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The Adult Internet – More Than Just Porn
So you have several adult websites up and running and, if you are one of the lucky few in this day and age you have already started to make money from your adult sponsor programs however, there are so many other ways that webmasters can make money in the adult industry in addition to their regular ‘porn site’ sponsors yet, many webmasters do not realize there are vast opportunities awaiting them.
Lets spend a few moments to look at the alternative sources of income that we can use in the adult industry and also take a look at the basics of each type of affiliate system.
Email Collection.
Opt in email is big business, there is no denying this fact so why not jump on the opt in email collecting bandwagon? Most email collection sponsors will offer you anywhere from $0.50 per email collected to $2.00 per email collected and, better still, to start making money from your existing traffic base all you need to do is include a small email collection box.Software Programs.
Many of the larger adult affiliate programs now offer their webmasters a range of software products to generate additional income, many of these products are good for use not only in adult but, also in mainstream. For instance, Anonymous browsing software, history deletion software, IE Toolbars and even submission programs are all good ways to generate additional income either on a per download or, per sale basis. Best of all, you only need to add a new banner to the sites you currently have in order to get a share of this lucrative market.Herbal Products.
Penis Pills, Breast Enlargement, Vitamin Supplements, you name it you can sell it on adult traffic. Whether you run a TGP, Link List or your own collection of free sites, these herbal products can often sell much better than ‘porn sites’ and, for the most part, the payout levels are the same, if not higher than what your regular ‘porn site’ trial will make you. Again to get started with this type of sales all you need to do is add a text link or banner to your existing sites.Casino Sites.
Gambling makes BIG money, just look at Vegas for the example, millions of people a year visit Nevada to gamble and millions more simply can’t get there for a range of reasons however, almost every home in the United States has a computer and internet connection so why not start using this to your advantage? Many of the larger casino affiliate programs will pay based on the amount of funds credited to a new users account and, to get started making money from casino sites it is quite literally as easy as adding a banner or text link to your existing sites again.Pre Paid Services.
Such as Credit Cards and the likes, selling these types of products to your adult surfers not only offers then ‘anonymity’ on the web when they do make online purchases but at the same time when your surfers sign up or one of these pre-paid credit cards you will be making some money in the process. Often however you will find that these types of affiliate program do not payout as much ‘long term’ as they are pretty much a first time deal as far as, once the surfer spends money to initially ‘charge’ their pre paid card with funds, that is when you will make money and not again. Still, even if you can make $50 by selling one of these cards, its still an additional $50 you wouldn’t have made otherwise.Adding To Your Profits.
As you can see from the above, there are a wide range of products and services you can offer your surfers and, as we all know, the more things we can offer our ‘customers’ the more chance we have at one of them buying something. Of course, as with anything, the more effort we put into marketing these products and services the more chance e have at making a sale however, unless we try to sell the surfer something other than porn, how will we know whether they will buy or not?Article written by Lee
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Using Basic Server Side Includes (SSI)
Server side includes are what their name sounds like. A way to include the contents of another file into your current web page BEFORE the web page gets sent off to the surfer. Not only does this include contents of a static file but you can also include the results of a CGI program and on some web servers, you can even have it display the current date and time.
Now, many web hosts do not normally have server side includes turned on. You will have to ask your host if they have SSI turned on and if they do, what is the file name extension for SSI. By default, SSI files have an .shtml extension.
Sometimes, you can turn SSI on yourself. If you host doesn’t have SSI turned on for you already, you can try adding the following two lines to your .htaccess file. Then create a file with the .shtml extension, include a SSI command and see if it works.
AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .shtmlWhen you use SSI commands, you place them exactly in the location within your web page where you want the output of the SSI command to appear when you finally browse the page. If you have SSI, then you can use the following command to include a file. When you include a file, you can either give it a path name to the file or you can give a URL to the file. I’ll list both here.
