I figured it was time to post some secrets to the longevity of RabbitsReviews, as well as some general info that gives you an idea of the direction we are heading. You may have noticed the site underwent an overhaul this week. Without looking under the hood, you can see the logo has changed a little, we've moved to using cards for info sections, just about every page has been reorganized and the whole site is now fully responsive. But it's really the backend, behind-the-curtain stuff that has kept us alive for over a decade. So I figured it was time to share a little bit about how Rabbit, AKA Mantas, has built this company and managed to keep it relevant when so much in this industry has changed.
SEO
RabbitsReviews really began to take off after the launch in 2003 through our SEO efforts. We hired a guy to help us with our site structure who also had a pool of resources at his disposal. He was pricy but he delivered. It wasn't long before we began competing with the bigger review sites, and it seems an even shorter period before we began beating them--at least from a traffic/SEO perspective.
These days SEO is still part of the foundation but it's no longer the driving force behind everything we do. Our categories used to have great placement in SERPs for their key terms till tubes came along and rightfully took their place. Now we compete in other areas… and it seems, almost strangely, that we are doing better than ever.
ADVERTISING
We are a pretty remarkable funnel for traffic. We buy spots in the members areas of over 100 programs. It's one of our biggest sources of traffic right now so it deserves a mention. It's not a ton of revenue for us in the grand scheme of things as most of it goes back to the sponsor. In most cases they seem to do better with ads for us than just about anything else they can plug. Why? A sponsor can sell a handful of sites with a spot--send to a traffic partner or something that fits for their site. But that's still a fairly limited number of possibilities to make a sale. Or they can use us and sell thousands of sites with one single spot.
We are a giant filter, allowing users to find whatever they could want at any point. Sponsors know they are going to lose every member at some point, but they might as well make money off it when they do. In the end, buying ad spots may not be a huge portion of what we do--but it's one of the most valuable ways a webmaster/program can use our site.
DESIGN
It has always been a huge thorn in my side that we don't add more design elements to Rabbits. I'd love to have ad spots where I can trade traffic with or more design elements to spice up our look. But Rabbit has always been firm on this one point: we keep the site lean. We ensure it loads fast. We get the surfer to the content they want as quickly as possible. Anything that gets in the way of that doesn't have a place.
Our new site exemplifies this.
ZuzannaDesigns deserves a shout out for being able to work within our strict requirements and yet deliver something that even looks good to me, without the crazy colors and flashy content that I lean towards. It loaded fast before but we've managed to improve on that, meaning that Google should smile on us a little more brightly… or so the hope goes. And we can now optimize it based on user interaction. Small changes are often those with the biggest impact and we are happy with what we've released.
STAFFING
A company is only as good as the people that make it. At Rabbits, we have about 20 people that work full time in our Montreal office. A number of us are celebrating 10 years with the company. Mantas (AKA Rabbit) is certainly the reason for that. I've worked with many different people in my time and most are temperamental at best. But Rabbit has a cool head and he's rational. He's focused and professional. He's steered the ship solidly for 11 years and has his sights set on the horizon--where any good captain should. We've kept good talent around and our product is more consistent than ever as a result.
THE HAREALD?
Okay, our blog has never been a secret to our success but I am going to sound off on it here for those that have wondered why we continued with it. It's been a thorn in my side for forever. Holy crap this was a long time coming!
We've had a blog since 2005. Back then, you had two decent choices for a platform. WordPress or MoveableType. You'll never guess which one we chose.
For years I've been pulling my hair out with a crappy, featureless blogging platform. All of the writing on it was pretty much crap, too. It was all SEO based and we gave writers a half hour to stick something together. Quantity over quality seemed to work for a while. But no more of any of that.
We would have switched earlier but couldn't find a suitable way to move all of our content. It was never a focus so why spend valuable programming time trying to figure it out? Finally, after almost 10 years, we said screw it and ditched the old MovableType blog. Welcome WOrdPress. It's finally a tiny corner of Rabbits where I am running rampant with cans of Photoshop paint, splashing it everywhere I please. I can also trade a little traffic if need be. Sure, now programming is pulling their hair out a little trying to make sure all the bells and whistles work… but better them than me, right?
LESS SUCCESS THAN WE IMAGINED
We have taken on a number of projects in our 10 years. Like any business, you create what you can and you see what works and what doesn't. When I first joined Rabbits, I was tasked with building a dating site review portal. Dating was starting to get big. I think I worked solidly on that project for a year. Somehow, though, it never took off--even though dating is still killing it these days.
We tried adding a section to Rabbits that focused on models and their boobs. We figured we could capitalize on our good SEO and have that pass down to thousands of model names. We were wrong. Big. We got spanked by Google hard and have never fully recovered.
We have also started a number of smaller niche review sites. The biggest of which was FetishFish.com. It still gets traffic but we just couldn't duplicate the success of Rabbits. But let's face it, that's a high bar to reach. We have also tried health products, too, but again it didn't live up to our expectations. And every failure has taught us something that has made us better. In failure we've found opportunity.
...AND ACTUAL SUCCESS
We've moved off into other areas that have also been good for us. We've bought other review sites, such as MonicasReviews, BitchReviews, PornLiving and FindAllPorn. We gathered a network of resource sites including SponsorsList, WebmasterVault, GayAW and 1WP. And we own a traffic network that includes Labatidora.net, HQ69and ArtiNude. With each we've gained traffic and experience that we've put to use on Rabbits and some of our newer projects. And though Rabbits continues to take up most of our time, new projects tend to be where our primary interests lie. Who doesn't like a new challenge, after all?
THE FUTURE
Our focus is changing. Reviews remain the backbone but we are seeing fewer and fewer new sites. For many years we've been kicking out 20+ new reviews a week and over 100 updates for existing listings. We switched focus a few months back and are now releasing less than 10 new reviews every week and shifting our emphasis to updates. People will always want high quality porn and we intend to continue to be a primary resource for them when they're looking to buy.
Most of our energy is focusing on one area now. Cams are our most profitable category on Rabbits so it's a logical choice. We launched ReviewMyCam and GoWebcams last year and bought and relaunched TweetMyCam recently. You can earn more when you send a user to a site where his spend isn't limited by a monthly membership. And that's where any new development time for us is aimed.
TA DA! THE END
So there's a little bit about where we are in this time and space in adult. We are trying to adapt as we see necessary, sometimes by big strides and yet others by small twists of the dial. Our relaunch took many months of blood, sweat and beers, but it's a good step in the only direction that counts: forward.
Cheers to all and thanks for reading.
Doug
Director of Marketing
RabbitsReviews.com