Website advice wanted!

[Emily Cartwright]

Hi all,

I've had plans for a personal paysite on the way for over a year now, and I'm getting close in terms of my career to a point where I could launch one and do well.

Athough I am more than capable of designing a website myself (I put together my folio site in less than two days) what I do not have is the experience of a seasoned adult webmaster. I have met many and their advice to me has been very helpful, but obviously they have their own businesses to take care of so I can't hassle them for info all of the time.

I'm not 100% on this yet, but basically what I'm wondering is if anyone can give me an idea of the pros and cons of hiring a third party to build and deal with all the technical and marketing aspects of my site. I have my own photographer/videographer/graphic designer and so I have the ability to produce as much photo and video content as I like, as well as shooting content share with other models up to hard g/g, so content production overheads will end up being comparatively low.

The overall theme of the site will be heavily fetish-based, from vintage lingerie, latex, foot fetish, rope bondage and so on to more extreme fetishes like breathplay, total enclosure and hard BDSM, and also some fun stuff like EGL, superheroine, fantasy, things like that. I'm a busty model but I want to keep as far away from the 'amateur girl next door big boob teen' vibe as possible, I want the site and the content to be as slick and high-quality as it can be. I would insist on retaining creative control, what I would need is a web guru who would be interested in a genuine business partnership and who would bring his web expertise to the deal but be comfortable with letting me handle the content production.

So am I better off doing this myself, at the risk of coming up against a very steep learning curve and potentially making a lot of mistakes, or would I be better off finding an associate to do the tech stuff for me, and cut them a percentage of what the site makes?

If so, is there anyone here who is interested in pitching a proposal at me? I would be looking at someone who has a good portfolio and track record, obviously - so far all the unsolicited website offers I've had have been from relatively inexperienced people who haven't offered me anything that I can't do myself.

All input appreciated.

Thanks!
Emily

[paul jones]

Hi,

I emailed you, but afterwards these people joined AIR, and might be worth talking to.

It's been set up by a model turned web designer (still modelling though).

[img]http://www.adultindustryresources.com/d ... ogo150.jpg[/img]

http://www.adultindustryresources.com/drupal2/node/764

[TheProf]

When you find one of those let me know,Emily.They are like gold dust.

Most will set you up,then disappear within five minutes.You need someone a 100% reliable that doesn't let you down and will be there 'on call' 24-hours a day.

Is such a thing possible?.

Miracles sometimes happen.I've also seen pigs fly.

[Emily Cartwright]

TheProf wrote:

> When you find one of those let me know,Emily.They are like gold
> dust.
>
> Most will set you up,then disappear within five minutes.You
> need someone a 100% reliable that doesn't let you down and will
> be there 'on call' 24-hours a day.
>
> Is such a thing possible?.
>
> Miracles sometimes happen.I've also seen pigs fly.

I know what you mean. That's why I've turned down every single offer I've had so far. I had one offer a while back from people who knew what they were doing, but they were interested in making 'amateur teen' stuff and that is really not me.

There are single girl porn sites out there that look good and do well, SOMEONE must be running them.

On top of that, a lot of the people I've spoken to in the industry are of the opinion that personality sites are the way to go, they're a better way to keep your members hooked, content is a lot cheaper to produce, do content share and you can get hard g/g for the same money, it's all plusses.

I could be wrong.

[mediahut]

Interesting thread....

I have been in a web design.marketing company for over 11 years (NOT here today and gone tomorrow!!!)

We have a very wide skillset in terms of Marcomms consultancy (ie how to make the site more effective/profitable), but have only traditionally sold these service to large corporates as the Adult Web world usually shy away from the costs involved.

What is interesting here (for me!) is that you want to retain the development side of the site, and just get the consultancy advice on effectiveness.

This is quite unusual, and something we would only usually sell with BIG bucks worth of development and hosting alongside it.

Contact me with a URL (of live existing site), and I will see if ti is somethign that we might be interested in.

K

[Cenobitez]

I have been telling people that 'personality' based is the way to go for a year now, get the punter hooked on the girl not the content, I had one of these in the pipeline 18 months ago, had my plan together, had the hosting, the 5 letter name domain, and the baseline content, and then the girl got preggers, and her boyfriend pressured her to 'keep the pregnancy private', so it all went to hell, along with my investment

If ya wanna chat about idea's hun shoot me a message, Always good to share Idea's, maybe some of of my idea's and legwork will be of use to you.

[Phil mCc]

My advice, do it yourself. Personality sites work well, but even better if the guys know you are doing it. No-one will work the way you will on your own site. It might take a bit of software learning but if you use a simple program like net objects then it will fall into place in a few weeks. What to work out is how much can you afford to invest in the site at the start, Hosting and bandwith is cheap but if you intend to put video on there or live then it can start to add up. If you do live then I think it would have mileage as very few people are doing anything quality live.


Phil McC

[mediahut]

Im sorry, but i have to disagree.

A professional SEO company will give such a massive advantage over a keen amateur

A website has ZERO value without visitors. Simple as

For a few hundred quid you can get advice on HOW to optimise the site for visitors/search engine rankings.

IF (and I stress IF), you have a guaranteed client base "waiting in the wings" for your content, then yes, you dont "need" SEO

But how many of us in hte real world have enough business already ?

[diceman]

Give me a shout.