<!–#include file=”/some/path/above/my/web/to/my/header.html” –>
This is an example of how to include a file based on its path name. Now,
here’s the same file put included with its URL.<!–#include virtual=”/to/my/header.html” –>
And this is an example of how to use a URL. With a URL however, it cannot be a complete URL such as http://www.somesite.com/somefile.html. It has to be within your current website. You can also use the URL method to run a CGI script! Here’s an example of that:
<!–#include virtual=”/cgi-bin/somescript.cgi?myfirstarg=1amp;mysecondarg=2″
–>As you can see, we can even pass arguments to the CGI script just as if you typed it into your browser! There is also another way of running a CGI script but this is not as widely used any more and you should use the #include virtual method instead. Here is the same example so that you will know what it means when you see it.
<!-exec cgi=”/cgi-bin/somescript.cgi?myfirstarg=1amp;mysecondarg=2″ –>
As I mentioned earlier, you can use SSI to display the current time and date. Here’s how:
<!-echo “$DATE_LOCAL” –>
This will display the current date and time. SSI is usually used when you want to have a standard header or footer on each page. It’s also used for displaying rotating banners or page counters. As you see above, you can also use it to display the current date and time or the date when the page was last modified.
SSI has also been used for cloaking and some tracking software uses SSI to track each incoming hit to the web page. If you would like more information about SSI, go to
http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_include.html. This is the definitive guide on SSI on the Apache web server.Most other web servers that use SSI also follow these conventions.
Article written by Lee
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Converting French Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work
In our last article we took a look at a three (3) month period of international traffic stats and, what niches worked on German adult traffic. In this article we will do the same again except we will be analyzing what niche paysites worked best on French porn surfers.
French Traffic – Quick Analysis.
It would seem that for many of the surfers we managed to grab and filter from France that their primary interest was in Teen and the Amateur niches although, that said, we did get a few conversion on some fetish paysites, specifically fetish sites that had ‘watersports’ and ‘BDSM’ featured on the paysites tour pages.French Adult Traffic – The Niches.
As with the German traffic we targeted in the previous article we also filtered our French adult traffic to some niche specific hub sites as well as some general hub sites to better judge which niches converted the best on French surfers the results we experienced are as follows.Teen.
Our conversions on French teen sites were not as good as what they were for German surfers however, that said, they were good non the less. With a ratio of around 1:192 over the three month period we analyzed the French adult surfers we managed to get to our sponsors sites worked well for us.Amateur.
With our amateur conversions the one thing we noticed was that tours that featured teens as the main focus were the ones which converted consistently, with this in mind, we did change a couple of the Amateur tours we used to see how that would affect sales towards the end of the 3 month period and, sales did drop slightly, this would backup the statements in the Teen niche made above in that, French surfers are looking primarily for Teen orientated paysites.Asian.
The two Asian niche paysites we used didn’t have many sales overall however, we did notice that the little traffic that we sent to them converted well, as above, Asian niche sites that featured teens were again the better converters on the French traffic we received.Ebony.
I think it is worth mentioning the ebony niche, especially when you take into account we sent less than 100 hits to French ebony paysites and, managed to get 2 sales from those hits. Unfortunately, we did not anticipate the amount of traffic that wouldn’t choose the ebony niche so we have no solid figures that are worth mentioning here or, any explanation behind how we made the sales.Fetish.
Our French fetish traffic seemed to like the more niche specific type of tours, making us sales on Watersports, BDSM and even general fetish paysites that said, the figures we achieved with the fetish pay sites we used were disappointing as we had thought this would be the ideal niche for the French markets.Gay.
The sales we achieved with our gay French traffic were reasonable overall, the surfers chose to signup to gay sites that featured ‘twink’ like models on the tours again, this would lend favor to the fact that overall French surfers seem to be interested in the younger generation to get their kicks.French Traffic – The Results.
Overall we were happy with the majority of the results we received on our French adult traffic with the exception of a few bad choices on our part trying to concentrate on the Fetish side of the industry. We certainly learnt that it would appear French adult surfers are looking for Teen orientated sites over the other niches.Article written by Lee
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How To Become A Gay Porn Star
A quick look across the gay side of the adult industry will show it is lacking in one thing that its straight counterpart has in an abundance, amateur male models with their own adult porn sites. With that said, if you wanted to tap into this market how could you go about doing so and, more importantly, could you make money from working on the other side of the camera for a change? This is what we will look at in this article.
