Basic needs for starting a paysite

So you want to start a Porn Paysite. Many people find the appeal of the multi-billion dollar online porn industry irresistible. While individual motivations may differ, one fact remains the same: Nothing sells like sex. That’s why the industry remains as dynamic as ever.

One industry gold mine is the porn paysite. Porn paysites are sites that persuade surfing users to sign up based on the extra content that they offer on a premium basis, which includes sexy high resolution still pictures, video feeds, live show feeds, erotic stories, adult chat rooms, etc. Once you’ve signed them up, you should make an effort to keep them happy by rotating and constantly updating your offerings.

Building a porn paysite entails a lot of planning and getting all the right tools. It takes time and effort to create, market, get traffic, and retain members.

Here are several considerations before you start building one.

Content

To put it bluntly, content is the stuff that makes your paysite go round. Your content keeps customers hooked, and thus, they subscribe to your paysite.

You can either produce your own content or you can obtain it from independent content providers. However you want to source your content, there are considerations you must bear in mind. One is legality in compliance with Title 18 of the United States Code Section 2257.

Your chief concern is to keep minors out of your explicit areas and to create and maintain retrievable records containing the model’s or performer’s name and date of birth; unless your models or performers are cartoons or computer-generated.

Two, is the quality of your content, specifically in terms of presentable formats and sizing. There are software program out in the market that will allow you to edit photos and videos fairly easily. You can use Macromedia Fireworks and Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop and Premiere, Corel Photo Paint, or even Windows Paintshop Pro.

You will also need to decide the facilities and formats for your movies. You can have it in: MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group); WMV (Windows Media Video); or, DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Also, you need to suit the dimensions of your content for your customers’ different stream rates, either for dial-up or broadband access.

More importantly, you need to keep your member’s section fresh and updated with new content.

Design

In planning the design of your paysite, you should take note of a few considerations. One, is the color schemes. Do not combine clashing colors and make sure that the palette can be displayed on any modern graphics card and browser combination.

Two, choose fonts based on their legibility and readability rather than on their prettiness.

You can also use page layout programs such as Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, and Microsoft Notepad. The key is to experiment and stick to the “formula” that works best for you.

Hosting

It’s almost time for you to make your website available online for the viewing public worldwide. Web hosting should take care of this one.

There are various types of hosting you can choose from: free hosting (allows webmasters space on their servers in exchange for any number of click-generation services); shared hosting (allows your sites to reside on a server with multiple other webmasters); or, dedicated hosting (provides your site or network of sites with its own server).

Look out for the following concerns before choosing your hosting provider. One, is 99% uptime guarantee that ensures your website against crashes. Two, is reputation. Your hosting provider should have a solid track record of 5 years or more. Three, is a reliable infrastructure which includes a multi-homed network powered by multiple bandwidth providers ensuring redundancy.

Four, is the high degree of technical support and after-sales service. Your hosting provider should be there for you 24/7 with more than one technical support person to answer to your needs. Five, is referrals from your friends, associates, and colleagues who are already in the know.

Payment Processing

Pay sites sell “memberships” which allows clients to access premium content. Thus, you should decide how you should process payments from your customers. Consider putting up more payment options to make it easier and more practical for your prospective customers to join your site and buy content.

A merchant account allows you to process and accept credit card payments over the Internet. It allows for the versatility and ease-of-use, easily translated into more sales. It typically costs around $400 to $600 to open a merchant account plus a host of additional fees.

Third Party Billing works by collecting the funds or processing credit cards for the you using the third party’s own merchant account and then depositing the funds into the your account. Third Party systems can have minimal or no upfront account opening fee; thus it can easily be set up.

On the other hand, customers can purchase content from pay sites and have the cost of the purchase billed to their phone. Customers are billed only for the time they spend browsing on your site. This method is private and anonymous; but charges can sometimes be inconsistent.

SMS billing is likewise simple and anonymous. Customers can charge content and services to their existing mobile phone bill or post-paid account. You are guaranteed of a wide subscriber base, but availability of access varies from country and network operator.

Other payment options include e-checks, mailed check and money orders, wire transfer, debit cards, pre-paid cards, token systems, etc. Study each option and decide whether they fit in your business set-up.

Promotions

You need to let as many people as possible to know that your paysite exists. You can do this thru search engines (e.g., google, yahoo) which provide some of the highest quality traffic available. They usually offer free search engine submissions and “paid participation” programs (e.g., pay-per-click).

Press release is a formal printed announcement about a company and distributed to the media to generate or encourage publicity. You can also buy an email list and then mail out your advertisements and products and services offers.

Another way to generate traffic is to create feeder sites for your pay site. This can be done with TGP (Thumbnail Gallery Post), MGP (Movie Gallery Post), and link directories.

You can also trade links, buy traffic, use direct advertising, etc.

Affiliates

Affiliate revenue sharing programs can tap the creativity and knowledge webmasters who are already familiar with adult traffic. This can be a highly effective traffic generator generating huge amounts of income for both providers of the end service or product and the affiliates that send traffic their way.

Some programs can charge up to 50% of your total sale or a flat rate of $30. Tough at times, fraud can be inevitable (i.e., shaving).

Preventing Fraud

Shaving is the false reporting of affiliate traffic and sales designed to avoid paying out full commissions or percentages. This can be prevented by third party payment processors that independently track statistics and report them to both sponsor and affiliate.

Some programs are now available (e.g., ClickTruth) which provides sponsors and affiliates with an honest and verifiable environment. With these programs, all of the data collected is then audited and studied regularly and frequently — a sponsor can be assured of an honest program and affiliates can be confident that they’ll get financial credit for every sale they referred.

Bottom Line

As you go along your chosen path, you’ll be learning a lot of things. You just have to plan your paysite ventures very carefully and give it your best shot.

The bottom line is to deliver what you promise, give your clients reasons not to go anywhere else, and encourage loyalty in as many and encouraging ways you can think of.

Be sure to visit CockBoard for more great articles like this written by industry experts.