Need Advice: Site Not Converting

Greetings All:

http://www.BoyAlley.com/

Ok, I am in need of some serious industry related advice here. I'm not exactly sure where we're going wrong.

We've started to do some test runs with our PaySite to get an idea of how our current tour converts, and simply put, it doesn't.

I'm going to start listing thoughts in a random and unorganized manner, but that's the scary way my mind works. Any advice from the pro's would be much appreciated

1. No full frontal. I know this may be a factor, but I have to play nice by my attorney. As a gay man, the images that are up look as provocative as you can get without showing all the goods. I also know there are a lot of other very successful sites not showing it all, so I'm unsure how big of a factor this is.

2. Yes, there are models in the tour from sites like maxpixels, so it's not 100% exclusive content. But, there is some exclusive and a LOT of semi-exclusive stuff mixed in there too, so I don't know here either. Most of the stuff in the tour is far from being what I would consider "over exposed". Surely I don't need 100% exclusive to launch?

3. Check-out, we're using CCBill for mastercard, discover, jcb and a different processor for visa/amex, along with a european processor. This is temp while we look into getting our own mercantile account, and I really don't think it would significantly effect conversion?

4. Traffic sources. Ok, I haven't thrown a TON of traffic to it yet, mainly because I want to be sure we have the tour in a converting format before I do. We've thrown traffic from MenOnTheNet, Google, TGPs, ManCheck, and UGAS at it. So far have made like, ooooh, 7 sales?!?! I'm not even positive what this makes the conversion ratio, but it's not pretty!

5. The paysite area is actually pretty damn decent for a newly launched site. Several tens of thousands of images, about 1,000 videos that can be downloaded or streamed, exclusive and semi-exclusive content, and a cool live sex show to boot. However, I KNOW this isn't effecting sales, since we haven't made enough for anyone to know wtf's on the inside of the site, haha.

6. Maybe I'm being too optimistic of how well a newly launched site should convert? I really don't see time live as a big factor here. I would think most subscriptions to paysites are impulse buys, and not the result of a week or so of contemplation.

7. I think the tour looks professional, without looking cookie-cutter. At least, that was our goal. We want people to know it wasn't just thrown together by a couple of halfwits in 15 minutes, and at the same time not have them think that we just went out and dropped 500 on a pre-fab design. I'm not sure.

We're planning on hiring a consultant to help with marketing, but I'd rather have something live and running that half converts before we do. We've already paid one man about 1k to look everything over (not going to mention any names), and we implemented all of his advice, but the thing still doesn't convert.

I'm hoping to have the problems, whatever they may be, worked out before we bring another consultant on board.

Something's off color, I'm just not sure what. I'm hoping I can figure out if it's the tour or my traffic sources (or something else?) that's the culprit.

Greetings:

Oh, one last thing. We've started to move our Webmaster's Resource section online too. So far, we have up part of our online tool box which includes:

1. Website Statistics: lookup total inlinks, google pagerank, etc.
2. Keyword Ranking: see how a site shows up using different keywords
3. Spider View: look for link errors, view site structure, etc.
4. Find Dying Domains: look for expired domains in dmoz, etc.

Very much under construction, but since some of you might happen past it anyway, I thought I'd mention it here.

No need to register, no banner ads, nothing like that. Just our way of saying "thanks", located at:
http://www.boyalley.com/webmasters/

Nice, but to me, and please keep in mind that I am weird and not normal but your whole tour is too busy and comes across like I am in a board room meeting not strolling down a back alley looking for a hot steamy sex romp.

There is no 'personality' to the tour as far as I feel. I think sites need to engage the surfer and drag him in by making him want to come in... no frontal nudity to me isn't an issue, its how you display and word the come on's that will or won't get the surfer clicking further.

Also again it is all images. SE need actual text, good anchor text links, H1 and Title tags..

Anyhow, just my warped view so take it with a grain of salt.

hth
Ian

I'm sorry to hear your hitting some snags. You are determind and talented so I'm sure you wont have this problem long.

Let me share some of my experience in the six years I've been doing this online.

In sales there are two factors relating to your success in closing a deal. 1) A qualified sales lead ( your surfer ) 2) Kick ass presentation of your product or service ( your site design and tour ).

People will give you all sorts of advice on how to create a money making tour, I suggest you goto the sites that are making a ton of money and see what their tours are like.