Becoming A Porn Star – The Basics.
Any web cam model will tell you, to have your own porn site will take a lot of persistence, time and, more importantly, personality, not least from the webmaster side of the industry however, in my opinion I think the pressure that a webmaster may face breaking into the gay male porn side of the adult industry might just be a bit harsher than what the bubbly web cam girls have to contend with, not only because as a male you will be appearing in content but, because your primary traffic base, whether you like it or not, will be a mixture of women and gay males.Male Amateur Sites – Getting Ready.
Before you start to even put your first ideas down on paper you need to do one thing, spend some time to research what is needed in order to start your own amateur porn site. In doing so, you will see that not only is everything in the two paragraphs above true but, you will also learn a little about yourself and, more importantly, about other webmasters and your surfers. Now you have the fundamental questions you need to ask yourself these are, What equipment do you need to run a male amateur site? What amount of investment in both time and money do you need to put into building your site? How much will you charge your surfers for access to your site? and, Is this going to be a long term commitment from yourself that could be possibly better spent elsewhere? Answer those questions as honestly as you can before proceeding and furthermore, think long and hard about the answers.Gay Amateur Web Sites – The Alternatives.
So lets stop for a moment and consider that you have realized you do not want to build and maintain your own male amateur site but, you would still like to be male porn material, where do you go from here? Well there are companies who can put you on their books and give you work from time to time such as http://www.redbagproductions.com a male modeling agency for the adult industry, this will in all likelihood be the place for you to start your search, find out how many places there are that can get you talent work and, what type of modeling work you will be required to do.Becoming A Gay Porn Star – An Overview.
With sites online such as Every Stag and the slew of other male modeling agencies finding a medium to start your modeling career wont be hard but, with this career comes uncertain hours, hard work (in more ways than one) and, to some extent, fame amongst the gay adult porn surfer. If this is something that you feel you can devote the time and energy towards and, are able to cope with the voyeuristic side of your personality then go for it, if however, you are still unsure after reading this brief article, perhaps becoming a gay pornstar isn’t for you?Article written by Lee
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Everybody’s Going Gay
The past few months in the online adult industry have seen some rather dramatic changes happen from Visa charging additional fees to accept their credit cards online, Paypal no longer processing adult and, several large companies going out of business. However, one thing that also seems to be changing for the better is the amount of webmasters looking at new niches to promote. Surprisingly, the one niche that many webmasters are looking at is that of the gay niche.
Where The Money’s At.
For years, the adult webmaster community has been split amongst themselves, those that are only focused on straight niches and, those that focus on gay niches however. As of late, more and more of those webmasters from the first group are looking to make additional income from the gay niche. With this inevitable surge in gay adult sites coming online, there are bound to be some knock-on effects, and those webmasters just starting to look at the gay niche, will return to what they know. However, for most, i think this is going to be a fruitful encounter with one of the industry less socially accepted markets. Many of the webmasters who have been concentrating solely on the straight market for their income are going to realize just how much money they have been losing out on for all these years. And with this realization, comes its own set of problems for the industry as a whole.The Gay Market.
Whether you are a straight webmaster or a gay webmaster the one thing that will become apparent is that your sites are going to reflect you in both, how they look and, the marketing techniques you use. More importantly, the attitude you have towards your gay surfers will in fact show through. Many of the straight webmasters whom, perhaps are not as tolerant towards this niche will, almost certainly fail before they can really get going. Marketing gay adult sites is far different than marketing straight adult sites. You have to know the surfer, understand what they want and, more importantly, know the terminology in the gay market. Many times a post can be seen on various message boards belittling those webmasters who are openly gay – often accompanied by terms such as ‘fag’, ‘queer’, ‘homo’, etc along with with images being posted that, quite frankly, would turn most people’s stomach.The gay niche is much more than just a single online market, it is a whole lifestyle unto itself. While this lifestyle is affluent (having an abundance of readily available money to spend) it will take a lot of work and perseverance to ensure you get your share of this market.
Starting Points.
