Editor's note: This is the tenth 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 other business interests.
As mentioned previously, capturing high-quality, ready-to-buy traffic probably is the overriding concern of any adult Webmaster. Achieving good positioning in adult and mainstream search engines is the first step to take in that direction, but there are other traffic-generation tools that can help more than you might imagine. Many of them require little more investment than time and creativity.
While thumbnail galleries (TGP) and pic posts have fallen by the wayside as promotional tools for the vast majority of sites (though they remain viable for others), banner and link exchanges are two old standards that continue to work. Both are relatively easy programs in which to become involved. Essentially, a Website's owner signs up for a banner exchange with the operator of a service, provides a banner to promote his or her site, and receives a special code to place on his or her Website in return. The service rotates all the banners contributed by participating Webmasters through all the participating sites, and tracks impressions, or the number of times a banner is loaded on a page. The impression numbers gained by the banner exchange's banner on a participating Website usually determines the number of exposures that Website's banner will receive on other participating Websites. As long as the banner exchange service is a reputable one, this is an excellent source of reciprocal traffic, because all the technical details are handled by someone else who probably has at least a little more experience than a new Webmaster. Banner exchange operators can be located by visiting the "resources" sections of many adult Webmaster resource sites, like AdultNetSurprise (www.adultnetsurprise.com), XBiz (www.xbiz.com), and YNOT Masters (www.ynotmasters.com).
Link exchanges can be a bit more complicated, depending upon how dedicated a new Webmaster is to ensuring s/he isn't cheated. Unless a traffic-tracking script is employed to make sure a site's link stays where a reciprocating site's operator said it would, reciprocal links have a tendency to get "lost" or move around on a page. This sort of unauthorized link behavior isn't always intentional; sometimes it results from page redesign or renaming, or directory shuffling. Unless you plan to trade links with a few sites that belong to friends you trust or you don't mind spending hours of time adding new links to your site and checking to make sure your links remain on reciprocating sites, it's best to automate the process. Luckily, there are a number of freeware and shareware scripts for this purpose that are easy to install and configure. Several excellent repositories of freeware and shareware exist on the Net, including BigNoseBird (www.bignosebird.com), The CGI Resource Index (www.cgi-resources.com), ScriptSearch (www.scriptsearch.com), Extropia (www.extropia.com), and HotScripts (www.hotscripts.com). Some vendors even offer installation help for a small fee.
One traffic-building strategy touted as among the most cost-effective is email marketing. Webmasters of any stripe - adult or mainstream - who haven't discovered this little gem should consider giving it a try. It requires a bit of extra work and some added attention in order to remain within the letter of the law regarding spam, but the returns can far surpass more traditional marketing avenues. Beginning is as easy as placing a link on your site asking visitors to sign up for a free email newsletter. It's best to confirm email subscriptions via what's known as a "double opt-in" procedure in order to ensure they are legitimate and really want to receive mail from you. To do this, email all new subscribers at the address they submitted, asking them to reply to the message in order to confirm their subscriptions. Only add to your mailing list the addresses from which you receive a response within a reasonable amount of time; discard the others.
When it comes time to mail - which should be on a regular schedule about once or twice a month - send out a chatty newsletter, a more formal news digest, free pictures, coupons for merchandise, opportunities to enter contests ... anything that fits the tone of your site and will jog list members' memories and give them a gentle nudge to visit again. A word of advice: Always give email recipients an easy way to opt out of receiving mailings. Not only will this help to convince them to sign up in the first place, but in some places, it's also the law. Besides, why waste your disk space and bandwidth corresponding with people who aren't interested in what you have to say?
Programs to automate mass emailings and the collection of email addresses are available as freeware and shareware from various vendors. Scour the sites mentioned above until you find one that suits your needs and budget.
Finally, don't forget to promote your site at every opportunity, both online and offline. Print your URL on business cards and hand them out when you're in appropriate situations. Put one of those "recommend this site to a friend" links on your pages. Surfers actually do use them; freeware and shareware programs to accomplish the trick can be found at the software sites listed above.
Send press releases to adult media outlets - and to mainstream outlets, if you think your site has a special gimmick that will grab their attention. When sending press releases, always be sure to include a contact name and phone number or email address; preferably both. Especially at daily news outlets - like most Websites and newspapers - there isn't time to do an interview via email, if one is desired, so a phone number where you can be reached is important. Also be sure to make your most important point about whatever news you are releasing in the first paragraph - ideally, in the first sentence - of a release. Keep this in mind: When yours is just one in a sea of news items a reporter receives on a given day, if he or she can't reach you for comment or can't easily get the point of your press release without reading the whole thing, you're not likely to get the attention you seek.
Now that your site is ready and you're geared up for promotion, can you sit back and take a well-deserved break?
Next: The work stops here (occasionally, and then only very briefly).
Previously: Minding your Ps and Ts.
