One new term that I might be able to help you with today is 'feeder site'. You've probably heard this mentioned either on this chat board, in an article, or on another resource out there. Feeder sites are something that you'll be making in the coming months of your business. They make you money, although not directly...
What IS a feeder site?
A feeder site is a webpage, or a series of web pages who's mission is to attract surfers and then to send or 'feed' them on somewhere else. One common expression you might have heard is "I made a Paysite and then some feeder sites to get it started". This would mean that someone had started a membership based site and then created a whole 'army' of mini sites to soak up surfers and pass them on to the main site, where they could buy something...
Doing the dirty work...
One thing that's great about a feeder site is that you can keep reciprocal links off the site you're sending them to. Let's go back and think about the example I just talked about - the Paysite being jump-started with a series of feeder sites. On a Paysite, the most important thing that you have to do is to get the surfer interested in what the site is all about. Having a swarm of little graphics linking back to wherever the Paysite is listed will really get in the way. It's far better to let your feeder sites carry those recip links and save your Paysite for the job of selling.
Getting people to the feeder site...
If you've been reading Tom's Newbie Booster for even a short time, you've probably read posts by me where I talk about traffic and how you don't need to get great numbers of surfers to any one site. Well let's carry this into feeder sites. Feeder sites do not have to be masterpieces. No-one's going to pay you based on how pretty your feeder sites look. Feeder sites can be created in large numbers, with the aim of getting only a small number of surfers to each one.
Let's get crazy!
You've made your business plan and figure you can get 5 surfers to each of your feeder sites. You work out that if you make 1000 feeder sites you can get 5000 surfers each day. If you can get 25% of those surfers to your main, central site then you can make some serious money. 1000 feeder sites is not an impossible goal. If you know what you're doing, have looked at ways to streamline the way you work, and can make sites from templates, then it would be very possible. But this is just one extreme example of how feeder sites can be used...
A common question is 'how many sites will I need'. This must come from you. How many surfers can YOU get to a small site? And how many surfers do you need to get to your central site to make good money? A few quick scribbles on a bit of paper should give you the rough guide you need. Then it's time to really get down to the hard work...
But where does all this traffic come from?
'Feeder site' is a wonderful, vague term! Feeder sites can come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes and there's no set rules or formats that you have to follow. You might make a really clean site that will get listed in Dmoz, or a small no-content site that could get into Google.com, or a larger site with some content on it that would get you into one or more link lists. A feeder site can alter it's shape, it's number of ads, and everything it needs to in order to hit the target and get listed where you wanted it to. A feeder site can be a traffic-slut and do whatever it has to do to get listed and start feeding traffic to your 'central' project.
Where to send all this traffic.
As I mentioned above, don't just start making feeder sites for the hell of it. Use them strategically as a General would his soldiers. Plan out where it is you want to be and how to use these little worker sites to get there. You don't have to be running a Paysite to benefit from feeder sites - they're for everyone! You might want to send them to a central page, or a site specifically for selling your favourite sponsors. Who says that a 'tour' is about selling your Paysite? Why not create a tour area which sells your sponsors? Or just create a central area where you can build traffic and tweak your marketing skills? No-content sites sell but can be hard to get traffic to - UNLESS you've got your 'army' of feeder sites in place...
Getting specialized.
Who says you can't build feeder sites up in each niche that you're interested in. You made your 1000 feeder sites in the teen niche? Then it's time to build up another 1000 in the mature niche! This is one of the fastest ways to success as an adult webmaster (although making this many sites will take literally months to accomplish). Building up a good base of feeder sites will serve you well, regardless of which direction you go in - AVS, Paysite or sending traffic to sponsors. The bigger your net of feeder sites becomes, the more fish you'll catch! And you can never have too much traffic.
If you've got any questions - ask away here or shoot me an email.
Happy adult webmastering everyone!
TOM ^"^
ICQ 12616560
Email tom@tomsnewbiebooster.com
