What I Learned About Blogging From Surfing Porn (SFW)

I never thought I would write a blog post about porn. My interest in the porn business started with Good Magazine’s video report on Internet Porn: The Lucrative Business of Online Sex (honest; before that I wasn’t interested in it as a business).

According to the report, 12% of all websites—and 25% of all search requests—are pornographic. Every second, 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography. They’re spending $89,000 every second, too, instead of clicking on your Google Adsense ads. And 70% of internet porn traffic happens during the workday. Which explains why you wait on hold so long when you call Microsoft for tech support.

Search “porn” on Google and you’ll get about 99,200,000 results. Search “blog” and you’ll get 1,280,000,000! With so much competition, no wonder it’s hard to get traffic.

All of these stats got me thinking. What do porn sites have that my blogs don’t have? I mean, besides naked people having sex.

What, if anything, can bloggers learn from surfing porn?

You Must Be 18 to Enter

“This site is for adults only.” Aren’t we special?

There’s something very enticing about having to click that “over 18″ screen. It really isn’t necessary—many sites don’t bother with it—but isn’t it a little bit thrilling when you click “Enter”?

Which one are you going to click?

Heck, even the Detroit Pistons require you to be 18 to enter their site. For what?! (Okay, stop with the jokes about basketballs.)

Lesson learned: People like to feel special. What can you do to make your visitors feel special? Add special content to a members-only forum? Offer a perk for subscribers only? I recently subscribed to a site just to download a free eBook. No problem. But another site required me to register in a forum to grab a single WordPress plugin, a hassle. Making people feel special: good. Putting hurdles in their way: bad.

Porn is a Powerful Keyword

Or rather, a powerful keyword is (almost) as good as porn.

Just mentioning porn can bring traffic to your site. When I mentioned that “widgets are proliferating faster than porno sites” in one of my posts about widgets on Handpicked Software, it became one of my most popular entries.

And look at these stories that became popular on digg:

Feeling Sexy Photo Contest: Hot and Humorous Pics

Cleanup That Porn! (Funny Photoshop Cover-ups, borderline NSFW)

Comcast Plays Porn Instead of Cartoon on Disney Channel

Here’s some good news: Do a Google search for “XXX” and you’ll find 169,000,000 results. Do a search for “XHTML” and you’ll get 205,000,000. Leave off the “X” and you’ll do even better (“HTML” gets 4,300,000,000 results). HTML is more popular than “sex” (414,000,000 results). But I don’t think “microformats” is going to catch on (9,800,000 results).

Lesson learned: You can titillate your visitors without the promise of naked people. If you can’t work “porn” into your post, try “Apple”. Apple lust probably comes closest to pornographic lust. There’s even an ApplePorn group on Flickr.

You don’t have to surreptitiously slip the word “porn” into your posts, but if casually mentioning the word porn can drive traffic to your site (which is only going to leave…frustrated), how much better it would be if you sprinkled your prose with appropriate keywords.

For help selecting the right keywords, see the Keyword Suggestions for Google Tool.

Porn Is Also a Powerful Domain Name

Yes, domain names matter. Sex.com is going to get traffic without any help from me and the average seeker will find them without resorting to Google.

Most of the good domain names are already taken. You think you’re creative? Good luck. (I thought Domainatrix might be a good name for a domain, until I found The Domainatrix. Someone else thought it was a good name, too.)

Lesson learned: If you’re just starting out, give some serious thought to your domain name. If your site is focused on a niche (see below), try to include your topic in the name. Good domain names aren’t cheap (largely thanks to Kevin Ham), but the right name can be a great investment. The porn.com domain recently sold for 9 million dollars!

Hey, how much do you think I can get for upstartblogger.com?

Niches Are Nice

I won’t go into the details here, but talk about special interests. Some of these sites point to dozens (or hundreds) of other sites—for, ahem, exotic tastes—that are included in your membership. Sex.com offers “unlimited access to over 300,000 exotic websites for one low age verification fee of $19.95/year!” (Do people really give their credit card numbers to these guys?)

Hmm, I’ve got a couple three blogs. Better get busy.

Lesson learned: You can’t be all things to all people, but being a few different things to lots of different people can be a great strategy. Focusing doesn’t exclude people, it helps the right people to find you. If you’re blogging about web design, politics, skydiving, stamp collecting, and “random thoughts”, maybe you should have five blogs instead of one.

You’ve Got to Be Prolific If You Want to Be Terrific

The most successful porn sites (I’m guessing) are the ones with massive content. One site boasts 1215 new porn videos and porno daily. (Where do they find these people?!)

How prolific are you?

Lesson learned: You have to provide a consistent stream of content if you want to build a following for your blog. That means regular posts of consistent quality. (I know you know this already, but are you doing it?)

I’m thinking of starting my own Upstart Babe Blogger of the Week.

Previews Are Seductive

Visit any porn site and you’ll see previews, lots of previews. Previews with pictures.

Lesson learned: I’m torn on this one. A list of appealing titles can be more clickable than a few post excerpts. But maybe the problem is with the excerpts. Do your excerpts have images (WordPress doesn’t display images in excerpts with the default excerpt tag). And an excerpt that’s just the first few lines of your post may not be the most appealing. How many of us actually write excerpts designed to grab attention?

Tours Are Titillating

Have you noticed how many porn sites offer tours? (No, probably not.) Have you ever been on a tour? If a tour is any good, once you start, it’s not easy to stop. You keep noticing things. It’s easy to be distracted from the original purpose that brought you there.

Lesson learned: Most blogs offer an overwhelming selection of links on every page—recent and popular posts, comments, quickie posts that lead elsewhere, multiple archives, categories, blogroll. In my experience, offering fewer choices actually increases clicks. So why not offer a tour of your blog, or at least a guided path to the best content you have to offer?

There’s Lots of Love in Links

There are lots of porn sites that seem to be little more than link farms for other porn sites. Sure, they must be making money from bouncing all that traffic. But having so many links is itself a draw.

Lesson learned: Don’t be selfish with links. When you send traffic to someone’s site, you’ll show up in their referrer logs. That’s a great way to bring yourself to the attention of people who can also send traffic your way. And a handpicked list of relevant links might add value to your site, aside from mutual admiration. It’s time to start rolling the blog roll.

It’s All About Instant Gratification

Scroll down almost any porno page and you’ll see one call to action after another: Join Now! Click here for Instant Access! Bookmark this site!

Lesson learned: Think, Repetition! Repetition! Repetition! Why have just one feed icon, for example? Why have Next/Previous navigation only at the bottom (or top)? Aesthetic considerations may outweigh greed in some of these decisions, but look for opportunities to make a clear call to action, without being obnoxious (well, being obnoxious does seem to work on porn sites).

It’s No A Good Place for Amateurs

Look at all those amateurs! Their amateur status doesn’t seem to hold them back.

Lesson learned: You don’t have to be a web professional to have a successful blog. So, if you’re one of the three people left who don’t have a home on the web, don’t be shy. And if you’re not an expert on a topic you’re passionate about, don’t let that stop you.

P.S.

If you’ve looked around the site, you’ll see that I haven’t followed much of my own advice here…yet. Like so many things that bloggers know, we know more than we do. Let these lessons be a reminder.

Oh, and Subscribe Now! Click here for Instant Access!

RobertRobert Ellis was the founder of Upstart Blogger. He now blogs (and continues to design themes) at Futurosity.