Editor's note: This is the first in a 12-part, "hands-on" series about the wonderful world of adult-Website building. The resulting site will have been built by real people who have no Web-building experience and no inside experience in the adult industry. Their names have been changed to protect their real identities and their mainstream business interests.
In its almost constant collection and analysis of data from and about the World Wide Web, the Dot Com Directory, a research and statistical arm of Network Solutions Inc., has determined that the average lifecycle of a Website encompasses five successive stages.
They are:
* Secure an on-line identity.
* Establish a Web presence.
* Enter e-commerce.
* Manage e-commerce and customer relationships.
* Offer complementary services (service-application model).
In the adult industry, this sequence of events needs modification: The first and foremost stage in the lifecycle of an adult Website is planning and research, and that stage never ends.
"The first step involved in jumping into the on-line adult industry is creating a business plan and sticking to it," said Oz, president of sponsorship mega-program TrueCash and a frequent contributor to Webmaster bulletin boards at sites like The Adult Webmaster and YNOT Masters. "Many people have a preconceived notion of adult Webmastering as an easy, work-at-home, part-time arrangement. To be successful, you've got to live it, breathe it and attack your goals with a persevering ferocity."
Oz should know. Since he entered the adult on-line realm in 1997, his gross revenues have averaged in the low eight-figure range per year, generated cumulatively by what he said are "hundreds of sites."
Apparently Oz takes his own advice; the Web is his only business.
Even without quitting your day job, though, it's possible to generate a modest income from an adult Website - if you pursue your goals in an organized, well-thought-out fashion.
"The business is much more difficult to break into today (than it was several years ago), but it can still be done," Oz said.
Over the next 12 issues, we'll show you how it's done by taking a couple of would-be adult Website owners and walking them step-by-step through the process of creating the concept, finding content, generating the site and - ultimately - doing everything possible to ensure the bucks roll in.
Inspector Gadget (IG) and Xatia are a 30-something married couple who've contemplated owning and operating an adult Website for at least two years. Because they own and operate a small "mainstream" business in Orange County (Calif.) and have a young child, however, their time for a second career is somewhat limited. Neither has had any sort of "formal" contact with the adult industry, but both know what they like in porn. More importantly, they believe they have discovered a gap they'd just love to fill in a niche market.
First, we told them the awful truth: According to the Dot Com Directory, almost 34 million domain names ending in .com, .net or .org had been registered internationally by June 30, 2000, the most recent period for which statistics were available at the time of this writing. Although no accurate figures exist for the percentage of those domain names that anchor adult sites, some in the adult Webmaster community estimate that approximately 30-40 percent of them do.
"Considering that many sites are ?dynamically generated' for the search engines, the number (of adult sites extant) could be in the millions," Oz said. "As far as ?real' adult sites with actual content, I'd say we're talking about hundreds of thousands of them."
The vast majority of all Web domains registered by the end of the second quarter of 2000 were in the .com arena (80 percent), with only about 12 percent composing the .net category and about 8 percent falling into .org and "others." About 69 percent of all registered domains belong to Americans, and only about 66 percent of all domain names actually had live Websites associated with them on June 30, 2000.
The really bad news for prospective adult Internet entrepreneurs is that as the Internet, home computers and consumers have become more sophisticated, so have tastes in adult material. That does not mean that a site will succeed only if it employs the latest whiz-bang bells and whistles, but it does imply that staying abreast of technological innovations is important. (Statistics indicate that having the latest "gee-whiz" features on a site attracts only about 10 percent of its audience. Ninety percent of Internet users still have to deal with slow bandwidth (28K to 56K modems), and experts don't believe this will improve markedly for at least five years. Even then, the connection speed will improve for only about 30 percent of users.)
Of course, there is good news too: The popular notion that all the really profitable adult sites already have been built is far from the truth. It is true that many of the folks who jumped on the bandwagon in the very beginning made lots of dough with very little investment or effort. It also is true that the big players who have dumped big bucks into Websites that utilize the latest technology continue to do well, for the most part.
What is not true is that there is no more room for little guys with good ideas to succeed. Granted, it may be easier to succeed if you have a fat bankroll behind your plan, but with a well-defined concept, minimal cash and an awful lot of hard work, almost anyone can make a modest amount of money by catering to the prurient interests of human beings.
In addition, the recent disappearance of a number of formerly big players in the industry due to ethical and managerial problems leaves some room for relatively small sites with an uncommon approach or particularly well-crafted content to fill temporary vacancies.
So what's the secret to grabbing a share of the estimated 30 million individuals who log on to adult sites daily? There is no one true path, but there are a number of techniques and considerations that will give a site the best chance of earning a share of the money to be made.
