Building Your First Gay or Lesbian Site
We think that we are educated webmasters, knowledgeable in almost
every type of program. We view ourselves as much more in touch with
the desires and interests of our surfing consumers than the average
Jane or Joe on the street.
The truth is, when it comes to knowing what gay and lesbian surfers
are looking for in adult entertainment content, we know about zilch
to nothing. Our industry - as a whole - continues to miss the mark,
site after site, year after year, leaving thousands upon thousands
of gay and lesbian consumers still searching for someone who simply
"gets it." By doing that we are missing out on hundreds of thousands
of dollars each year. Can we really afford to continue this oversight?
"It's like leaving money on the table!" exclaims Lee Noga, VP of Marketing
for CyberErotica's new gay division. Did you know that one out of
every eight surfers on straight sites is bi-curious? Just ask Lee,
she'll tell you. It started out merely as an ad campaign for CyberErotica's
new gay site, Hard Crank, but when Lee found herself deep in the numbers
that bore the proof of these statistics, she made it her personal
campaign to begin teaching adult webmasters how to capitalize on this
virtually untapped market.
But how can straight webmasters learn to effectively build sites,
and sell them to a market that they don't understand? What do gay
and lesbian consumers want from an adult site? Do they want the same
types of content that straight surfers want? Do they want the same
types of membership options that straight surfers want? What kind
of niches, fetishes and micro-niches are gay and lesbian surfers looking
for?
Getting Started...
Well, let's start with the basics. How would you begin building
any site that is designed to satisfy a specific audience and target
a specific niche? You need to research your "material" and find
out what's in, and what's out. Here's a simple "plan of action"
for you to use when building your first gay-or lesbian-specific
site.
1. Decide what you want to accomplish. - Do you want a "general"
gay site? A lesbian site that features only blondes? A gay portal
that offers a multitude of niches, fetishes and options to your
surfers?
2. Get organized! - Draw out your plan of action in notepad, on
scratch paper or get one of those dry erase boards so you can post
it on your office wall and follow along accordingly.
3. Start out small, specific and simple! - Niches are great, but
when you're just learning about the world of gay, lesbian and bi-sexual
site building, simplicity can be your best friend.
4. Capital and time are issues. - Don't grow too fast or beyond
your physical limits. If the site is too time consuming to update
on a daily basis, you'll never have the time to grow, expand and
make more money. Also, if you grow too quickly, you may not be able
to afford the hosting and bandwidth costs if your site takes off
before you're making a profit.
5. Try to find exclusive content if you can. - The more exclusive
you are the better. If you've got the same tired old content that
can be found at every other site out there, then there's no reason
why your surfers or potential members would bookmark or join your
site.
6. Be an original! - Because this is a virtually untapped market,
becoming an original or trend-setting site can be quite easy to
do. Research your market - don't insult it. Find out what your surfers
are looking for, but unable to find, at the larger more traveled
sites. Be original in your design, concept, content and delivery.
Your surfers will appreciate the extra work that you put into building
your site, and will share it with their friends. Word of mouth is
the best advertisement.
Research! Research! Research!
It cannot be stressed enough, when moving into a market that is
unfamiliar territory, that the most important thing you should do
is research your product, your market and poll your consumers. If
you're starting out with a simple gay or lesbian site, you can easily
add a little poll to the mix, asking if there are specific niches,
content or programs that your surfers are looking for. You'll be
surprised at how helpful and informative these little polls can
be. Make sure to post an obvious e-mail link beneath the poll, so
that your surfers can send you more detailed requests if necessary.
You can also find out more about this market by surfing the competition.
Check out the big successful sites, like BadPuppy.com, Cybersocket.com,
Bedfellow.com or the big pay sites & content programs found at PythonVideo.com.
These companies are in touch with their markets and are setting
the standards, of which all webmasters moving into the gay and lesbian
segment of e-industry should be aware.
Take a little trip over to Yahoo!, Google and all the other top
search tools. Do a search for "gay porn," "lesbian porn" or "gay
adult content." Take a look at all the free sites, portals and pay-sites
listed. Remember, not all of these are necessarily "good" examples
for your research. Make notes on mistakes you see other webmasters
making, and how you would improve upon those ideas for use in your
own site.
