Mainstream?

I admit that I know nothing about mainstream online marketing but my eyes were opened recently.

I ran into a site for... oh let's say... teddy bears (not really - just for the sake of this thread). The site was well SE optimized for people looking to buy teddy bears online. But no teddy bears were for sale on the site. Links to products didn't go anywhere, infact, none of the links worked on the site at all. The only links that actually worked on the site were for google adsense ads that were real merchants selling real teddy bears.

Multiply this formula a few hundred times and do you have a viable way to make some serious dollars?

Well the method behind it would certainly make some decent $$$ however, for the most part, 'mainstream' webmasters are pretty dumb when it comes to making money, they would rather, as you have seen in your example, send their traffic to something that is only going to yield them pennies per surfer.

However, coming from an 'adult' background, many of us actually do understand the importance and VALUE of our traffic.

Going back to the example you used, Teddy Bears, im sure that is a wide enough reach of surfers / children to yield a reasonable profit from Adwords however, by cutting out Adsense completely you can realistically increase the CPC (Cost Per Click) revenues.

Amazon, ToysRUs, ClickBank, CJ, DarkBlue, etc etc all have programs that pay upwards of $1 for each lead / sale you would generate from your sites.

Why make pennies from your 'teddy bear' traffic when you can make dollars? ;)

Regards,

Lee

Lee, do you have any tutorials on Mainstream?

It's coming Jim.

As I build the mainstream side of things I'm keeping detailed notes and stats. Once I have a grip on all of it I'm going to start writing, again :)

My best,
Gary-Alan

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Lee, do you have any tutorials on Mainstream?

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Don't know if this is allowed, but here are a couple articles about mainstream:
http://adultwebmasterfolder.com/resu...rch=mainstream

Be sure to check out the date the article is written.

I guess we differ on opinion/experience regarding this subject.

In my experience surfers in mainstream want a place they can go, and come back to, that meets, and exceeds, their needs. They want a place they can refer other like minded people to.

If we take teddy bears as the example... many collectors, or would be collectors, would be attracted to a teddy bear site that fullfills their needs, and then some, with a collectors forum, the history of the teddybear, links to teddy bear auctions and other teddy bears stores. Children would be attracted to the "kids only" part of the site. It's more effective to make the best teddybear clearinghouse site you can, then to create 100 sites with, as you said, nothing but adsense and/or affiliate links.

It's quality not quantity that keeps the money coming in. Surfers are fast becoming aware of the fake adsense doorway sites and hit the back button real quick to see what Google thinks the relevent sites are, not what a site that tricked them to their page, with their own links thinks.

If you put the best into what you're creating, you're not only doing right by surfers that come to your site, but you're building a better internet community as well. My .0000002 cents

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Originally Posted by Lee

however, for the most part, 'mainstream' webmasters are pretty dumb when it comes to making money, they would rather, as you have seen in your example, send their traffic to something that is only going to yield them pennies per surfer.

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Ummm right -- not. LOL!

He happened across one of those crappy sites. He could have just as easily come across a crappy porn site and asked the same question.

In a way I agree with everyone.. but for my money, I think that there are a large number of webmasters who simply toss up the pages and doorways because they have bought into the internet hype, that it is an easy business to start in and make tons of money. Hell they are still advertising on tv for this nonsense, how I earned $60K a month, and only for a few hours a week BS.

Seriously, and I suppose in a way this is a mini rant, but too many buy into the hype. It is like a designer on another board poo poo's SEO while designing, saying its not all that important but logic would say otherwise.

I mean how can you design a site without knowing the amount of text or its sizing? Can you design a page without knowing if the H1 tag is gonna be 18 words or 9 words? what if the words are all 10 letters or 4 letters? How does it wrap around the images? How does it even fit with the images you put up?

As I state in my tutorial at KBlogger (shameless self promotion here, but heck its already been a long day) too many scams exist because folks don't want to realize that the internet is a tough business, whether adult or mainstream. It is like they buy the advertising, only thing I wish is that those easy marks would come buy from me... :extat:

In many ways this whole mainstream webmaster thing is like the IE vs Firefox issue.. Until firefox got recognition and started becoming more popular with people, it was indeed SAFER than IE but not because its designed better, but simply because the asshole virus peddlers and hackers couldn't be bothered with wasting time on something that held less than 5% of the market... now that it is gaining, they are turning to it and we are seeing firefox really isn't more secure.. new updates are becoming more frequent as new security holes are found... just as in IE.

It isn't that webmasters are dumb or stupid or whatever, it is mostly that they bought into the hype and haven't a clue how to go about things, whether they are in adult or mainstream... you may see more in mainstream simply because many are too prudish or too scared to dabble on the so called black side of the internet...

just my 2 cents
Ian

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Originally Posted by robin

Ummm right -- not. LOL!

He happened across one of those crappy sites. He could have just as easily come across a crappy porn site and asked the same question.

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Robin,

My point was, 'mainstream webmasters' (oh and yes, i work with them on a daily basis, true mainstream not 'adults' version of mainstream) would rather make cents per vistor than nothing at all because, that is all they are used to making.

Several years back i offered a PPS business model program to the mainstream community and they shunned it, because they didnt understand why i would offer them $50 per sale on a product that sold for $75.

Instead, they chose to promote a $1 per sale program on a product that cost $75.

Now im no mathematician by any standards, but, surely as 'adult' webmasters we can see how dumb the decisions many of them made were?

For many webmasters who have ONLY worked in mainstream, they only look as far as their noses can see because they dont know any different, they see thousands of sites all promoting CPM, CPC and CPL programs and do the same, the thought about revshare or PPS programs never even enters their minds because, to many in mainstream, this simply isnt a business model they understand or, have seen in use.

Adsense is a perfect example of this, why only limit yourself to cents per click when, if you go to other PPC or CPM aggregates, you can make dollars per click?

It takes next to no time to setup your own PPC search engine these days yet, even in adult, many webmasters would rather send their valuable traffic to aggregates that only pay them cents on the true value of their clicks.

Shop around, just because the first program you find suits you, it doesnt mean that there arent others out there that not only suit your needs but, also add more profit to your bottom line.

Regards,

Lee

Oh and Jim to answer your question..

We do have a few 'mainstream' articles however, they use the adult industries interpretation of what 'mainstream' is so they may not be of any use to you in this instance.

We'll be getting some true mainstream articles online within the coming months though :)

Regards,

Lee