As I mentioned above, the main thing many webmasters are going to have to learn are the terms of the gay market, what is a twink? A bear? A cub? What products work well on gay sites? Despite what most people think, you cant just throw up some banners with naked men on them and turn a profit. Match your content to a niche and then, match your advertising to your content, what use is it having bears on a site if, the paysite you are promoting features Teens ‘n’ Twinks?Similarly, your text links, ‘Click Here For Hot Gay Action’ might get you a few clicks but, by targeting your surfers even more, you will see how some of the gay niches can really turn a profit. The trick is this, get the surfer to your site and actually give them something that you think will suit their desires. This may mean making a 10% commission on a sex toy sale as oppose to a $35 commission on a pay site membership. And so be it. Those 10%’ers start to add up after a few sales.
In Summary.
To summarize, the gay niche will make you money however, to make money you will need to invest something that, perhaps isn’t for everyone – a lot of time and understanding. Marketing the gay niche isn’t for everyone, we have seen this too many times. However for those who are, spending time adding a gay market portfolio to there straight, with a little time increase your overall income significantly.Article written by Le
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Domain Name Registration Services What To Look For
Once upon a time, if you wanted to register a domain name, you could only do it by visiting Network Solutions at http://www.networksolutions.com/ and paying them whatever they asked for, about $35.00 per year.
Then ICANN, http://www.icann.org/, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities, decided to change the rules.
The initial testing phase of the new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com, .net, and .org domains quietly began to take place in April of 1999.
It started with five participants who were the first to implement the new system for competition in the market for .com, .net, and .org domain name registration services.
Previously, registration services in the .com, .net, and .org domains were provided by Network Solutions, Inc. under an exclusive contract with the United States government.
In the two years since this program began, things have really changed.
Just this last week, ICANN reported that two of their registrars, Tucows and New York-based Register.com, had recorded more new registrations for Top Level Domains (dot-com, dot-net and dot-org) than VeriSign’s Network Solutions.
This marks the first time ever that VeriSign’s Network Solutions was out-sold by any of the registrars and signals that their past dominance of domain name registration is certainly fading.
Why?
Because besides others being allowed to make domain name registrations, these new registrars are also cutting prices.
The Rules have most certainly changed.
The Shared Registration System (“SRS”), ICANN’s accredited registrars program, allows people to submit application to become a registrar along with a non-refundable $1000 filing fee.After someone is accepted into the program then they must pay a yearly fee of $5000 to maintain their status as an accredited registrar.
This situation has created a very competitive environment which can only be beneficial to all of us as the price to register a domain name has fallen like a rock from a very tall building.
However, if you plan to register a new domain name using a virtual unknown registrar, make certain they do indeed have the legal accreditation from ICANN by visiting the ICANN web site and viewing their posted list of ALL accredited vendors:
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.htmlIt will only take you a few moments to make sure you are dealing with a reputable vendor of domain names. Those few moments will make the entire process legal and worry-free.
Article written by Lee
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Google – Manipulate Your Listings For More Traffic
Google seems to be the Search Engine that everyone talks about almost on a daily basis however, far from being about search engine optimization and specifically about Google related SEO i wanted to touch on something new that, perhaps you would not have already thought about.
Manipulating Google Traffic.
So your site is already listed in Google but you want to increase the amount of traffic you receive, one way that we as a company have been successfully using for the last 18 months is that of manipulating the display of our clickable links in Google, how are we doing this? Simple, using ASCII character codes in your meta tags.ASCII In Your Meta Tags.
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) it has been proven, when used in your HTML page Meta Tags will actually display not only letters and numbers but, symbols as well, as a webmaster this can give you a great advantage over how much traffic you can pull from your Google listings and, not only Google, a few of the other search engines also read ASCII code when it is found in your Meta Tags.Putting This To Use Practically.
A good method of putting this to use would be utilizing in your Meta Tags as follows.<title>Site Name <ascii code here> page title</title>
<meta name=”Description” content=”normal page description”>
<meta name=”Keywords” content=”normal keywords”>This will display a search engine listing that not only has your site name on it as well as a description but, in the position where the ASCII code will appear you will also have an attention grabbing symbol enuring that your site stands out from all the others listed on the same search engine results page as yours.
ASCII Meta Tags – An Overview.
