If you’re running an adult business, chances are you have already taken it online in order to grow and expand faster than ever before. The internet is the premier hub for promotional campaigns and business dealings with regards to adult businesses. You get to stay in touch with more customers than you could possibly hope to if you took the offline route, and your profits multiply at a much faster rate as well. Similarly, payments and dealing out services become completely hassle-free, giving you much more time to concentrate solely on the quality of services you offer. But with such convenience, also comes a variety of questions and challenges.
One of these questions is whether or not you must have a pay-to-view policy on some of your content. While it is certainly a profitable practice for the businessman, since you will be making all that extra money, it can get annoying for the average consumer. In fact, as per some recent surveys, websites which lock some of their content behind paywalls tend to lose out on a portion of their SEO traffic and profits. The primary reason behind this is that search engines, especially Google, aren’t simply satisfied with relevant keywords or backlinks, but rather also take into account an average user’s experience on the website. Rather than redirecting their users to a website which makes them pay to access content, search engines prefer to redirect their users to websites which promise a free and user-friendly interface.
The Problem with Paid Content
For a positive search experience, paywalls prove to be quite a hindrance. For adult businesses, however, paywalls have become somewhat of a necessity since there has to be some distinction between the content which is regular and one which is premium in nature. Talking of paywalls, you may have heard of two distinct categories, namely the total paywall as has been defined by the Times of London, and the other leaky model which is often utilized by the New York Times. One of the most striking examples of the negative impact of paid content on SEO is the fact that New York Times, which adopts a more lenient approach and has applied only a partial paywall on some of their content, boasts of an organic search visibility which is almost four times that of the Times of London, which employs a complete blanket paywall on all of their content.
Let There be Snippets
Snippets are nothing but small bits of information which may be provided in direct relation to some content on a website which informs the user of the nature and type of the content on display. Such snippets or excerpts are instrumental as they can help the user make the decision of whether or not they wish to actually make a purchase. The type of snippets offered by a website depends on whatever the immediate competitors of the website seem to be offering since that is what the average user is going to expect. For adult websites or businesses, snippets could be in the form of a little sneak peek, or some curious bit of information which may be engaging enough to convince the user to actually make a purchase.
Implement First Click Free
Even if you decide to utilize a paywall to jack up your earnings from your adult business website, you may want to implement certain user-friendly features to ensure minimum loss of SEO. One of these features is the First Click Free implemented by Google which allows visitors to access some of the premium content for free whenever they’re visiting the page for the first time. However, on subsequent visits, the paywall comes back into action.
Find a Balance
As mentioned earlier, adult businesses do require a bit of a paywall to function in a way that optimizes profits. However, overdoing the same can prove to be a major mistake for the website too. Basically, one needs to find just the correct balance between the two, and learn to identify the correct amount and nature of content which can be placed behind a paywall without disrupting business. While some businessmen may feel that without a blanket paywall that covers all of their content, they are basically giving away stuff for free. However, even if that was true, it shouldn’t be much of a problem as the ‘free’ users serve a pretty important purpose which is of bringing in the required traffic to your website. Later on, serious visitors who need to access premium content will then contribute towards your earnings. This way, both the access levels work in harmony in order to not just create a fantastic user experience but also severely amplify your profits.
Start Accepting UGC
UGC, or user-generated content, is a fantastic solution for those business owners who simply can’t afford to bring down their paywalls. If you allow your users to upload, create or publish content on your website, you can let other users access such content for free while your content remains safe behind secure paywalls available only to paid members. This way, even casual users have a reason for visiting your website and thus the website’s traffic and SEO rating doesn’t suffer much damage. For adult websites especially, let user-submitted media or creative content comprise all of the free content on your website while your personalized content remains hidden behind a paywall.
Conclusion
The final verdict remains pretty straightforward. While it may be a good idea to employ a bit of a paywall in order to boost your earnings, it can never be profitable for your adult business if you put everything behind secure lockers. Let a good portion of your content roam free and accessible to all users, for it is through such free content that your website is able to promote itself and market its services. For adult businesses, in particular, the competition is pretty fierce. Perhaps the content which is chargeable on your website is available for free on another, which is why a good amount of research is always welcome while setting up payments. A meaningful decision must only be made once all relevant factors such as SEO and user satisfaction are duly considered and taken into account.