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. Don't copy them, but learn from their framework. Oddly enough your Boyalley.net site is more similar to a transparent tour then the boyalley.com site.

It sounds like the traffic side isn't so much of an issue yet as MenOnTheNet is a good traffic source and should bring a hot new site with cute guys like your sales right away. But traffic is king and after you get even marginal sales you need to look at who's coming to your site and make sure they are qualified surfers. (TIP: One of the best ways to do this is get affiliates that put your banner on the inside of their members area ;-D ) you can't get surfers more qualified then that.

I love your tour, I think it's well thought out, different and has it's own sense of style. On the other hand it lacks a connection with the guys ( no short stories about them, the shoot, etc. ), doesn't project the depth of content you have in the site, and is similar to some rip off sites that show a bunch of hot guys and only have minimal content inside.

These days, as the surfer gets smarter and ripped off more often, it's important to show them on the outside EXACTLY what they'll get on the inside. And G rated works as well as X rated IMO.

Sorry to be so long winded. I hope this helps.

i don't love this page http://www.boyalley.com and i wouldn't bother to market it.

the boys aren't boyish looking. they're not fresh, young cuties like some of the maxpixels guys. the page feels like it has no layout - it's a collage of pics with a box of text. and this page http://www.boyalley.com/index2.php doesn't seem to have an overall layout.

the text in the boxes is very generic, including the join page. you could say all that about any site in any niche by changing the word twink.

why not make a page layout that focuses on the boys at their cutest and youngest, and text that talks about them? barely legal teen boys, 18 year old boys, college boys sucking cock in the frat house - where's the sex? where's the keywords to tempt those of us who love a cute 18 year old? almost every site has thousands of pics, hundreds of videos, live chat. but what you are selling the surfers on - imo - is that you have CUTE BARELY LEGAL BOYS.

text helps a lot - you have exclusive never-before-seen college boys. 18 year old guys who are tasting their first cocks. the boy next door. tell us about it!

pics? don't throw them all together on a collage - show the really good pics of the hottest 18 and 19 year olds, and let each one stand out a little. and if you have 1 or 2 big ones per page, let them be the ones that you think are as hot as an 18 year old can get. show us the cutest ones.

this is only my opinion, but instead of trying to tell and show the surfer everything you have, show him your best in words that will make him want to see it all!

Okay without having read the rest of the replies in this thread as yet here are a couple of things i would suggest in order to make the site more sellable..

Index.php page:

This is the first page that your surfers are going to see and, for all intents and purposes, it is a wasted page, there is nothing on the page that draws my attention to the fact that this site features fresh-faced twinks at all.

Apart from the page lacking in the 'wow factor' the 'join now' link is also far to small IMHO that should be the biggest link on the page and animated as it is now instead, the largest link is for the 'members' area.

The pics themselves on this page are good quality however, they do look as if they have just been 'thrown' on the page to fill the space up. Because of this, non of them really stand out over any of the others, again, IMHO, every page on a tour should have 3 main parts to it as far as images go, a focal point - largest pic on the page, a tertiary image/s - the next largest images and, the background 'filler' images.

Index2.php page:

The page when first loaded show 'loading..' to me that is a waste of marketing time, for the most part, the first 3 seconds on any given page is the amount of time you have to make the surfer become interested in your site, whether you are selling porn members or books, if the first thing a surfer sees is some standard text, you have lost them IMHO.

That being said, this page does at least have somewhat of a structure so far as the images being used themselves, in fact my attention was immediately drawn to the guy on the left with a pierced eyebrow :)

My only main concern on this second page is that the text seems a little to 'formal' that is to say it is blocked out at the bottom left of the page, again, general maketing rules dictate that for the most part, sufers tend to read web pages from top to bottom, left to right, so the text itself, if you want to have it boxed should be at the top most left section of the site or, the bottom right of the tour page.

Again, the text itself doesnt reallt 'do' anything for me, i have seen the same text on thousands of sites in the past. As a surfer i want to know what makes YOUR site different from the countless others out there on the web?

Also, the 'join' link doesnt do the page justice, instead of having it animated orange/grey have it orange/ white, it WILL stand out more ;)

Index3.php page:

The first thing that caught my eye on this page was the flash animation which is very good however, you have nothing else around that area of the page at all, put some text there, even if its something generic suchs as 'twinks fucking'.

