Well I find there are two types of webmasters: those that do this for a living and treat it as a real business, and those that do it as a hobby and are satisfied if they get a couple of sales here and there from doing what they enjoy. There is nothing wrong with either approach.
If Terrytowel is happy with what he is doing, and making money off of his site is not his main motivating factor, then by all means he should keep doing what he enjoys. However, like was mentioned here, it does sound like if he is looking to actually make a living off of being a webmaster he would have to make some drastic changes to what he’s doing, and get out of the narrow confines of the ‘bathouse blues’ box.
I’ve slowly started branching out, by creating several freesites. With content that had absolutely NOTHING to do with bathhouses. I’ve used hardcore threesome, foursome, group action, some with porn stars with Johnny Maverick, Pierre Fitch. Some sites with Jocks, Foot Fetish sites, one with Frat guys. Submitted them to countless link lists, and still NOTHING!
I have a couple of blogs out there as well, again having NOTHING to do with bathhouses. Good traffic, but again NOTHING.
Yes I am now turning my attention to AVS sites, to see if I can create some sort of synergism with the freesites and blogs.
I’m hoping to get together with someone I communicate with on this board, to see if we can come up with a game plan.
I have been branching out AWAY from the bathhouse theme, and the results haven’t changed one iota.
How is that even possible? What do you consider good traffic? You should be getting about a sale per 3,000 blog visits (if not better) assuming a 15% click through rate to sponsors and then a ratio of about 1:400.
I just get the feeling that you’re doing something technically wrong - sending traffic and not getting credit for the sales.
I am no rocket scientist Terry but if the other sites are presented in the same way as bathhouse blues, then they may not convert either.
Exactly what is good traffic? I talk to some small paysite owners and they are all excited because they have 50 members after a year. I ask them how much traffic are they getting and they say “500 hits per day”. Well that is not visitors, that is the number of hits the site is getting. They are hosted on $6.99 plans and have not a clue.
You need a mentor big time. But you absolutely must listen to them. Find the most successful person in this business you know and ask they have time, if they will help you, ask them specific questions. Don’t take a scatter shot approach and pick a little from this guy and a little from this girl and expect it to work. Do not ask questions, ignore the answers and then continue to decline.
I have spent four years and thousands of hours building the Manifest brand. I did it with zero experience, average intelligence and (god help me) a Windoze machine. There is no reason that you can not be making at least $3k a month with almost zero cash invested and working a solid 50 hour week till you get your feet on the ground. That is not unrealistic.
But first you must ask yourself “why do I want to do this and what will assure my success?” Until you know the answer to that, it is all just words.
Well that is what I’m doing. This person is very well-respected on this board, I’m just waiting to hear back from him. I want us to go through all of my material, to see what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong. And yes I will follow what he says.
The major disappointment for me has been the free sites. I have over a dozen freesites out there, all registered with link lists sites, and so far they are yielding nothing.