Hopefully you have seen how adapting your current HTML page Meta Tags by placing an ASCII character code within them can benefit you for gleeming further search engine traffic to your sites and, with this new found knowledge you may well place both your sites traffic and your bottom line profits ahead of other webmasters.Article written by Lee
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Converting Italian Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work
Continuing with our article series of country specific traffic and which niches work for the various global markets in this article we will take a look at some of the most complicated traffic to ‘work’ Italian Adult Surfers. The reason I say most complicated is for the simple reason that, to date there are very few Italian paysites this makes it harder for us as webmasters to tap into these markets especially if we ourselves, do not know what the Italian surfer is after. That said, lets get on with the article.
Italian Traffic – Quick Analysis.
As already mentioned surfers from Italy are hard to pre-qualify given that there are very few sites catering to this European market at the present time, this means that there are no sources of background information to look at or, statistical analysis’s available from other paysites.Italian Adult Surfers – The Niches.
For one of the most affluent international markets going it comes as a surprise to see that there are almost no localized pay sites for the Italian market this made our initial filtering of the Italian traffic much harder opting for translated free sites over paysite tour pages to send the traffic to itself then, once they hit the free sites either choosing to send them back into our central hub or, to the US version pay site of the niche free site they were visiting. That said here are the results from the previous 3 (three) months of traffic that we observed.Ebony.
The Ebony niche would appear to be the most consistent converting niche on Italian traffic however, given that almost all of the niches we used on the Italian surfers were quite evenly spread for sales (Ebony was only 5 sales in front) this, I am sure is not a good indicator and, likewise with the Japanese and Chinese traffic, this is an area of international adult marketing that should ideally be re-visited at a later day.For Women.
Even more surprising than the fact there are very few localized paysites for Italy was the fact that the ‘For Women’ niche converted just as well as the other niches we used for our Italian traffic, of course, this at first would seem to indicate that the vast majority of surfers we had on our sites from Italy were female however, as we all know, the Straight male niche is big in gay so, there is a chance the sales we got from our Italian traffic to the For Women niche paysites we used were equally male and female.Softcore General.
(Softcore Adult Tours) The other strange thing we noticed was that paysites we offered to our Italian surfers that were Hardcore in nature didn’t convert as well as the paysites that had softcore tours, this would lend itself to the fact that Italian porn surfers are not looking for hardcore – quite different to most other country traffic sources.Tranny.
The transsexual niche paysites that we offered to the Italian surfers also had some good results again, this is strange given that almost every other countries surfer we sent to a tranny site didn’t convert. One other thing that comes up with this and, given the fact that the for women niche paysites we used had good results would be that perhaps the Italian surfers are interested in the more obscure niches available on the adult internet.Italian Adult Traffic – An Overview.
All in all, as stated at the beginning of this article the Italian surfers would certainly appear at first glance to be more varied and obscure in their sexual preferences than other countries whom appear to have clear cut, well defined ‘types’ of site that interest them.I think as mentioned above Italian traffic needs to be looked at in more depth in a future article as, to my surprise the traffic didn’t work on the niches that previously converted well for the same amounts and quality of traffic.
Article written by Lee
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Guaranteed Marketing – Power Words
How many webmasters do you think actually pay attention to what they are writing so far as their sales copy go? Furthermore, if you actually think about it, how much time do you put into choosing the words in which you use on your websites? With the help of this brief article hopefully, you will start to choose the words in which you use a little more carefully, let me explain.
Power Words – What Are They?
Power words are a set of roughly 10 words that can invoke interest in a person, object or, in our case, a product which we would like to sell however, they are also much more than that. When used in the correct manner power words can become a webmasters greatest selling tool. However, everyone has their own unique set of power words that will appeal to them over everybody else, the good thing is, for the most part there are at least 25 words which almost everybody will look positively towards.Power Words – The List.
The following list is compiled from research at Yale University consisting of the most popular power words amongst a demographic of 1000 individuals of mixed sex. The words are, Discover, Easy, Guaranteed, Health, Love, Money, New, Proven, Results, Safety, Save and, You. By using these words in a variety of ways when writing our sales text we can almost be certain that we will keep the surfers attention and enable us to put the power of our marketing to good use.Power Words – Uses.
