Managing Recip Links

[KatieAnn]

Ok, I started into the adult business in a back-asswards way with a paysite that I just kind of ran for fun . . . and I finally came to the conclusion that, gee, I could probably make a little cash off this thing since I'm doing it anyway.

That said, I think there is something fundamental that I don't understand about galleries, linklists, etc, etc:

As a paysite (with an affiliate program) I can't put recip links on my tour, galleries, etc . . . but of course I want to build more traffic than just what my affiliates are sending . . .

And affiliates should have similar issues - if they clutter up their pages with links to all the places they get traffic from, they're leaking traffic away from their sponsor(s). Of course some do this, but it just doesn't strike me as a good idea.

So what gives?? How do people manage recip links? Am I just completely missing some source of traffic as a program owner?

I think I've got the blog end of things somewhat down, but I'm not sure I can write more than 2 blogs about just myself There must be something else I can do, right?

[razor]

freesites and galleries - its a great source of free traffic

[Cozy Monica]

You can build traffic from all kinds of sources. Generally, instead of putting recips on your paysite, you create other sites that you can convince people to link to that advertise your site.

Galleries are a great example. You build galleries with content from your paysite, and advertise your paysite on the galleries. Freesites are great this way as well. Room for some recips, advertise your own site lots, and hope most of the traffic comes your way.

There are all kinds of ways to generate traffic without putting any recips up on your paysite.

[xxxpilot]

Here are a few ways that I can think of off the top of my head that you could use to get traffic to your paysite

Severe warning though take this with a handful of salt as I'm new to the adult internet industry even if I've been a webmaster for a while

PPC - only a viable option if you know what your conversion and retention rates are
Freesite - possibly with some extra content you have laying around somewhere
Affiliates - you could always do something to increase your number or quality of affiliate traffic (these do count as links to your site although they're usually rates with less weight by search engines)
TGP's / Toplists / etc.. - get your site or content on these should be easy enough for you to do if your affiliates can as you have better access to the material
Joint Venture - find another paysite or two whos members might be interested in your content and think up a way that both sites could benifit from each other
Mini-Sites / Pages - including galleries and freesites that you create to drive traffic to your site (these can have recips)

There's a ton more ways to get traffic, and even links to your site they don't all have to be reciprical

As for putting recips on your site itself probably not going to do you much good even if they were their. Best case scenario is that they don't drop you conversion rate any

Hope that helps or gives you some ideas

[Hammer]

There is a little secret to putting recips up on a pay site without creating leaks. Put up a 'links' page and link to it from the bottom of your warning page well below the enter link. If anyone finds their way to the page they weren't going to join anyway and in most cases the places you are signing up will be OK with it. The ones that demand that you put their recip on your main page can take a hike, IMO.

Personally, I think recip trades are only good for PR and not for traffic anyway so you definitely don't want to waste any traffic on them and will probably never get any traffic from those kinds of links anyway.

Now, on the other hand, if someone wants to trade links with you that you think could send you some traffic, then you don't want to do that from your pay site, that would be done from a blog, linklist, toplist, TGP or other large free site.

[KatieAnn]

Ok, thanks to everyone who replied, I really appreciate the perspective!

In general sounds like the thing I'm missing is a freesite of some sort, so I will do some research in that area - I tried it once, but it was crap and I couldn't get traffic to that site in the first place so it didn't help much. I've got a bunch of sample galleries already built, so I guess just assembling them on a seperate domain that I use for trades is the idea, right?

I struggled with how to generate traffic to a freesite - no SE traffic b/c there isn't much text, but I guess the idea is just link trading and submitting to TGPs? Does a freesite need to feature models from more than one site to be believable?

Hammer, link trades for PR (as opposed to traffic) is an angle I haven't looked in to yet, that makes a lot of sense. I do have a "links" page that no one really complains about, but I've been trying to keep the links to pages I feel deserve to be linked to. Sigh, I'm an internet idealist. Guess it's time to get over that.

[xxxpilot]

You don't have to give up on being an internet idealist. You just have to choose your partners so that your links are useful to your visitors. It's usually better to do it that way anyway as you'll almost always end up with more relevant links in and out.

[Josea]

...
Hammer, link trades for PR (as opposed to traffic) is an angle I haven't looked in to yet, that makes a lot of sense. I do have a "links" page that no one really complains about, but I've been trying to keep the links to pages I feel deserve to be linked to. Sigh, I'm an internet idealist. Guess it's time to get over that. [/b]

I think you should continue to link to sites you feel deserve it especially if it is revelent. That way your link page don't look like it only contains trade links.

[Hammer]

TBH, I really don't think it matters what you put on a links page since practically no one will look at it anyway. I wouldn't trade links with relevant sites from a pay site anyway so I would add a links page to give you a place to add links to places that require recips without creating leaks but that won't help you much for PR anyway since the links page is never going to gain any PR in the first place because the only way it will get PR is if the sites you get linked on link to that page, which you don't want.

Realistically, when it comes to exchanging links, for PR or traffic, the only logical place to do it from is a blog or some other kind of free site. Then, if you want to trade links for traffic and PR you would just make sure to give preferential placement to the sites you like and find a place to put the PR links so they're on the page you want to get the PR for but they're not prominently positioned.

[KatieAnn]

Originally posted by Hammer
Then, if you want to trade links for traffic and PR you would just make sure to give preferential placement to the sites you like and find a place to put the PR links so they're on the page you want to get the PR for but they're not prominently positioned.

Ok, this is what I've been doing with my blogs, but don't these pages end up getting dinged by google for having too many outbound links? So if you can only build PR by providing recip links on the same page that's linked to, this sounds like a vicious circle.

What about ABC linking? Does it work? Will ABC trades get accepted?