Blogging: Is it worth it?

[Dzinerbear]

Hi all,

I've been watching one of my favourite blogs going downhill. They used to put up several quality blogs a day -- a picture and a nice paragraph of text. In the past few months as they are pumping out blogs so fast that it's like: [Picture] Here's John, he's hot. Go see John.

A buddy of mine said, "Michael, I know this will disappoint you, but when people are surfing for porn, they're not looking to read."

So I'm wondering do think surfers actually read any of our blogs? Are most blog surfers just looking for pictures? Are we just writing for the search engines?

Should I be pumping out a new blog every hour with a picture and one line of "see Dick run" kind of text? Or do you think surfers will tire of the "see Dick run" kind of blog?

Cheers
Michael

[Madame0120]

Our parnter who manages one of our stright hubs:
http://www.elitexxxsource.com/

Also has a teen blog:
http://www.elitexxxsource.com/blog/

My question to him was.. what you want? A TGP, or a blog? To my mind a blog is an extention of the blogmaster. My opinions, likes, hobbies, ect and so on, is what builds a loyal following and lots of bookmarks.

Gathering like-minded folks and becoming a resource, and not just an affilate link list is my goal.

I list over 50 BDSM Munch Groups- without link backs, that have doubled my SEO hits, the past 3 months.

I keep a catagories of heath links, silly stuff and political issues. Which I can see get lots of views.

It is my little world .. the blog.

I love The Porn Pig .. make it more you. You are an interesting fellow!
:heartu:

[basschick]

considering that all that unique text is what sends blogs their search engine traffic, putting up one sentence blogs doesn't seem very effective - UNLESS you have a huge number of regulars and simply want to keep them happy.

[Chilihost]

Google's PR numbers have been updating over the last week or so and most blogging sites are getting a nice PR boost out of it. And like Patti says, loads of text is brilliant for SEs (esp on sites that update often).

cheers,
Luke

[LavenderLounge]

Do you remember when "zines" were big in the early 90's? They were underground self-published and low-tech with the emphasis on creative expression, usually done by one person. After a while, EVERYONE published a zine, and the magazine racks became loaded with fly-by-night publications that sat there unsold till they became dog-eared and smudged.

Zines eventually morphed into magazines like Wired and became corporate.

The same thing is happening with blogs. People soon found out that it takes WORK to write something every day, so they just slap up a picture and go back to their real job.

The most successful blogs are now run by either one person that started early in the game and who does NOTHING ELSE, or a team of writers connected to old media.

[Lee]

Whilst SE traffic is definately something worth having, its only worth having if it translates in to actual sales, what most people dont realize is that blogging, for the most part, just like review sites now (something that has been discussed here before btw, and was shot down as 'crazy') have become so saturated that the 'blog' or 'review' traffic that was once worth its weight in gold is now relatively worthless in terms of fiscal, bankable value.... Because everyone has one (a la tgp).

Unless that is, as Mark pointed out, you were there early in the game and managed to build your brand, just like with TGPs, The Hun, PK, Greenguy, there is a reason why these sites are continually growing in traffic (although being depleted in terms of profitability) whilst hundreds of thousands of other TGPs fail.. There were around at the start of the 'craze'.

These days, anyone launching a blog or a new review site, is mearly jumping on the bandwagon and is doomed to fail, before they even launch, just like those webmasters who launch a new TGP.

Im currently sat here waiting for the new 'fad' to hit the adult industry so that its value too can die its death slowly as all and sundry launch their own 'fad site' in the hopes of becoming the next high traffic destination for porn surfers.

Regards,

Lee

[desslock]

Michael:

Perhaps what we are seeing is that blogs have been started by people who have nothing to say. I held off on creating a blog until I had a very clear picture on my mind of what I wanted it to say, and the voice.

Maybe I'm approaching this in too complicated a manner. But I really had to do that. Also, for me, Pickles handles most of the writing work for our blog. So, if I'm to instruct another person to do something, I have to be really clear in my instructions.

I believe that if you have something to say and can find your voice, you'll have a successful blog. And www.friskynews.org has been meeting our expectations. I'm not looking to become the big cheese. But as with all my sites, I'm seeking for it to find its audience.

Mark, that's an interesting comparison to zines. I've never thought of it like that.

For one, I will be very happy to see more of these blogs wither. Numerous unmeritous blogs have severely hurt my rankings in Google, starting since last September. However, I am starting to see what I had been blindly hoping for, which is my rankings to creep back up as the search engine's scores for these other sites decline.

One of my yardsticks: I used to get hundreds of hits daily off Hungarian musclebottom Ted Colunga. He's a porn star that's been in lots of movies... over in Europe - unless you are into that "type" you're not going to know about him. I'm now on page two of Google for his name.... and I can look directly at many listings that currrently rank well --- three blogspot sites specifically.... which I'll be able to ride out.

Time is on our side.

This aint my first time at the rodeo.

Steve

[LavenderLounge]

Steve:

While I'm thinking about it, I added you to my blogroll. Please link back to LavenderLoungeBlog.com.

[XXXWriterDude]

Hi all,

I've been watching one of my favourite blogs going downhill. They used to put up several quality blogs a day -- a picture and a nice paragraph of text. In the past few months as they are pumping out blogs so fast that it's like: [Picture] Here's John, he's hot. Go see John.

A buddy of mine said, "Michael, I know this will disappoint you, but when people are surfing for porn, they're not looking to read."

That's what people say about porn movies too. "They don't want story; they just want sex."