As already mentioned, the best use for the most common power words on our sites is to use them within our text links either at the start of the sentence or, the absolute end. Take a look at the following example to see what i mean.1) High Converting Affiliate Program.
2) Guaranteed To Convert Your Traffic.
3) Turn Your Traffic In To Cash – Guaranteed.You can see from the three examples above the the first example doesn’t really catch your attention whilst examples number 2 and 3 somehow seem to pull you into the ‘spirit’ of the site itself without even knowing what affiliate program it is.
By using this power word marketing technique as often as possible on your text links you can not only give your site visitor information but, compel them to click on your link.
Power Words – An Overview.
Hopefully you have seen from this brief article the ways in which power words can improve not only your text links pulling power but also how with the right marketing combination you can also use them to increase your sales.Article written by Lee
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Now They Signed Up – Learn How To Keep Them
Member retention is going to have a large effect on the adult industry over the next few months, with Visa chargeback rates being lowered and, many affiliate programs lowering their payout model something has to give and, hopefully, the thing that does give will be that affiliate programs start to realize that once they have your surfer, it becomes their responsibility to make that member retain.
With that in mind this article will look at a few things that we have been doing on some of our paysites for the last few months and, instead of having to provide an excess of plug in content we have started updating our sites regularly within the niche confines of what our members are actually looking for, also, despite this increase in content, we have started doing something unique so far as member retention goes – actually communicating with the member directly.
Communication Pays.
Actually spending the time to listen to what your members want can be beneficial on many levels for example, how many of the big sponsors offer the member a chance to become involved in a ‘community’ inside their paysites, i can only think of 3 paysites that i have personally visited that do this.Often, offering your members a way to communicate to YOU what they want inside the site can, and usually will increase the value of their membership to you in the long run. offer your members weekly polls, offer them incentives to keep an active membership, perhaps some kind of loyalty program, in addition to a method of your paysite members being able to communicate to each other inside your site.
Content Updates.
We all know that paysites need to update however, how many paysite owners spend the time to ask their member what they are looking for? As mention in the previous section, offer your members polls on the next updates you will be doing, ask them what sections of the site need improving and, more importantly, ask them if they are happy with how your site looks and feels overall.Renewal Time.
So you have managed to keep hold of your paysite member for a few days without them canceling and, their trial period is ending what now? Well, more often than not, communicating to the member that they are about to get rebilled can have a positive effect, send them an email prior to the rebill informing them of what your next set of updates will be, let them know they are a valued member of the site and, more importantly than this, that you are there to help them and listen to their suggestions. This is also an ideal time to remind them of why they joined your site in the first place, you have a lot of exclusive content that, simply put, no other paysite can offer them, you listen to their feedback and, again, value their feedback, all of these things will ensure that your member base retains well over the trial period.Second Month Renewals.
So you have managed to keep your member for a month, and, again they are due a rebill, as with the first rebill you gave them, re-iterate the points of your site and, tell them what has changed over the past month, give them some sales speak about how your site is doing and, more importantly, what you have coming next month, by communicating these updates to your members a day or so before they have to renew, you should, in all honesty, keep their interest in your paysite and, more importantly, make more money from your members.So Your Member Cancels.
Okay, so perhaps you managed to rebill your member for a few month or, perhaps they left after the trial period, what now? Simple, send them a follow up email, find out the reasons they cancelled their membership to your site and, see if you can offer them an alternative to stay, perhaps a reduced cost membership or, maybe even an alternative site altogether, if they entered your teen pay site and, were looking for amateur teen pics, even though you know you don’t have them yet, you will probably know of a site that does, tell this cancelled membership about this site and, get them to try it out, if you can match what the surfer is looking for to a site you own then you have a second chance at keeping their membership and, making money.Retention Overview.
When all is said and done the one thing that is apparent so far as pay sites go is that a lot of them do not communicate with their members and build the sites they operate around what their members are looking for, we can all say we actually do this constantly but, how many of us really, hand on heart, can prove that they ask, listen and, more importantly, implement the feedback from their members base?Article written by Lee
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