Strictly Lesbian...
When building lesbian oriented sites, you need to ask yourself one
important question. "Am I building this site for straight men who
like to see two women, or am I building this site for lesbians who
are looking for a true lesbian oriented site?" How you answer this
question, and the kind of traffic you receive on this site, will
affect how you should build - and what kind of content you need
to provide.
The traditional straight-male quest for lesbian sex is often "quite
different" from what true lesbians are looking for in adult erotic
content. There are differing opinions on this subject but it seems
that "true lesbians" can be broken down into several diverse groups
(not unlike straight surfers).
- Softcore
- Sites featuring artsy nudes, erotic imagery or text, classic "beautiful"
models, romantic themes, simulated sex, fantasy, etc.
- Hardcore
- Rough, raw, penetrating sex. No holds barred.
- Fetish
Based - Specific niches, themes, fetishes and fantasies. Move beyond
mainstream BDSM and mere leather attire.
In a seminar that I attended recently, the topic of discussion was
"what do lesbians like in their pornography?" The answer was multi-faceted
and a little confusing. Basically, it boiled down to some like it
soft, and some like it hard. I think the speaker was trying to tell
us we were trying to put TOO fine a point on the issue, and that
we should just build sites as we would for "straight" surfers, without
trying to put too many labels on the different micro-niches.
All About the Boys...
When building sites with male content just for a male audience,
you need to make sure you get the lingo, the atmosphere and the
content just right. There's no use in targeting your traffic to
a nice, fine point only to lose it all in a few seconds due to poor
site construction.
One of the biggest mistakes straight webmasters make when building
gay sites is language, design and content. There's nothing worse
than coming across a gay site that screams out in bold letters "Click
here for pics of hot fags!" or a site that is branded with triangles,
rainbows and other "gay associated" symbols and colors. The content
must truly be gay oriented and should not include "tranny," "she
male," "chicks with dicks" or any other non-gay themes. Straight
webmasters often think that gay surfers will also enjoy these non-mainstream
content categories, but in all actuality, it probably turns them
off even more than any other demographic. In fact, most tranny traffic
is made up of straight bi-curious or shemale fetishist males.
Another common mistake is the lingo. You need to know what these
things mean if you're going to properly promote them. If you don't
know that a bear is a hairy, large male and you fill your site called
"Big Bad Bears" with pictures of skinny little hairless men, you're
going to lose your audience. You need to get the facts on what your
audience is looking for; what the terminology is before you use
it; and you need to know what content will be accepted by your audience.
Going Both Ways...
If your goal is to create a bi-sexual site that features threesomes,
foursomes or moresomes; male/male content; and a selection of female/female
content, then you need to be very careful. You're treading on "thin
ice" with this niche, and the best advice that can be given is to
make it totally 100% clear to your audience, what it is you are
doing.
If your site is meant to appeal to the bi-sexual masses, then you
need to clearly mark your categories, to state whether it will be
gay, lesbian or bi-sexual. There's nothing worse than having pissed-off
members or surfers that saw something that they totally didn't want
to see. You don't want to offend your audience; you want to get
their attention and keep it! Using text descriptions of what can
be found inside OR just using clearly marked buttons or menus can
really save you a lot of extra customer service control work in
the long run.
Make sure to have a wide selection of content available, to satisfy
all three genres that you are attempting to target. This can be
a really difficult task, both for marketing and sales-closing reasons.
But... it can be tastefully and expertly done if you take your time,
know what you're doing, properly target your audience and make a
good, solid close.
Get Building!!!
There are lots of webmaster resources, services, products and programs
available on the 'Net today that will help you build your gay site
into a mega moneymaker in no time. Just make sure to pay attention
to the details, properly target your audience and don't be afraid
to try new things.
The best advice I ever heard, for any webmaster who is looking to
build the moneymaking site of his/her dreams, was shared by Morgan
Summer of Cybersocket.com. He said, "Quality is something well thought
out." Take the time to think things out, as you build your first
gay or lesbian site. If you strive to do a good job and go that
extra mile to satisfy your customers, then quality will just be
par for the course.
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