What are the ingredients that make up a successful website? Is it a standard formula, or are there more ways to hit the jackpot? Let's take a look at some of the possible equations:
Design, Layout & Templates
The way you present your product is much more important than anything else; even more so in today's dog-eat-dog world. Keep your pages clean, and highlight the points you want to stress.
How fast your page loads depends on what kind of design and scripts you are using.
Here's a tip for you script maniacs: Keep them out of every single page which you present to your visitors. There are other ways you can present your pages, without scripts – but with all the functionality that scripts give. What I mean is, use content management software to generate clean pages. All the scripting, which includes banner rotaters, dynamic page changes and search options can be made server side, with only single line links to connect the page to the scripts.
Talking about adult websites, where there are heavy graphics on almost every page, there a couple of things you can do to ensure that your site and bank balance stay healthy. Use Photoshop to compress your thumbs as much as possible and keep the original images as clear and bright as possible. Don't focus too much on compressing the original images.
Use CSS instead of a jungle of font and color tags. This way your user gets a fast loading page and when he clicks, a nice big image. Again, keep scripts out of your presentation pages. They not only slow down your pages, they also send the search engine spiders on a wild goose chase. Take a good look at all your successful competitors.
Content
Would you buy a newspaper or watch TV if you got the same thing over and over again? The same thing applies for your content. Whatever your product or service, unless there's some visible change or development or bulletin to attract visitors, you are a dead duck.
Stay in tune with your users' needs. Post new content every single day. If you are an adult webmaster, you need exclusive and high quality pictures and videos of beautiful models.
If you are representing a big company, I would recommend a team of expert content hunters. If you are a small firm or individual, then you should affiliate with sponsors who provide new picture sets and videos at least on a fortnightly basis. Find 15 sponsors like that and you are good for new content every single day.
Hosting
How well your web host fulfills or responds to your needs plays an important part in your success. Most important, for adult webmasters, how good is your streaming video? I have a broadband connection and a large number of sites which provide streaming videos literally crawl on my browser. Streaming videos, downloads and loading pictures - if your host is good at all these, a lot else can be forgiven.
Traffic
There are a lot of ways to get your website "In the Loop" – trade traffic, buy traffic, advertise, text and banner exchange, search engine optimization and more. It is very important that your website gets a lot of visibility and exposure on other sites related to your category and the search engines. Another way would be to start an affiliate program.
Capital
I remember a famous line from one of Tom Cruise's movies; "Show Me The Money!" All or most of the above require some sort of continuing input of capital. You may have a great concept, but when it comes to execution, if you are short of resources, it's all a waste of time and energy. Money opens doors and brings in quality.
Finally, I would like to point out that nothing can replace the power of an idea, originality and true talent. If you can come up with something which is new and unique to your market, it's bound to be a winner. Whether you can implement it successfully, is a wholly different matter!
