Need Advice: Site Not Converting

Xstr8guy - whether the world needs another twink site or not, the tour isn't all that it could be. it doesn't stand up to other sites.

i don't even think this is even a case of knowing the gay market or not... a tour like this with 18 year old girls wouldn't sell either.

JustMe - i usually charge $250 - $500 for the job you paid $1000 for. when i do, one of the things i do is to go through the tour, make note of the pics that aren't great for the niche, and then i go through the member area and pick replacement pics. did the guy you paid do that? i also rewrite the text - if needed - and if i don't know the market, i do some research. and last, i do exactly what this thead has done - i do a point by point report on what i feel should be changed in the tour to make it sell, and what it should be changed to.

if he had done all the above, maybe that $1000 wouldn't have been too out of line - except that in no way is this tour up to standards with other tours. offhand, i'd say your guy isn't qualified to work on your site or you didn't take his advice.

the good news - if you really use this thread, it is one of the best i've ever seen and fully worth another $500 at least. i don't agree with neon colors that look like graffiti, but overall there are a lot of great points in these posts. although your tour isn't too good, i bet your content IS. all you need is a tour to let your surfers know that!

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Originally posted by jonjayw
Be bold, be different, be unique . . . with a twink site you must stand out heads above the rest or you're just in the pack, fighting for the same slice of the Gay market.

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Shouldn't he go with what works first and start making money, then try to be different? His main concern right now is no sells?

Squirt - i agree. make the best site you can, but don't get too original till you know what works...

"i don't agree with neon colors that look like graffiti,"

I agree. Neone and spray paint stuff would look way to 80's style and wouldn't go well with naked guys. They'd have to be dressed like gangsters or something lol

You know, the funny thing is, I like the look of the tour. I like the high res pics, but think the low res shows a lot more when you have a quality pic in the collage. But overall I like it. But someone liking it doesn't matter if that person isn't a surfer and buying subscriptions.

Mate just do what has worked for everyone else to start off, THEN play around with things. A selling site is like making a cake, if you don't have the right ingredients it wont sell. But once it starts selling you can switch it up a bit and tweak it. my .00002 cents :high:

Hmmm...What To Say , What To Say , Regardless Of What Some May Think In Here I Stand "Firmly" Behind "Color" ( Even Neon! ) The Only Time I Choose To Shoot/Design Something In "Black & White" Is When I Am Trying To Achieve Something "Dramatic" Or My Model Is "Older And/Or Has Some Skin Issues" ( Great For Acne! :)

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Originally posted by Squirt
Shouldn't he go with what works first and start making money, then try to be different? His main concern right now is no sells?

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He's not making sales doing what he's doing. What works first hasn't happened for Boy Alley, yet. It can -- but somehow there's got to be changes if JustMe wants to be able to beat out the heavy competition within the 'buy my twinky porn' arena. Just more of the same won't do it!!

I'd guess JustMe will have trouble understanding how to not 'try to be different' or not 'get too original' and still stand out from the crowd. I sure would. Corbin Fisher or the guys at Randy Blue didn't follow any of that type advice.

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Originally posted by jonjayw
Corbin Fisher or the guys at Randy Blue didn't follow any of that type advice.

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Corbin Fisher and Randy Blue both use transparent tours. Like I said before: "What your site is lacking, that they aren't, is a transparent tour. A trasparent tour is a tour that shows what your site looks like inside with access to content etc. disabled of course :-D Goto Sean Cody, Randy Blue, Amateur straight Guys, Hard n straight, etc. and see how they do it."

You can be different and still have the same structure. A sites personality and uniqueness isn't defined by it's structure, rather, how you express yourself within that structure.

Surfers nowdays fundamentaly want to see what they're paying for. Many have been ripped off and need to know they are getting their monies worth. I just don't see that on the boyalley site. Some pretty minor changes will make all the difference on his site.

My .00002 cents worth :high:

Greetings All:

WOW! I can't begin to thank you all enough for the excellent advice. Some of you really spent some time, and I want you to know it certainly was appreciated!

I've taken all of this heap of advice, and tried to compress it down into a new tour. I had it up in a test directory yesterday, and started throwing some traffic to it, and DAMN! This baby converts like a virgin on prom night.

There are still a million small details that need worked out (such as picture selection and the like), but if our test runs are any indication, this looks like it'll be our tour from here on out.

Again, thanks so much to everyone!

Any feedback on the new tour, as always, is greatly appreciate as well:

http://www.BoyAlley.com

Just letting you know
That I have to disable Norton firewall
to see your graphics.

Is there a way to go around that?

Nice looking site
BTW

Greetings:

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Originally posted by Takemytaco
Just letting you know
That I have to disable Norton firewall
to see your graphics.

Is there a way to go around that?

Nice looking site
BTW

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Well, that's strange. They're just regular linked up images, no java or javascript or anything, not sure why your firewall would block them?!? What message is it giving you?

I do have adult content rating tags on every page, and I know Norton can be set up to block such sites (I'd assume you wouldn't have that turned on considering the business you're in, haha).

I read something recently about Norton blocking images with certain file names... is that right? It could also be your .htaccess

Greetings:

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Originally posted by Xstr8guy
It could also be your .htaccess

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.htaccess provides server-side restrictions, him turning off his norton firewall couldn't effect that. Whatever the problem is it's being initiated on the client-side on his computer for some reason.

hrm. I'd love to see a clip from your log file when this happened.

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Originally posted by JustMe
Greetings:



Well, that's strange. They're just regular linked up images, no java or javascript or anything, not sure why your firewall would block them?!? What message is it giving you?

I do have adult content rating tags on every page, and I know Norton can be set up to block such sites (I'd assume you wouldn't have that turned on considering the business you're in, haha).

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Justme..

I can guarantee you that there is something on the page that you are unaware of.

When i visited the site for the first time in place of graphics i got a 'loading' message appearing before the images and that has only ever happened on your site to my knowledge.

Regards,

Lee

Greetings:

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Originally posted by Lee
first time in place of graphics i got a 'loading' message appearing before the images and that has only ever happened on your site to my knowledge.

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Ah, yeah, I know about that. That's a favorite little trick of mine. Since each page has over 100k in graphics on it, instead of the user seeing a blank page, or part of a page, I want them to know that it's loading.

Soo, I made some plain black graphic with the word "loading" on it, that's exactly the same size as my actual images. Then, I place it as the background image of the table.

So, the page comes up, loads the 2k background image for the table which shows up to the user as "loading", and then when the actual images load in the table, it covers up the background.

A quick, nifty little ditty.

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Originally posted by JustMe
Ah, yeah, I know about that. That's a favorite little trick of mine. Since each page has over 100k in graphics on it, instead of the user seeing a blank page, or part of a page, I want them to know that it's loading.

Soo, I made some plain black graphic with the word "loading" on it, that's exactly the same size as my actual images. Then, I place it as the background image of the table.

So, the page comes up, loads the 2k background image for the table which shows up to the user as "loading", and then when the actual images load in the table, it covers up the background.

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LOL yeah I noticed that the first time I went to your site but looked at the code and saw what you did. I figured your graphics are a tad to big and you wanted to let the surfer know they're loading.

At first I though you were using the LOWSRC tag in your HTML. Good job :high: