15+ Blogging Tactics I Learned From ‘Porn’

As an industry, they are brilliant at what they do; let it be the techniques they use or the method of promotion. I’m not writing this from any personal or practical experience. Search for the term ‘porn’ and you will get 733,000,000 results within seconds. Online porn created new trends, and the world of porn very much drove the evolution of online video I would say.

“When video came out, porn was the first one there, porn kept video growing like crazy,” says adult film director Richard DeMontfort.

Now it became a multi-billion dollar industry. How? Why? Do you think it is because of the average new gender’s thirst for porn? The concept ‘Sex Sells’ works? Opinions may vary, but the goal is same here — become viral and generate bucks. Porn marketers, though unethical, are brilliant enough to survive in this world.

Just to make things clear, my interest here isn’t in the world of porn. The sites and videos I have seen are only for survey and business model purposes.

Pornography Time Statistics (2011)

Every second – $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography.

Every second – 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography.

Every second – 372 internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines.

Every 39 minutes – A new pornographic video is being created in the United States.

1. Offering Fewer Choices Actually Increases Clicks

Having lots of options and links will confuse your users, make them leave soon. Have you noticed the tours some porn sites offer? Have you ever been on a tour? If it begins with a good note, then it’s difficult to stop. They’ll display the content first and then other options.

Lesson: The primary goal of your blog is to convert a visitor into a reader. Don’t provide your visitors too much of options, they will get confused and leave your blog soon. Try to make them concentrate on your blog posts.

Most of the blogs offer links on every page, like recent and popular posts, recent comments, categories, blogroll, etc. You can avoid them, providing fewer choices increases clicks. You can also provide a simple tour of your blog, or allocate a section that displays the best content you love to show your readers.

2. Provide Consistent Stream Of Content. Be Terrific.

What makes a porn site successful? Yes, you are right – great content. They provide new content (i.e., videos, images, so on) every day that encourage users to visit daily. Posting frequency is important here.

Lesson: You need to provide a consistent stream of content if you want to build a following for your blog. Update your blog regularly with Quality Content. Content is the king, so make sure your readers can enjoy it. Your blog needs more content on your blog to get enough traffic and attraction. You don’t want to disappoint your readers/visitors with old content, right?

Resources You Should Check:

• 3 Simple Reasons Why You Need More Content
• HOW TO: Brand Your Blog With Unique Content
• Why Content Is Important For Blogs?

3. Pornstars Know What is Viral Marketing

Dutch Porn Star Bobbi Eden knows how to trick or make viral announcement, that almost got her Million Twitter Followers. She is probably happy with the fact that Holland didn’t win the FIFA World Cup.

Long back, Bobbi Eden tweeted that she would give oral sex to all her followers if Holland would win the World Cup. Before this tweet, she had 5114 followers. After six days she has more than 100,000 followers. But unfortunately (this is for her followers), Spain has won the FIFA World Cup.

As you can see, only Porn Stars like Bobbi Eden can tweet like this, it will look weird if some business tycoons tweet like this.

Resources You Can Check:

• 5+ Awesome FREE eBooks Regarding Viral Marketing
• Your Great Content Will Go Viral If It Passes These Tests

4. Avoid Opening New Windows In Response To Closing Main Window

Using target=”_blank” is one of the best ways to keep the visitors stay on their site. It should be up to every user in which window he or she should open the link and whether it should be opened at all. If you click any link on a porn site, it will open a new window without closing the current one. The parent site will still be online. Also don’t open “supplementary” windows.

If you still need to open a brand new window, then let it pop up in response to some actions by the user. For example, when a user clicks on the “Categories” link. At any cause, a new window should not open unless it is unavoidable. The user should always be able to press the “back” button, and there should be anything preventing him.

5. Using Teaser Content To Tempt Readers/Users

Teaser content is similar to previews and trailers. If they are seductive & erotic, then users may make their next move. All the major porn membership websites are using such teaser content to tempt their visitors and then convert them into subscribers.

You can also use some attractive thumbnail images to look compelling.

Bloggers can do the same by creating appealing titles and showing post excerpts. Use ‘Sexy’ title to grab reader’s attention. In Social Media, titles play the game, not the content.

Example : HOW TO: Get Beautiful Female Models To Promote Your Brand For 5$

Even though I was reviewing a site named ‘Fiverr‘ here, I changed the title completely which urges the viewers to read.

6. Low Priced Trial Periods

Almost all the popular porn websites are allowing you to become a fully powered member of their site for just $1. By this, you can download as much as you want, cancel the subscription anytime you want. But after three days you are going to start getting billed monthly. They offer them a three-day $1 trial that rebills at $29.99 per month when they get to the order page.

Lesson: If you have any paid subscription method or selling eBooks for discount price, then you can follow this trick in a ethical way, and not like the one mentioned above.

Resources You Can Check:

• Explode Your E-Mail List With Pre-Filled Subscription Form
• HOW TO: Customize Feedburner Confirmation Email Body
• Create Your Own SMS Subscription Using Google Labs

7. Successful Online Marketing & Content Distribution

I came across this excellent video cum presentation by Ed Celis titled “Seven Things You Can Learn From Porn if you are a Digital Marketer” on Vimeo. The video contains no adult content and is not intended to promote the porn industry, so it’s safe for viewing by anyone. It is primarily a video presentation with tips for successful online marketing and content distribution with samples taken from the adult industry. The video runs 21 minutes in length and worth your time if you are an online or digital marketer.

The 7 main points from his presentation are:

• Content drives tech (and not the other way around)
• Recycle (that’s good for business)
• Packaging matters, a lot
• Own your club, shop, portal or channel
• Move fast!
• Perception is (often) the larger element of your product
• Specialty content sells

Resources You Should Check:

• 3 Effective Marketing Tips For Bloggers
• 4 Tips To Design Perfect Site For Boosting Your Internet Marketing Efforts

8. Realizing The Potential For Long Tail Keywords

If you are not aware of “Long Tail Keywords”, they are a type of keyword phrase that has, at least, three and sometimes as many as five words in the phrase. They are used when a blog wants to refine search terms to the page, as well as when the searcher is looking for something rather specific.

I mentioned some excerpts from SEOmoz below,

“Most people use long tail keywords as an afterthought, or just assume these things will come naturally. The porn world, though, actually INVESTIGATES these “long tails,” then expands off them. They have the unique reality of a lot of really weird people out there, who will search for specific things. Right now, according to Wordze, the most popular search featuring the word “grandma” is “grandma sex,” with an estimated 16,148 searches per month. From there, there is a decent variety of long tails including things like “Filipino grandma sex.” For the phrase “teen sex,” there are over 1000 recorded long tails that Wordze has, and in my experience, it misses A LOT (it only shows things with substantial search volume).”

Resources You Can Check:

• HOW TO: Check Keyword Density Using Google Toolbar
• HOW TO: Check Your Position On Google For A Particular Keyword

9. Porn Spamming: Titillate your readers

Every day before going to the Inbox, I’ll check the SPAM folder, and the headlines in my spam folder make for entertaining reading, but I know it is not worthy enough. But trust me, porn spam gets attention, unfortunately.

Both the Internet Marketers and the Porn Spammers have one goal in their minds, “To make them open your mail”, no big deal here. But the tactics they implement plays a significant role.

You can offer them (targets) exclusive access, free downloads, useful tips or other stuff that will benefit both the parties. You don’t need to SPAM to grab their attention, even don’t need to have any ‘Porn’ content.

Spammers don’t care if 99% of their recipients aren’t interested in what they are promoting, but as Internet Marketers, we care.