It's an age-old debate that--no matter how many statistics people shove at me--will never be resolved in my eyes. The way I see it, bloggers and porn directors say that to make excuses for the fact that they are either A) lazy, B) busy or C) not very talented. Personally, I PREFER a blog with some editorial content. I'm not talking about a whole chapter in a book or anything, but I definitely want to hear more than "Here's John. He's hot."

All blogs are different, though, and different people visit them for different reasons. There are LOTS of people who do, in fact, check out blogs so they can READ them, not just look at pictures. You just have to establish what kind of blog you want, and then commit to it. But a blog with words and pictures can definitely still be a popular blog.

[robin]

Blogging is so worth it in my opinion. I think I've said this before but it turned two of my porn sites around so that they're worth going to again.

Another site I have relies greatly on the blog to bring in people to the rest of the site.

For me it's been well worth it.

How you go about blogging though -- well that's another matter. Personally I think it's a combo of interesting things to see and read that make you stand out from the rest that get the repeats.

[desslock]

That's what people say about porn movies too. "They don't want story; they just want sex."

It's an age-old debate that--no matter how many statistics people shove at me--will never be resolved in my eyes.

It is a strange debate. It's like in that Pfizer lawsuit thread. There's no single way of enjoying "porn." There's a million way to enjoy it. I know that lots of people care nothing about any story or words. They just want pictures. That may be your target audience.

So there's all kinds of markets.

There is a big appetite for the California studio porn. There's interest in Brazilian porn. Czech guys. Amatuers from Forida. Asians. And of course the dreaded "straight guys having gay sex"

ad infinitum.

I'll highlight LavenderLounge and GayPornBlog as blogs that I regularly read. They do more than just update all the time with pics. They have a voice, or as we used to call it in old BBS world "a sense of place." So that when I'm sitting there, I literally have a "place" in my mind that I see when punching up their URLs.

Steve

[Xstr8guy]

I'm one of the few webmasters left that doesn't blog. I've always marched to the beat of my own drum. Lol. So I have an outsider opinion on this whole issue.

Currently, blogs seem to be sending the most productive traffic. And the best blogs are the ones that are the stickiest. What makes them sticky is the trickiest part to determine. Some are sticky because they are the most mature (been around the longest). Others are sticky because the have a 'sense of community'. Some offer more than just porn so they appeal to a broader audience. And a few others offer more than just a blog so they have a more diverse audience.

As far as I'm aware there are only 2 reasons someone visits a blog that contains at least some porn. Either they are bored and want to be entertained in a non-sexual way or they want to be stimulated in a sexual manner. Pictures and a little erotic text is all you need for the latter visitor. The visitor looking to be non-sexually entertained is going to be a lot more difficult to satisfy. He's going to want to read informative articles or see something humorous. Imo, very few blogs offer anything to the non-sexual surfer.

But why do you even want the non-sexual surfer? After all, your goal is to sell porn memberships. Well, probably because he is not alway non-sexual. Maybe he just had sex with 7 sweaty pro-wrestlers and he wants a different diversion. He may want to read about some hot pro-wrestlers he saw on TV the other night. And perhaps the next time he is looking to bust-a-nut, he'll remember that your blog also had lot's of hot naked muscle guys to look at. Voila! You've got a sticky visitor.


Imo, blogs will go in 3 directions.

The blogs that do the 'here's a hot naked guy, look at this pics and visit this paysite' will disappear because they aren't offering anything other than what they can see on a TGP or a free site.

The blogs that offer something MORE than just porn will survive and prosper and perhaps evolve into something different.

The new-wave of porn blogs I'm seeing a lot more of from affiliates are the niched blogs. Maybe they have been around for a while and I haven't noticed. But I think it's a really great idea because so many of the gay porn focused blogs all look the same with the same sponsors and the same uninformative text. What if a surfer is really sick and tired of seeing the same paysites represented on every generic blog and they just want to see uncut guys? They can surf page-after-page of genericgaypornblog.com or they can go over to uncut.blogspot.com (don't even know if that's a real blog btw).

[pocoloco78]

Blogging is worth it, but in the end the true bloggers will survive. Just throwing up a pic and a link is not blogging. Blogging is about both pics as well as text. As text might not be that interesting for your visitors, it may give that little extra. Good writers know how to get the readers attention and they can send the traffic into the right direction. Actually text is your sales tool - you have to entertain and convince the surfer at the same time.

I agree with some of you that splogs will not survive, however they might be great for a sales boost on the shortterm of course.

Blogs attract a lot of SE traffic (because of the text) and that is why blog traffic is converting so well.

A big concern are those so-called blogs, which give away complete movies (mostly stolen content). They got tons of traffic and only make some bucks by selling advertisement spots, but on the longterm they are ruining the market.

[Dzinerbear]

I know that blogging is worth it, the title was more to get people to express an opinion. I suppose I'm just really frustrated because this business continually goes through cycles where something good comes along, everyone jumps on the band wagon, kills it, and then, the hoard moves on like a flock red-billed quela birds.

It happens with viturally ever business model this industry has seen. It's just frustrating that there are so many people in the biz that don't care about creating a quality product. It does make it easier for a quality product to stand out if you can get the surfers to your site.

Okay, I'll stop whining.

Michael

[IdolKnights]

something good comes along, everyone jumps on the band wagon, kills it, and then, the hoard moves on like a flock red-billed quela birds.l

This will always be an issue.

If it makes money, it's going to be cloned and like most clones, it won't be a perfect match. Down the road, clones of clones of clones will be running around and by that time, someone will invent the rss feed to pump each and every clone with effortless content leading to the ability of paying $8.50 for a domain, loading it with some website out of a box, feeding it a bunch of rss and going back to the registrars for another $8.50 domain.

Or was that the blog?