Dont Even Slice The Pie...
Okay we all know, the more times the 'porn pie' gets sliced, the smaller everyones piece becomes but, what if your pie was never sliced to begin with?
What i mean by that is, by jumping in both feet first, specifically when it comes to the types of sites and niches you build for, you'll actually be going head on with people who have not only been doing this a lot longer than you have but, have been doing it a lot better than you have also, they know the marketing secrets that you are only just starting to find out, they know how to push the surfers buttons, they know how to sell porn, ultimately, they know their own turf and, that will make it so much easier for them to force you out of it!
When you start in the industry, its a heck of a lot easier to start getting a 'taste' of various slices within the industry and find one that you like than, to jump head first in to a big ol' cluster fuck.
Here's an example of what i mean, 8 or so years ago, the gay market wasnt as proliferent as it is today, there were only a handfull of affiliates promoting gay sites, there were only a handfull of 'good' traffic sources and, there were only a handfull of places webmasters could go to learn about marketing, our company realized this, got GWW working and, became the premier destination for webmasters looking for information on marketing to gay surfers. We found something that we were interested in and, that others needed or, wanted and built on that.
Over the last 8 years, GWW has grown in to the largest and longest running gay marketing community, during this time other gay resources have come and gone but, GWW is still here.
It ultimately took a lot of time and hard work but, the rewards have been well worth it. The same can be said for building any type of site for any type of niche.
You to can do this, whether you are gay, straight, bi, black or white, no matter what type of target audience you are going to be marketing to, adult or not, start off promoting something that YOU like. If you get turned on by twinks, start building twink sites, if you get turned on by bears, build bear sites, after all, you know what turns YOU on, now you are going to be able to turn the surfers on and, make sales in the process.
One thing that you do need to be made aware of those, dont get what i like to call 'lemming syndrome' decide on a course of action and, stick to it, just because your buddy is making money submitting galleries to every TGP under the sun or, some guy on another board is making money building AEN sites every day, that doesnt mean you should start doing that to. Thats not to say you shouldnt keep an eye on what your friends and peers are doing but, dont let their business plan, sway you from YOUR business plan.
By developing a strategy for what you know and love, when things start working well for you, you can then start taking smaller slices out of the pie which, over time, grow to be bigger than everyone elses. As i mentioned in another thread recently, its not always good to have 1 site that makes you $1000 a month, sometimes, building 1000 sites that make you $1 a month can be just as rewarding.
Regards,
Lee