Some Tips To Improve Your Tactics:

• Short and Sweet: Your email messages should be short and get to the point immediately. You can make use of the subject header and grab the readers attention quickly. If that clicks, then having your content read is possible.
• Avoid Bulk Mailings: Spammers do that and you should not. Use subscriber’s name to build trust.
• Provide valuable Content: Nothing special, good content clicks often.

10. Personal Branding & Brand Management

Personal branding is nothing but the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. Brand management is the application of marketing techniques to a particular product, product line, or brand.

The aim of personal branding and brand management is to make your name synonymous with a particular phrase. They even use Social Media to take their branding to next level.

For a porn star like Jenna Jameson (hmm.. :|) or some other intercourse star that is effortless.

Want to Enhance your brand? Give something to remember you by!

Well, Pornstars can give, you can’t. To get your credit card details, they may flash their assets through some odd short video clips or as an image. Well, it is somewhat similar to the loss leader trick (old trick!).

The loss leader strategy is more than just a nifty business trick – it is a successful strategy if executed properly.

A classic example is that of razor blades. Companies like Gillette mostly give their razor units away for free, knowing that customers will have to buy their replacement blades, which is where the company makes all of its profit. (Definition via Investopedia)

Here I’m going to consider SEO Book and SEO Egghead as the two examples in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & SEM (Search Engine Marketing) business world.

They both give away tons of knowledge, insights and tricks of their trade daily.

By this, they are building a brand and also, at the same time managing that brand even further by way of driving the visitor towards their books, which reinforces their authority.

11. Credit Card Tactics: Enable Buying Decision

Internet Marketers and Bloggers still use this trick to grab customers’ attention. Moreover, it also makes easier for consumers to make a buying decision.

Consider this incident for example (of course, for instance only, ahem!)

You are visiting a porn website, and you are attracted towards a short (& sexy) clip of your favourite porn actress (hmm, why not Brianna Banks?). Now obviously you are interested in seeing the full clip, but before you can view the entire clip, you need to cross one quick step.

Now you are asked for your credit card details (and you gave it, damn) since there are several reasons for asking them. Maybe they wanted to verify that you are above 18 years old, or they are giving $1 trial offer for the first few days of access. Now you are viewing the full-length video. Bingo!

But the fact is, after one month you will get your credit card bill, and your soul won’t know the charges (yet). Now that will be great for the porn sites and dangerous for unsuspecting consumers.

How you can implement this?

If you are selling your WordPress theme or eBook, you can implement the same concept with some different things.

• Reveal before itself that if they don’t cancel in a few days their card will be billed.
• Create a Great Product. Make products that make people happy. Also after the sale, do what you can to take care of your customer.
• Offer refunds quickly. If they are not interested in your product, then offer refunds. Instead of fighting with them, you can get two new customers at that time.

12. Fusion Marketing: Just Adapt and Adjust

I’ll start with an example of this one, you are downloading your favourite song from Rapidshare, and unfortunately, the downloaded file is a small porn clip with a URL to visit the main site. It is just a matter of preference, whether people will see it or not. I recommend not to try this one with ‘dark’ intention. I’ll tell you how to adapt and adjust.

Using Fusion Marketing, you still give people what they are asking for, that’s the highlight. We are talking about legitimate Fusion Marketing, not porn oriented.

A Fusion Marketer will give you what you want and also at the same time ride along with his marketing message, i.e., the advertisement.

Example (Real World) : Seeing movies advertised on the cups of soft drinks served at KFC. Yep, we call that as Fusion Marketing.

Porn Marketers use Fusion Marketing in a wrong way, in other words, they use ‘Bait-and-switch’ method. This irritates the customers a lot. Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud, most commonly used in retail sales but also applicable to other contexts. First, customers are “baited” by advertising for a product or service at a low price; second, the customers discover that the advertised good is not available and are “switched” to a costlier product.

13. Thumbnail Gallery Post (TGP) Tactics Explained

A thumbnail gallery post (TGP) is a common type of ad-driven website that provides links to free Internet pornography. TGPs employ a variety of schemes to trade traffic with other TGPs; signing up for these trades is usually easy and free for other TGP owners. Perhaps the most fundamental business is to link to other TGP sites.

TGP is a huge representation of small pictures, by clicking it you will get a larger picture or movie later.

But actually, you have little chance (say 30%) of getting a video/picture and a 70% chance of getting shot over to another TGP either owned by the same person or made in a traffic exchange program.

What is the advantage of this?

Simple, they allow the users to target their content. In pornography, the content is great, people can be looking for different results. Within a TGP, the user clicks on an image and that takes him to another gallery (with same gorgeous ladies pics).

This process may continue for some time and during that duration, the user can be taken to more and more targeted sites and advertising based on his or her choices.

Reality Example: TGP tactic can be compared with rigorous categorization.

Consider an online store for instance, they don’t have a “electronics” section, so they make the user to go through every gadget they have. The path goes similar to this one :

Electronics -> Computers -> Hard Drives -> SanDisk -> 1TB

So why did they broke their categories into several subcategories? Suppose if you own an online electronics store and your customers are looking at hard drives, and then probably you know that showing them the parallel cables or external cases is probably a good option, much similar to the suggestion options in retail stores.

They are allowing the user to find everything more easily and at the same time, they know what ads to show them too.

14. Unique Design: Stays on the Visitors’ mind forever

Out of the 20 porn sites, I visited, almost each and every site has a unique design and stays on my mind. Users can quickly figure out the site’s name by seeing the layout. Talking about the logo, it is too perfect, never thought ‘branding’ would be so popular in Porn World.

Most of the porn sites have an excellent and unique design; it stays in the visitors’ mind forever. They even used their logo in some of the videos, kind of watermarked at the bottom.

Some Resources You Can Check:

• Why Use A WordPress Theme Framework For Your Blog?
• Choosing A Top Grade Theme For Your Blog
• 25+ Free Awesome Thesis Skins That Don’t Suck
• 5 Simple Steps To An Original Blog Design

15. Using Porn 2.0 to Discount the Saturated Market

Saturated Market is used to describe a situation in which a product has become distributed within a market. Before the bloggers and internet marketers, the porn industry realized that relying entirely on Google was a bad idea, so they moved on to other sectors.

Almost 50% of the porn sites are now YouTube styled, and they don’t need any ranking to survive, they just need lots of traffic, traffic and traffic. I checked out a video that has 4 million views. 😐 So they not only allowed services like Google Images/Yahoo Video to access their content, but they expanded their target.

YouTube powers almost every video tutorial on the web, but that doesn’t mean YouTube is the only video-sharing site. Try to reach the maximum level of promotion (not talking about spam here).

Next time, if you are going to create a YouTube video, also consider Yahoo! video and Dailymotion. Even though their rating is low compared to YouTube, these will bring you additional traffic.

16. Learn How To Profit In An Environment Where Piracy Is Rampant

Porn Industry is the only industry that profits in an environment where piracy is violent and furious. Despite this copyright infringement, they have filed no lawsuits over it. Interestingly they even tolerated file sharing and also encouraged them by distributing free samples.

This is quite opposite to the Music and Movie industries that have filed thousands of lawsuits against both file-sharing companies and individual sharers.

How They Profit Even Under Such Circumstances?

Here are the two things Porn Industry does to get the advantage. These are simple enough to implement in other sectors.

• Provide Watermarked Content: Good one! Even if your content is copied and pirated, they are indirectly helping you to advertise your brand. Just watermark your content (videos, images, etc.) with your brand’s logo.
• Update With New Content: Porn sites mostly update either weekly or monthly with new content and when the old content hits the file sharing networks it will be already out of date. If people enjoy the content they download for free and also wish to keep it up to date, and then they will pay the monthly fee.

Well, once again, let me remove the things, I wrote this article because ‘porn’ can still be used as a ‘bad’ example and we can indeed learn from it, which you witnessed above. So adjust and adapt. Thanks.