Quote:
Originally Posted by The Porn Nerd
Thank you so much for this candid post. Rebills are the ONLY metric I care about, period. I will jump through 10,000 hoops if it means more money for my company. But this is what I hear from honest webmasters so thus my hesitation. But thank you again. 
Haha "databse"! You're cute. :D Just kidding AJ. Thanks for posting this info. This thread is NOT - repeat not - a slam against Elevated X (or any CMS or any company that uses a CMS). It was and is an honest inquiry into how to make more money and improve user experience.
Maybe it's because I started out in the 'Amateurs' niche but the porn websites I've been inside and checked out lately (about 20 of them, mostly larger sites) leave me cold and sterile. Slick and techy and...not sexy at all. They all feel like a bot made them or are computer-generated. LOL I know that sounds crazy but I never get the feeling there are any actual "people" behind there, just machinery.
Of course, this may also be why I remain a "small" guy and not a Baller. LOL  |
It's much of the same reason if you turn on your TV and watch any NASCAR or Formula 1 event you notice how boring it is...all the damn cars look the same! It's so lame!!
I said that tongue in cheek but that's really a lot of it.
There are 2 schools of thought from the perspective of a site owner:
1) Do what I like and assume my customers are like me
2) Do what works and what my customers want, even if I don't like it so much
I don't mind divulging that the only reason we started adding multiple design themes and will be adding more wasn't to help pay sites make more sales but because enough pay site owners feel the same way you do. It doesn't matter if I point to sites using an out of the box Elevated X setup (or one with very little customization) that's 100x bigger and more successful financially than most pay site owners even hope to be. Bottom line is most people want what they want.
We've had plenty of clients customize their sites to the degree that they are literally unrecognizable as Elevated X, even to us.
We've also had clients cancel service to build a custom CMS so they can have things just how they want in all areas.
Even if they hate his personality, most can agree that few people are better at what he does than Donald Trump and one of his trust statements is that you can't successfully sell something you don't believe in.
If you want total control and want something unique my suggestion is to go custom and spend a year or so migrating your better selling or higher potential sites by hand if necessary.
You've got some good stuff going there and I think regardless of "how" you choose to do it you'll benefit long term from modernization.
Feel free to email or skype me anytime (with no obligation) if you want to bounce ideas around or weigh the pros and cons of whatever you're considering doing.
AJ