A lot of my girlfriends have asked for my advice about starting their own amateur or femdom site. Typically, most of my friends have a small site where they post some pictures, lure men into pen-pal relationships, and then escalate the relationship to phone sex, sissy training, and even person to person femdom action; in exchange for gifts and other kind tokens of appreciation.
Not surprisingly, this often becomes exhausting, and many of the letters I receive request a way to "automate" the femdom experience a bit; i.e. create a website that captures their own unique personalities and translates it into cash.
Typically I try to be as helpful as I can, so finally I decided to codify all my advice into this article. If you find this info helpful, and you plan to open a CyberAge AVS site, please use this link or the one below, to do so. It costs you nothing, but Cyberage gives me a small benefit for referring you. Not that I am doing this for the slight kickback, I'm doing it to spread the love; and I would never recommend a service I didn't approve of, but yes, any extra bit of money helps:
1. Lesson number one, an independent pay site does NOT make a ton of money, no matter how hard you try. My site does not make a ton of money - I'm not going to say how much it makes, but it's much less than you might think, and definitely not enough for me to live on by itself. It's very nice extra money that pays for a pretty thing or two, my bar tab, and closes the gaps when I am really short on cash, but I'm not quitting my day job just yet.
2. The site takes a ton of work to promote. I am hoping one day to have it so well linked, partnered, and search engine positioned that I will be able to relax more about the traffic, but that day seems far off. Traffic is a constant struggle, the most important predictor of site revenue, and the quickest thing to dissipate without attention. This is an inordinately competitive business, and I'll take a site with great traffic and sucky content over one with sucky traffic and unbelievable content any day of the week. The lesson of this story is that it doesn't matter how gorgeous or how deliciously bitchy you are, unless people visit your site, there is no way you can translate your talents into cash.
3. Traffic and content are the two problems a Webmistress faces, and using an AVS to your advantage can help. Traffic is always, and will always be something you need to work for, but with a stand alone site you also find yourself constantly updating content. With an AVS system, you join a cooperative. I have done both independent billing and AVS, and independent billing was MUCH more difficult, and a little less lucrative.
It's true that with an AVS, men who don't directly pay for your site can access your site, but it's also true that when the buyer is making the purchasing decision, they can consider that they get access to literally hundreds of thousands of other sites as well as yours. Members who have signed up through an AVS stay with me longer than members gotten through my independent billing. Some of them (I suspect) forget they even signed up with me, and probably never visit my site anymore, yet I get re-bill fees from them as long as they stay enrolled in the AVS.
4. When making the decision to do AVS or your own billing, be honest with yourself about the amount of time you really want to put into your site. Do you actually want to update content every month? Do you want to put the time, programming and effort into creating a site that will make clients pay just for you, month after month? If not, you will lose members; and rebilling members will be a much larger source of income than new signups. Check out your main competition. If you are a femdom princess like me, your main competition are sites like Humiliatrix.com, sissysearch.com, whapmag.com, and natacha-merritt.com.
Are you as good as they are? Do you have the time to make your site as excellent as that? I know that to the many men in our lives we can do no wrong, and I'm certainly not suggesting that you aren't imaginative, creative, or as good a programmer as the people who run these sites, but I am warning you though that this is the level of quality, and the frequency of updates you will be competing with if you decide to have a stand-alone site. I know for a fact, that with my time, I simply can't compete with these sites. I don't even like to link to them because I'm afraid they'll siphon off my own customers:
5. Assuming you are going to choose an AVS, which one is right for you? There is no question that AdultCheck (not the system I use) is the market leader in AVS systems. Personally, I have worked with them as an Adult check 'Gold' site, and I hated the experience. My relationship with them is what prompted me to go stand-alone for a while. I have had their little nerds call me and tell me to change the wording of my content because some piss-ant lawyer told them it would get them in trouble:
Cyberage (used to be AgeCheck) is the second largest AVS. It will be a tiny bit harder to get members through using them, but it's been my experience that it's worth the lesser hassle. They pay on time, they are honest, and they seem to operate more as a true co-op than as a corporation. I highly recommend them. If you do decide to do a CyberAge site, please sign up for your Webmaster account through this link.
6. Standard or Platinum? The advantage of a Standard site is that the requirements for what qualifies are pathetically low. Basically, set up three thumbnail galleries, with ten pics each, stick a front page on it, and they'll list you as a Standard site. With any web editing skills at all, you can set up a Standard CyberAge site in less than an afternoon. I've seen a lot of friends say they are going to set up a Platinum site, and then they never do.
One smart thing to do is to set up the Standard site, get your AVS script, and then work on the Platinum upgrade. I've seen a lot of friends say they are going to set up a Platinum site, and then they never do. Generally if you get your Standard site up and running, and start getting some signups, it will get you excited enough to work on your Platinum site.
That's my advice for today. If you have any questions or comments, please email me.