CHATSWORTH, Calif. - There may have been grumblings and rumors about its relevance within the industry, but as the first-ever Gay Phoenix Forum came to a close on Saturday, any misgivings about the show’s validity gently subsided according to most, if not all, in attendance. The final day of the forum got off to another good start, with the Traffic School seminar drawing a packed house. PrideBucks President Harlan Yaffe moderated the discussion, which featured panelists Rich Volo (BigGayApple), Trevor Hennig (BananaGuide), Big Bob (MenOnTheNet), John David (JustUsBoys), and Michael Stabile (GayPornBlog).
The panelists discussed techniques for drawing traffic to sites, including creating exciting content, marketing strategies, and the relevance of blogs. Another topic that got a lot of play discussed the hazards of purchasing traffic.
“Just put out good content and don’t worry about every SEO game in town,” commented David, drawing an agreement from Hennig.
“The tricks will not work. Rely on good quality content,” Hennig added.
Yaffe, who along with the witty Volo kept the audience in stitches with his off-the-cuff responses to panelists’ comments, stressed the importance of branding and marketing. “You don’t find your traffic; your traffic finds you,” he said.
Big Bob said it was important to think of every page of a website as if it were the homepage, loading each with keywords that will draw surfers who are looking for different things. “Give them multiple opportunities to find your website,” Bob commented. “You don’t have to put everything on the front page.”
Using his own site as an example, David suggested building sites that encourage interaction with surfers. “It’s about getting their hand off their dick and onto the keyboard,” he said. “That’s what makes our site ‘sticky.’”
Ultimately, however, the panelists agreed that a site is defined by how much its webmaster is invested in its success. “You have to put yourself into your site,” Hennig advised. “People can tell.”
The next seminar, Strategies for Success, focused on successful marketing plans for webmasters. With ManSites’ Craig Tant onboard as moderator, the panelists—which included CorbinFisher’s Brian Dunlap, Maleflixxx’s Mary Gillis, Epoch's Rand Pate, PrideBucks’ Rainey Stricklin, and Badpuppy’s Lisa Turner—spoke of the difference between marketing and branding (“Marketing is what builds the brand,” Stricklin clarified), and encouraged attendees to build sites that reflect their vision.
“When you’re building your brand, you’re asking yourself, ‘What is it that my customers expect when they log onto my site?’” Gillis said. “And then, you target that.”
The importance of strong affiliate programs also was touched upon, with Stricklin saying, “An affiliate program is your sales force, and you really have to nurture those relationships [with your affiliates].”
Dunlap later emphasized the continued validity of print advertising versus Web advertising (“Don’t overlook the value of offline advertising,” he warned), and spoke at length about the value of attending shows. “Showing up to shows is not always about the return on investment,” he offered. “It’s more of a branding aspect—a return on investment that you will see over the long run. If you’re looking at the numbers as soon as you get home, you’re forcing yourself to be disappointed. There is real value in showing and supporting these things.”
The day’s final seminar, State of the Industry, was the least attended of the six presented during the weekend—and perhaps one of the least structured. Wildline!’s Jonny V. moderated a panel that included NakedSword’s Tim Valenti, AEBN’s Michael Herman, Cybersocket’s Morgan Sommer, XBiz’s Tom Hymes, and CCBill’s Doug Wicks, who put rumors regarding the future of the forum to rest when he said it would “absolutely” return next year. “We feel good about this,” he told the audience. “On just the turnout alone, we feel very happy.”
The seminar broached topics such as ethics within the industry, how gays lead the industry in technological advances, and how sites like PornTube and XTube are affecting membership sites. On the latter topic, Wicks said, “There is so much out there that is free, but that does not mean that the audience isn’t buying content.” Valenti added, “The quality of what the product is among a certain group of [sites] is really high, so people are still going to want to buy it as long as the quality remains high.”
Following the panels, many webmasters gathered around the pool at the Center Inn (Best Western) and in the Cirque du So Gai tent for a party hosted by Channel 1 Releasing to continue mingling and offer commentary on the success of the weekend.
“I think it’s gone extremely, extremely well,” CorbinFisher’s Brian Dunlap told AVNOnline.com. “Attendance is beyond what anybody expected. The Phoenix Forum in and of itself has a great reputation for being a wonderful event, and this carries on with that reputation. We got a lot of business done. The way the [event was scheduled] ensured that everybody was approachable and we had time to get stuff done. The venue kept everybody in close quarters, so you were able to see anybody you needed to see whenever you wanted to see them.”
According to Video Secrets’ Eddie Bastian, having a show catered exclusively to the gay webmaster crowd made all the difference. “Since I deal with the gay side of Video Secrets’ business, I’ve done a lot more business here than I would somewhere else, just because with gay people, you’re more open to talk to them because they’re on the same playing field,” he said. “The seminars were nice. There weren’t too many of them, but the ones that were offered were the important ones you needed to see. I’d say it was 111 percent a success.”
Sureflix’s founder and Chief Business Development Officer Michel Lozier agreed. “Not that I have anything against the straight industry, but they do take a lot of space and attention,” he offered. “They have a way and a personality that’s completely different than our way of doing business. I would say it’s more laid-back here. It’s more like a family gathering, and I like the fact that there isn’t that prevalent atmosphere of machismo and grandstanding here. The setup’s been great, the food’s been great, the boys have been beautiful—overall, it’s been a huge success.”
As MenOnTheNet’s Big Bob summed it up, “You have [the bigger shows], which are very general, and then you have the gay section. This was like the microniche of webmaster forums. I think it was definitely the gay networking place to be.”
