a great starting point. This type of site can further be divided down into sub-niches: busty teens, busty blondes, busty latinas, busty porn stars, etc.
If there is a specific porn star that does it for you, a “tribute” site or blog showcasing her best scenes from a variety of sites can be a sure fire way to maintain your interest as well as the other kindred spirits who share the same interest. If you enjoy what you’re doing-it’s a good sign that you will draw others who share the same interest.
2. Name recognition-What’s In A Name? The one word answer to that question, especially for the beginning adult webmaster, can easily be “profits”, especially when the decision is made to pursue the immensely popular “porn star” niche, which has a huge potential for income when done correctly and the appropriate time is invested. There are two basic methods I see people using: one is a large site featuring a wide variety of pornstars by name, often alphabetically, and featuring not only links to her “official site”, but to all sites and/or hosted galleries or movies she appears on as well as a profile and information about her. Sometimes these sites are organized by sub niches as well-featuring all content featuring models in a certain type of action. The other is a site, often a blog centered around one specific star (the aforementioned “tribute” type site), with links to only her site or scenes featuring only her. This also give you the opportunity to get a very frequently searched for name in your url and/or keywords as well as site text which is great food for the search engine spiders!
Another way of building a network of sites around this concept is creating a network of sites featuring different stars with some of the same types of attributes (e.g., all Asian, all busty, all blondes, all 18-19)-and linking them all together so that those who come upon your site with an interest in a specific star may find yet another whose site they want to join. One feature I particularly encourage our affiliates to utilize is the ability of our affiliate tools to generate a list of hosted galleries featuring a specific star, or to custom build all of our galleries in hosted format for that star-a task made easy by our dynamic gallery builder, where all you do is select the girl and the template and we do the rest-even the hosting.
3. Interactivity is key-Getting people involved, especially in the case of a site where you are attempting to relate and develop a rapport with those who share a common interest in a particular girl or fetish or niche is critical in today’s world of Web 2.0, and has been growing ever since the inception of the usenet and YahooGroups where people would share movies and pics of the types of content they were interested in. Whatever theme you select for your site, the option for users to interact-and especially encouraging them to share your site and information with others-is a major key to success and often instant, free and qualified traffic.
Imagine opening a site with a tribute to a popular adult star where users can not only come in and share information about the films she has been in or sites she has been on, but they can rate or post comments about that movie or scene on a website (that you have the link for them to sign up for nearby) she has been in. This offers the opportunity for testimonials from other end users, which can lead to even more click throughs, sales and sign ups for you.
And it does not mean you have to invest hours in heavy backend scripting and programming-many web hosting companies make installing a blog, a message board, or even a content management system complete with bells and whistles as easy as a few clicks or e-mails. In addition, we provide our affiliates with the tools to use with these such as hosted images they can use in blog or board posts, complete with keyword rich text to use with linking codes.
4.Think outside of the box-Yes, you are promoting porn and adult content-and that is what the majority of your site visitors are coming to see-but there are other ways of making your site “sticky” (excuse the pun) as well. Add a few humorous news bits or videos, other items of interest, or even an interview you found online with the model(s) you are promoting. And think of other ways to maximize profits-if the model you are featuring has adult toys associated with her then set up a store specifically for those, and if she performs on webcam, link to the site where she performs. There are so many windows of opportunity for additional revenue which requre minimal effort to implement which some often either overlook or forget. One thing I strive to do is identify these opportunities to those who are seeking them and assist how I can.
5.Never stop learning-Rather than spend time engaging in the drama which often transpires on many of the adult webmaster boards, invest that time learning everything you can in a friendly way with others who have been successful. Spend time learning xhtml and css and how to build standards-compliant and search engine optimized sites and pages. Learn about new marketing techniques and tools, and what’s hot and what’s not. Perhaps most importantly of all, learn what pushes the buttons of your target market and what it is that will entice them from “shopping and looking at free porn samples” to signing up to the sites you are promoting. And if you make mistakes while you are learning, then remember: they are never mistakes if you learn something valuable from them.
I always remind our affiliates when I send out weekly lists of hosted gallery and promo tool updates that we are here to assist however we can at whatever stage of the game they find themselves in-from newbie to seasoned pro. I am definitely a fan of the old adage, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for life” and it is my hope to be able to offer our affiliates the tools they need to create unique and profitable campaigns as well as impart tips which will enable them to grow their business and skill sets along the road and in doing so I learn as well. I will always strive to point someone in the right direction to make their online business a mutally rewarding one and if I don’t have an answer, I will direct them to a location where they will be able to find it.
If you are just entering the wild, sometimes demanding, but ultimately rewarding adventure of the adult online industry, keep some of those ideas as well as this thought in mind: In the end, what will differentiate those who succeed and those who are not as successful as others is how seriously you choose to take it. If you are seeing it as a chance to collect passwords from sponsors and collect free porn, and are not willing to do the work necessary to gorw your business and stand out in a sea of competitors, then you might enjoy it for a while but not realize the full potential. On the other hand, if you truly take ownership and make it your own unique business, learn as much as you can, never be afraid to put in some work and ask as many questions as possible-you will not only reap the rewards in the long run but have a great time getting there!
Actress Nina Hartley, 49, 