Again, the text is boxed and formal looking, spread it out across the page, you have a 300x200 sized space at the top right of the page which for all intents and purposes is dead space, throw some text in there to get the surfer interested.

Also, the join link again doesnt stand out as much as it could / should.

Index4.php page:

Again, as with the first page, the images all appear to be thrown together in order to fill the page, as i mentioned above make sure you have 3 primary types of imagery in use, focal point, tertiary focal point and filler images, as it stands right now, you have filler images and thats it as far as im concerned.

You may also want to change the image of the guy on the left hand side of the page, he doesnt stand out at all and the size of him overall, he should :)

Its nice to see you have changed the positioning of the text on this page however, again it looks to 'formal' because of how it is blocked, that text should be spread across the entire page and again should be specific to something your site has that no other twink site does.. this is the page where the surfer is going to decide to click to the join page or not and, as a surfer right now, i wouldnt go to the next page.. youll have wasted a potential sale.

Join.php page:

I actually like the layout of this page in general however, the three images you have on the bottom left should be in the upper right of the page and, they should be 3 different images. By giving a surfer a chance to see 3 images from 3 different sets instead of 3 from the same set you are potentially giving them an opportunity to see a model that is going to excite them thus, hopefully making them want to join in order to see more of that model.

Again however, you have boxed text on this page and, unfortunatly it is in the wrong location, you want to make one last sales attempt with this text so move it higher up the page so the surfer sees it without having to scroll down past the join options ;)

Hopefully this info has helped you out and hopefully if you mak even a couple of the changes suggested you'll start to see some sales rolling in :)

Overall however, the site is good it just lacks 'personality' which is going to make it differ from the countless other twink sites out there. Work on giving the site a life of its own on the tour pages and im positive you will be on to a winner with it :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JustMe
We've already paid one man about 1k to look everything over (not going to mention any names

---

I would be interested in finding out who this was, if you could find your way to sending me a PM with a name it would be appreciated ;)

It would of course be kept confidential :)

Regards,

Lee

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lee
I would be interested in finding out who this was, if you could find your way to sending me a PM with a name it would be appreciated ;) It would of course be kept confidential :)

---

Why do you even care Lee? :high:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Squirt
Why do you even care Lee? :high:

---

Because this isnt the first instance of me hearing about someone doing 'marketing' work that has gone bad.

I want to make sure that someone isnt using GWW as a tool to scam people :)

Regards,

Lee

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lee
Because this isnt the first instance of me hearing about someone doing 'marketing' work that has gone bad.

I want to make sure that someone isnt using GWW as a tool to scam people :)

---

Noble intentions. That's cool Lee. Probably some straight guy running a turnkey "Gay niche" site ripping our family members off :-D

But of course you'll keep it private so we'll never know and others will still fall victim :-D

You should have a "rip off" forum for all the bad experences some have online, to warn others.

http://www.geocities.com/blah45321/page4copy.txt

Aloha boyalley.com! ,
First Off , Congradulations On Opening Your Site! , 2nd Keep In Mind That All Advice Given Here Is Meant To Be "Constructive" And Not "Destructive" And What May Work For "One" Does Not Always Work For "ALL" ( We Love You Britney!:) , 3rd And Probably The Hardest To Maintain "Personal-Identity" ( Niche ) , With So Many Adult Websites Out There To Choose From "Standing-Out" Is The Way To Go , In Your Case "Alleyboys"
I Looked At Your Site Before I Read Some Of The Posted Comments And Being A Photographer For My Site I Can Only Say Trust The Golden Rule..."A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words" , You Need More "Alley's" , Young Homeless Boys In Torn Tee's And Tattered Jeans Leaning Against Brick Walls And Dumpsters! ( Models Of Course!:)Everything About Your Site Should Say "Alley" Even The Text Should Look Like "Graffiti" Sprayed In Neon Colors.
Let's Trade , You Send Me Your Clean-Cut Boys! , And I'll Send You My Homeless Models I Have To Clean-Up!:)

It could be that your site is "just another twink site"... how many more twink sites do we need? Maybe if it was 'Bear Alley', I could get excited about it. What are there, maybe a thousand twinks sites out there and a dozen bear sites? ;)

Kinda harsh, I know, but the market is SATURATED with twink sites. If you really want to be successful, do something different.


