Would there be interest in a conversion optimization service?
 

I was speaking to one of my sub-writers this afternoon about us potentially offering an optimization service for landing pages, paysites, etc.

We both know a lot about text placement, how to stylize costs and the such like. It goes hand in hand with copywriting.

What I want to know is: would folks here be interested in having a professional take a look at their sale pages and helping them get a better bang for their unique visitor?

We were expecting to work on the theory of taking a percentage of the extra money the person receives over the next few days/weeks/months, given that they see an improvement in conversion. Would this business model be attractive to people?

Any insight would be good. I'm quite serious about expanding into this.

I personally wouldn't be interested in sharing lifetime profits just because you gave me some advice on optimizing a page.

However, if I could pay you for your work per page, that would be more attractive. Such a model wouldn't financially entangle you with your customers for the lifetime of their campaigns. And it would allow you to keep your service simple; sometimes it's far more profitable to not complicate things.

Best to you - it's probably a needed service. Just keep it economical for affiliates and webmasters to use you and you should have no problem being a success!

Perhaps I didn't make this clear enough (I need to work on that writing!), but yeah, I'd only ask for a % over a given period, based on how much that person earns. For instance, if we took a paysite from 10 joins to 12 joins per day, we'd probably ask for a small portion of the additional sales for a week. If they're not making that much, as long as a month (or at least, the projected amount) would be our requirement.

Lifetime revshare is impractical and we wouldn't ask for it.

I would only hire someone who could prove they know the niche I have website(s) for. There are far too many "writers" in this business claiming to know every niche inside and out. Generalists do more harm than good, imo. We spend a fair amount of time cleaning up after generalists.

I think you should think in terms of fee per page/per word or an hourly rate. Maybe tier the costs to small site/company, medium, big, mega.

You're asking people to make you a partner for a short period of time though you are really a service provider who should be charging a fixed rate? I dunno, mate.

What if you work loses them money? What do you have to pay them for fucking up their sales? You are better off with a fee schedule or something.

I do get what you mean, but...

It's less about partnership and more of a good way of us doing business. After all, if I make a set amount of whatever you're earning, the client then realizes that it's in my best interests to make sure that what we're doing is actually good.

I felt that it was an appropriate way to do business. Maybe if it was worked less as a percentage, but more of a "we'll take a payment based on what you earn the next period", it would be more approachable.

I'm trying to work out how to get it to actually work in terms of payment, because it makes sense to me that if I'm there to improve your bottom line, and I get a cut of that bottom line, it means I'll do whatever I can to see an improvement.

It's essentially like real estate. You have a dude who gets a cut of whatever you make, so he has a vested interest in making sure your property sells for a good price.

if you had facts or figures to back it up. otherwise, its just another opinion, and you know what the value of those is! ive seen a lot of horrible looking pages out convert "great" looking pages, numbers tell truths, not opinions, or even experience.

You did not answer the question - How would you deal with costing a client sales? By your way of thinking you would have to pay them. That is legitimate business per your model.

I've been a property owner and landlord. It is not a clean business at all. If that is your comparison to your work, good luck.

I never said it was a 'clean business'. It was an analogy to the type of setup that works in that fashion.

I didn't answer your initial question because I'm unsure what the best method of dealing with those kinds of situations are. Hopefully it'd never happen - so maybe I can give a guarantee that we'll pay whatever you lose. It'd be open to abuse, so while it sounds all fluffy and nice, as a practical business procedure, perhaps not.

It still sounds messy to me. You also would be faced with the challenge of guessing how well it improved someone's sales. I wouldn't share conversion ratios or earnings for a given period, and you couldn't ever trust that I was being truthful. It sounds messy and confusing.

This is my opinion; but coming from someone who would potentially use your services, I feel like "partnering" for a period would be against our interests and would deter me.

That and managing through your clients' earnings sounds kind of like an administrative nightmare.

Just a thought.

Agreed, I wouldn't want to assume all the risk and share the reward. It doesn't make business sense to me.

I think there's a certain level of understanding that if I make a suggestion to you, short of me telling you to replace your join page with an image of a large potato, you can make a good estimation of if it's going to fuck things up.

I guess a flat rate is the best idea. After all, sometimes people just lose interest and drop things.

I remember writing a package of 100 paysite reviews for some guy, and he never published them. It's depressing to think that he could have spent maybe 3-4 hours getting them online (or paying someone else to do it) and over the last few years, would have easily made his money back on them with any level of SEO. I guess that should signal me to avoid sharing profits and just charge a flat fee. If you want my suggestions, that's great. If you don't implement them, I don't have a vested interest - so it doesn't bother me.

Hmm.

Another reason. Just get paid and move on to your next job!

What this thread is missing is Paul Markham's opinion, but don't worry as he is banned here, he has now started copying and pasting posts like the opening one here as a quote in the first post of a new thread on the only other adult webmaster board he is not (yet) banned from and giving his opinion there.

Obviously, the original poster and the source of the post are not mentioned. Classy stuff :)

Conversion Optimization can only be achieved with better photo and video content.

Paul mocks your beliefs from afar.

I had a few people contact me about this: I'm going to accept one more free consultation for optimization to ensure that how we plan to operate is practical.

If you want some stellar suggestions on getting more cash from your join pages, hit us up on the info in sig. :thumbsup

Im not sure if you would take on mainstream but if so i would be interested in that free offer for our products index or promotext we use on the forums.

Mmmm. I'm guessing there was more to it than his laziness for not using your text reviews. Maybe? Perhaps?

I knew you two would finally meet. Cheers!

'Your ignore list has been updated'

Whatever it is that makes you want to target me over and over again, I'm pretty much done with it.

Earlier this week I was contacted by an Asian webmaster who wanted his content across three different tubes - one of which was Japanese - with translations for all of the descriptions. Although you've been childish over the last few weeks, I was going to hit you up and discuss potential options for us working together.

Not sure if you care at all, but posts like the above just make that option completely nonexistent. Your constant poking just means that I'd rather go elsewhere and give the project to a third party, even if that means I have to approach someone that hasn't done adult before.

I wish you the best of luck with your adventures, but I think it's time you found a new target. :thumbsup

Asking for a percentage will be hard. Sometimes conversions can go up or down for a few days or weeks for no apparent reason then level back out. The site owner would likely have to monitor things for a while in order to tell exactly how the new text was affecting sales (if at all).

Then it would come down to how much you earned. You would either have to take their word for it or they would have to open their books up to you. I don't see that as happening. You would be stuck taking their word for it which might be fine and it might not be.

In the end you are likely going to be better off offering this at a flat rate. Many sites are now updating their tours on a regular basis and are always changing their text so if you impressed someone it could lead to a long term deal with them.

To me any kind of percentage payout is likely going to be a nightmare. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, I've pretty much ditched the 'revshare' option. Beautiful in theory, terrible in practice. :Oh crap