Bloggasm

Mikkel Svendsen: I’ve been working as an adult webmaster for a year, pretty much stumbling across this profit potential by random and with no prior knowledge of blogging or building websites.

As I’ve always been fond of writing I fairly quickly discovered that blogs was a medium that was probably better suited for me than traditional adult marketing methods like gallery lists (TGPs) and link lists.

My main goal all along has been to eventually expand my blogging efforts into a review site where I take an in-depth look at various porn paysites, and after finally realizing that idea earlier this month, I now combine the review site and my small selection of blogs to serve as buyer’s guides to a growing selection of the vast number of porn sites on the Internet.

Simon Owens: Do you think there’s a major difference between European Porn and American Porn?

MS: With the exception of certain types of rather extreme porn – which usually seems to be of German origin – I’m not sure there is all that much difference when you view the market as a whole and not just pick out a few niches. There does seem to be an indication that many of the hardcore “gonzo” pornstars are from Europe (Eastern Europe in particular) while the classic bleach blonde pornstar with inflated boobs is more typical American – but I’m pretty sure those are more broad stereotypes than a true indication of any differences.

If we stray from looking at the content itself to how porn is generally viewed and accepted by the surrounding society, there currently seems to be a pretty wide gap between Europe and the US. While there overall appears to be a pretty relaxed attitude towards porn in most of Europe, the current US government, heavily pressured by religious groups and family organizations, seems hellbent on trying to shut down as much of the adult industry as they can possibly get away with. I better not get into an argument about politics, religion and morals – I’m not well enough versed in the details of this debate anyway, but it does seem that a number of very vocal and influencial groups are well on their way to getting away with imposing their own inflexible views of moral on an entire nation, effectively dictating what consenting adults are allowed to do and watch in their own homes.

SO: Do you think that sites providing 10-30 second clips of their videos stand a better chance of getting paid subscribers?

MS: With gallery sites and link lists providing hundreds of thousands of free photos, I think that video content is very often the only thing that warrants a paysite membership. Most of the sites I promote on my blogs have very well stocked video archives, and most of them are worth the membership price – and then some, but I do fear that as bandwidth costs continue to drop we will eventually start seeing paysites giving away long video clips for promotion, just as many of them have been giving away large parts of their photo content for free over the years. Some have already gone well beyond the typical 20-30 seconds with their free video clips, and while I think short clips are an excellent way to promote a site, if they start giving away clips several minutes long they are virtually eliminating all reasons to join their site.

SO: Rumor has it that sites with porn-related words in them get very heavy traffic from search engines. Is this true?

MS: If it was, someone has certainly forgot to clue me in on it . I haven’t tried working with mainstream blogs or other sites yet (though I expect to give it a try at some point when my schedule will allow it), so I don’t know how much harder it may be to get SE traffic to those. I think it’s safe to say that given the huge number of porn sites in any given niche, most of us still have to put up one hell of a fight to get ranked well. Given the pretty colorful language you can use in porn I imagine it does open up for a lot more variations of related key phrases you can target than if you were selling consumer electronics, software, insurance etc.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

MS: I quite honestly don’t have a clue. I’ve been blogging since March, but I rarely read other blogs – and there are none at all I frequent regularly. I generally search for information on a per case basis, and so far it’s rarely been blogs I’ve ended up at when I’ve searched for a specific topic – whether adult related or something else entirely.

My blogs may be text heavy and I may genuinely take an interest in the topics and products (in this case porn sites) I write about, but I still blog for profit – and as such I regularly feel that I’m contributing to the bastardization of a medium that was orginally intended to serve as a place where you could share your thoughts and opinons. I do that, but ultimately with the goal of making a buck off my visitors. I do take a bit of solace in knowing that I’m at least selling them products I’ve tried and liked myself .

Blogging as an adult webmaster I quite honestly don’t feel like a “real” blogger – and I don’t feel like I have a part in the community that rises around many personal blogs.

You can find the Babes & Toys blog over here