Business What is "expected" paysite tour content these days?

[deltav]

Soooo, I'm fiddling around with an Elevated-X installation - learning how it all works, doing some templating, structuring tour & members areas, etc. It ain't quite as headache inducing as some said. Today working some on the tour and thought I'd check in on conventional wisdom there...

What do you think is the current standard for tour media/content? Last time I did a tour, it was generally you present a small sample gallery of full-sized images featuring your best photos and/or models, along with either a general site-wide trailer (with specific video trailers/clips and FHGs being left to affiliate efforts rather than inline on the tour). Is this still the case or are we moving on?

I've seen some sites do the transparent tour where all content is browsable but not accessible, this isn't really ideal for my purposes.

Those of you who've run smaller-scale niche sites, what's worked best for you?

[The Porn Nerd]

Well......LOL There are many kinds of tours and many ideas on what is "best". Video/no video, lots of text/little text, updates/Twitter feeds/just thumbnails....so not to sound like a lawyer here but "it depends".

On what? On your traffic. For my sites I have a basic philosophy: get them to the Join page ASAP (usually 1 click). Plus, with so many people accessing sites via mobile these days a simple, clean, thumb-heavy tour is perfect. Even desktop users visit, on average, 80+ websites a day so how long is someone staying on a porn site? Throwing shit on there to make it 'sticky' works less and less these days (I think) but, again, it depends on your traffic, niche, etc.

All I know is this: compare the two tours below. Both make great sales but one does better than the other. Guess which one:

http://www.felluciablow.com/index1.html
http://www.felluciablowhd.com/index1.html

Basically the same site (some minor differances) but the thumbs-heavy tour does better (so yes, there will be a similar tour for the HD version soon).

As in:

http://www.erosexotica.com/index1.html
http://www.erosexoticahd.com/index1.html

Hope this helps. And good luck as always!!

[CurrentlySober]

i like pooers...

[AJHall]

Originally Posted by CurrentlySober

i like pooers...

Makes sense. Most tours do benefit from having pooers on them.

Originally Posted by deltav

Soooo, I'm fiddling around with an Elevated-X installation - learning how it all works, doing some templating, structuring tour & members areas, etc. It ain't quite as headache inducing as some said. Today working some on the tour and thought I'd check in on conventional wisdom there...

What do you think is the current standard for tour media/content?

There's no set rule for this. Each site differs. Some tours just show images, others show extended previews for every update. Some tours have multiple trailers, one for every update. Some have one site wide trailer. Some have no trailers. What will work for the next site may not be what converts the best for your site.

My suggestion is to start with something relatively common tour-format wise and try it. Go with the CMS default or one of the new free themes at https://www.elevatedx.com/themes.php and just change the header and styles to match your site.

Once the site has had enough traffic to see trends you can start tuning and tweaking the tour or change the format completely if needed. Keep in mind that "enough traffic" may be thousands or tens of thousands of hits depending on the quality of your traffic and its sources.

To start, focus on presenting what you're selling. If that's content, focus on showcasing the content. If it's content along with access to blogs, live cams, erotica, etc., showcase that as well. Show some samples but not too many. Leave them wanting more so they feel like they have to see what's inside. That's the real goal of every tour.

Email me a link to your tour before you go live with it and I'll look it over and send you feedback and suggested changes.

AJ

[deltav]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Maybe should have been a little more specific with my background tho - I've run a paysite for over a decade. It's not anything fancy, more one of the dying breed of lower-budget DIY sites, but I *do* know the basics and my current humble tour hits a pretty good conversion ratio.

I was more looking for any emerging trends in tour design, or stuff you've seen work surprisingly well lately. However AJ, I just might take you up on that feedback offer down the road...

Honestly, I think many of the tour trends I've been seeing while searching around lately are because a disproportionately large % of adult sites are handled by a very small pool of designers. So some trends might more be because that's the general template/style that designer's comfortable with rather than the most effective approach itself. Tough to say though.

[The Porn Nerd]

Something I do see a lot lately, and have played around with, is using animated GIFs instead of thumbs. Every once in a while you will see one thrown in amongst the thumbs, kind of a 'speed bump' for people scrolling quickly. They see movement and slow down to look.

For me they work so-so depending on the site. Some GIFs load slower than others so that's an issue. But it's a cool idea and works well I suppose since I am seeing it more and more these days.

[NaughtyRob]

A good example of what he said above is www.petite18.com

[ManPuppy]

As I always say, test a couple ideas against each other. Pick the best one. Then test it against another one or two. Repeat. Forever.

Here's a bit of marketing nerdanity: Sears Roebuck was the first known company to do comparative A/B Split testing, with their catalog. They did pricing tests, printing an nth of their catalogs with different prices, and concluded that there was a significant bump in sales for any item when the price was dropped from a round 10 by a penny (19 cents versus 20, for example). Of course, their observation remained a proprietary advantage for about 20 seconds and to this day every $20 item on the planet is priced at $19.99 with very few knowing and even fewer caring where it came from. But you can always test it for yourself.

[SilentKnight]

Originally Posted by ManPuppy

As I always say, test a couple ideas against each other. Pick the best one. Then test it against another one or two. Repeat. Forever.

Here's a bit of marketing nerdanity: Sears Roebuck was the first known company to do comparative A/B Split testing, with their catalog. They did pricing tests, printing an nth of their catalogs with different prices, and concluded that there was a significant bump in sales for any item when the price was dropped from a round 10 by a penny (19 cents versus 20, for example). Of course, their observation remained a proprietary advantage for about 20 seconds and to this day every $20 item on the planet is priced at $19.99 with very few knowing and even fewer caring where it came from. But you can always test it for yourself.

Interesting factoid.

I've long known the psychology behind the dropping a penny pricing, but never knew the origin.

[javbucks]

You can have different tours for different traffic sources nowadays. For tube traffic, SE\typein etc etc.