The first Website I ever created used an age verification system (AVS) to help keep minors away from the uncensored adult content the site was offering. Now, I can hear quite a few of you snickering - it's pretty common knowledge that most Webmasters use an AVS company to make money while claiming its use is (wink, wink) only for the purest of intentions.
That may be common knowledge now, but back in early 1997, I was only concerned with protecting my ass. Sure, I knew the AVS company that I used was offering a commission for any new member that joined their service via my Website, but I really didn't expect much in the way of profits from my humble little picture gallery. In fact, I rather expected the whole endeavor would end up costing me a little cash to operate each month - after all, that's how it had always gone before with my then newly defunct computer bulletin board system.
I barely got that first Website up and operational prior to a two-week vacation in Florida. There was just time enough to verify that the site was working, submit the URL to a few search engines, and make for the airport. As I've already stated, my expectations were low - so you can imagine my surprise when I returned home two weeks later to find that my humble little AVS site had collected enough money to pay the rent that month.
Of course, making money with an AVS site isn't as easy now as it was back then - a lot has changed, and much for the worse. Still, even though the big money isn't as easy to come by today as it once was, AVS sites are nonetheless a great way for beginners to get onto the playing field, and for more advanced adult Webmasters to build a dependable flow of traffic to their online empires.
What is an AVS site?
It's safe to classify an "AVS site" as such if any page requires a surfer to verify his or her age with a third-party before they are allowed to view the page uncensored. Webmasters who build AVS sites are generally trying to accomplish two things: earn commissions from the sale of AVS memberships, and reduce the chances that minors will come into contact with adult content. When visitors arrive at an AVS site, they are told that they need to verify their age before they can view the complete, uncensored site. To complete the verification process, the visitor must complete an online form and provide various bits of personal information - including a credit card number. Whether or not the card is charged depends on the specific AVS. The general premise here is that kids don't often have access to credit cards, which means that a visitor who can produce a valid credit card isn't likely to be a minor. The premise isn't perfect, but most consider it better than nothing in terms of weeding out minors. If the surfer buys into the sales pitch and joins the AVS - usually for an annual fee - the Webmaster who referred the surfer is paid a commission. It's a great deal for the referring Webmaster because it allows him or her to make a decent commission with minimal work - most AVS sites are modest and take no more than a day to build. If the AVS company is any good, then membership is also a great deal for the surfer - the annual fee for any decent AVS will give the member access to thousands - sometimes tens of thousands? of adult Websites, with new sites added daily, and for a fraction of the cost of annual access to the Net's best known adult sites.
I mentioned that AVS sites are relatively modest and easy to build, and that's almost always true. If you plan to make an AVS site, then you should keep it simple and offer only a handful of pictures in your AVS site's gallery. Remember that AVS members can visit thousands of Websites with their single password - when they're done viewing your site, they can simply move on to the next one. Therefore, 20 to 50 pictures should get the job done. Include video clips if you want to use their availability in your sales pitch, but no more than five clips will be found on most AVS sites; there's little incentive for you to offer more than a handful since video clips can result in higher bandwidth bills.
These are only generalizations - nothing is written in stone in terms of the quantity of content that you can offer. If you think your AVS site would significantly benefit from offering more content than most others, then by all means give your plan a try; but in most cases, offering a lot of content on an AVS site will only increase your operating costs without improving your sales numbers.
Building Your Site(s)
When it comes time to think of a theme for your AVS site, look for a gimmick that will capture the attention of individuals with even the shortest of attention spans. Avoid general themes like "naked girls" or "hot sex" because most Internet surfers are resolved to find such content free of charge. The AVS site is akin to the "impulse buy" items near your local supermarket's checkout counter - it's a purchase that consumers make impulsively while looking for something to distract them from their boredom. The best-selling AVS sites that I've created have always been on the verge of tabloid sensationalism. Look to build a sales pitch for your AVS site that makes the surfer say "I've got to see that for myself." Cater to that impulse buyer because it seems that very few people set out into cyberspace these days with the intention of spending money on adult Websites.
You can build a decent AVS site with only five pages. The first page you should build is your warning page. This page explains that the site contains adult content and gives surfers an opportunity to leave before they are exposed to explicit materials. The warning page is also a good place for your 18 U.S.C. 2257 compliance statement. The second page to build is a "Terms and Conditions" page, the content of which you should discuss with your attorney. The third page to build is your "sales pitch" page. This is where the visitors are told of all the magnificent things they will receive by joining the age verification system being featured on the site. (You can feature more than one AVS on your site, but I've found it's almost always more profitable to simply choose one AVS for each Website that you create.) The fourth page to build is your exit console. The exit console should "pop up" when a visitor chooses to leave your site, and the console should offer links to your other adult sites or to your sponsors' or partners' sites. The fifth page is your content page - this is the page that is hidden from the public and accessible only through the AVS. Depending on how much content you are giving out, you might need more than one page to house your uncensored content. Use your discretion, but keep it simple.
Generating Traffic
What about those Webmasters who already have adult Websites but are looking for creative ways to increase the number of visitors those sites receive? Building AVS sites for the purpose of traffic generation is a common technique used by intermediate and advanced adult Webmasters.
Any AVS site that you build will likely receive some amount of traffic from the AVS company's "links" listing. It also has the potential to collect visitors from search engines and directories. Through the use of banner ads and exit consoles, you can send visitors from your AVS sites to your other adult sites. Let's say you have an adult Website you want to promote that charges a monthly membership fee - this type of site is commonly referred to as a "pay site" because a surfer has to pay to view it. You've tried to promote this pay site through search engine marketing, but you can only manage to net about 400 hits per day and you're stuck at that level. Now let's say you build 15 AVS sites over the course of a month's time, or about one AVS site every other day. You use the same techniques you used on your pay site to promote each of these new AVS sites with the more important search engines. After a month or two of effort, each of the AVS sites is now attracting 300 hits per day. Now you have a total of 4,900 pairs of eyeballs viewing your work as opposed to the 400 pairs you had a couple months ago. Simply send as many of the newly found 4,500 visitors as possible to the pay site you want to promote. You can send them from your AVS sites to your pay site through banner ads and exit consoles - or if you're desperate you might even try blind links. You won't convince all 4,500 to check out your pay site, but if you can even get 20 percent of them to look, that's not a bad start, and it sure beats the 400 visitors per day you were getting before.
Speaking of pay sites, the AVS site probably increased in overall importance in 2002 when Visa announced new regulations that affect the adult industry's third-party billing model. Under the new regulations, it's now neither simple nor cheap for adult Webmasters to accept Visa through a third-party billing company, which means setting up a pay site that charges a recurring monthly fee is no longer an option for new Webmasters with little cash to spend on getting started. Setting up an AVS site remains unaffected however - at least for the present time.
The Bottom Line
Learning to build and market AVS sites is a skill that any adult Webmaster can put to good use - whether AVS sites are used as a primary source of income or just another tool for increasing visitors to a network of adult sites. It's important to seek stability in the volatile business world of online adult entertainment by varying the techniques used to bring in visitors and revenues. Don't look past the opportunities that AVS sites can present. You may not pay the rent two weeks after submitting your first AVS site to the search engines, but I'm guessing that if you stick with AVS site marketing for a few months, the process will become an indispensable part of your adult Website business.