Another bit of advice... don't use screen captures from videos, unless they are crystal clear. Otherwise potential members will think that the video quality is terrible.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JustMe
http://www.BoyAlley.com/ . . . I'm not exactly sure where we're going wrong. We've started to do some test runs with our PaySite to get an idea of how our current tour converts, and simply put, it doesn't.

---

Possible problem???

1. No full frontal. not a factor IMHO

2. it's not 100% exclusive content. not a factor IMHO

3. [payment processors] not a factor IMHO

4. Traffic sources. if tried and true Gay traffic they'll pass on 'oh, gee, another twink site' -- if newbie traffic they might bite regardless of the what or why of the sell.

5. The paysite area . . . However, I KNOW this isn't effecting sales, since we haven't made enough for anyone to know wtf's on the inside of the site, haha. Tend to agree!! BUT!!! If you get a theme/personality going don't drop it after the tour. Keep it going throughout the site -- with sections like: dark downtown alley, sunny sea shore alley, behind the club alley.

6. . . . time live . . . impulse buying, yes. Big problem is you're not selling anything special with your tour that will kick off that impulse. It's just another twinkie site with no real 'theme' or personality to make it stand out. Why the title?? Why no building of a theme/personality for the site based on the title/url???

7. . . . tour looks professional . . . yep. sure does - - if you're selling twink pics to needy webmasters. Selling membership access to 'more of the same' is redundant to tooooo many other sites already screaming for the twink lover's attention.

. . . We've already paid one man about 1k to look everything over you got took!! -- what were his qualifications in the Gay market?? Do let Lee know who it was (as he asked).

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.

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!

Quote:

---

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.

---

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! :)

Quote:

---

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?

---

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.

Quote:

---

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

---

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:

Quote:

---

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

---

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:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Xstr8guy
It could also be your .htaccess

---

.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.

Quote:

---

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).

---

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:

Quote:

---

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.

---

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.

Quote:

---

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.

---

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:

Instead of using the "loading" graphic, why don't you slice the images into smaller pieces?

Greetings:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Xstr8guy
Instead of using the "loading" graphic, why don't you slice the images into smaller pieces?

---

Because that actually takes up more bandwidth in the long run, and it also slows down the page load for the user.

Instead of the user's browser having to make 1 or 2 requests for a graphic, it has to make several. And, since XP limits total simultaneous connections to a server to begin with, you're doing nothing more than create additional bottlenecking.

Slicing up images like that defeats the purpose IMHO.

yeah, but surfers know what to expect when they see the graphics loading...

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JustMe
Because that actually takes up more bandwidth in the long run, and it also slows down the page load for the user.

---

Um... who told you that?

A 100 meg image sliced into 10 x 10 meg images still only uses 100 megs.

As for slowing down the load time, it is going to depend on whether the surfer is on dialup or not.

Personally, i feel it is better to have a bunch of smaller images loading on a page instead of one larger image, at least that way the surfer doesnt have to wait until the entire image loads to see the graphics.

Regards,

Lee

Greetings:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lee
Um... who told you that?

A 100 meg image sliced into 10 x 10 meg images still only uses 100 megs.

---

True, the filesize itself is the same. However, you're forgetting about the network transport overhead for each file that's being requested and received, which adds up to more bandwidth.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JustMe
True, the filesize itself is the same. However, you're forgetting about the network transport overhead for each file that's being requested and received, which adds up to more bandwidth.

---

But that figure is so negligable it isnt worth being concerned about.

On a 100meg file you are probably talking an addition .1 of a meg of transfer at most.

Regards,

Lee

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lee
But that figure is so negligable it isnt worth being concerned about.

On a 100meg file you are probably talking an addition .1 of a meg of transfer at most.

Regards,

Lee

---

Did you mean 100k file... not 100 meg?

And besides, wouldn't the difference be about the size of the background "loading" file?

This is what I get with norton enabled

I get the same results using IE

JustMe

This is tangential to your graphics question, but when I saw TakeMyTaco's screen capture it lept right out at me. Your page's TITLE html tag is totally goofy. Your use in the TITLE tag of the word "twinks" eight times does more harm than good.

I wouldn't repeat that word more than three times. Try something like

Boy Alley - Gay twinks love to lurk on this street.

or

Boy Alley Website - Gay twinks find twink love (sexy pics)

Steve