Over the past five weeks your website has grown from a twinkle in your eye to a collection of licensed images on your hosting provider's servers with a domain name to call your own and a credit card processing company lined up to password protect your content. Now it's time to make your free section as visually appealing as possible.

DRESSING UP YOUR BABY

When it comes to designing the look of your site, you have a number of options. You can always hire someone to do it for you, but if you were going to do that, you would have done it already, so we will assume that you are undertaking this adult website on your own. That means you're going to get your hands dirty (figuratively speaking, of course). That should be good news! Getting dirty is half the reason you wanted to do this, remember?

A new design trend in the adult business is utilizing Flash. Flash is a design and graphics tool created by Macromedia which allows relatively complex animation and visual images to be compressed and downloaded onto a web page relatively quickly. And, the good news is it's all relatively easy to do! Notice how I say "relatively" quite a lot? That's because, as with all applications over the Internet, EVERYTHING is relative. It's true, a professionally designed Flash file is visually appealing, but due to the nature of the Internet, the "cooler" it is, the longer it takes to download. And the typical adult user (i.e., potential customer) is generally looking for instant gratification that will not be satiated by a "LOADING" screen. Additionally, while the Flash software allows for some nifty effects in the hands of a proficient designer, it is a daunting task for the layman. Add those facts together and I recommend staying away from a "Flashy" site, at least right out of the gate.

That said, your only real recourse is to utilize a more standard graphic design program like "Photoshop" by Adobe, "Fireworks" by Macromedia, or others. I prefer "Photoshop" because it is a little more intuitive, although they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Use whichever program you are already familiar with. If both are foreign to you, I recommend "Photoshop."

The trick to designing an appealing adult web site is integrating cutting-edge graphics within the limitations of the Internet and HTML. (This is where Flash is advantageous, but we've already discussed the disadvantages of going that route.) If you've seen a lot of adult web sites (and presumably you have), you have probably noticed that the majority of sites have a few design elements in common.

1) Every page of a specific site is designed within the same "resolution box." A resolution box is the predefined maximum width and height dimensions of the graphics. Some adult sites use 640x480 but the majority now use 800x600. This is based upon the latest Internet statistics that claim that nearly 95% of Internet surfers have their monitor resolutions set at 800x600.
2) Every page of a specific site shares the same general lay-out, and there are typically three buttons that are easily identified: The "TOUR" button, the "MEMBERS" button, and the "JOIN" button.
3) Almost every adult site has a number of pages for the "TOUR" and they all end on the "JOIN" page, which is a "call-to-action" for the user.
4) Every "TOUR" page is a specific, slanted sales pitch containing samples images from within the member's section.

Given those similarities, it is safe to assume that this practice works. There is no reason to redefine the wheel, so your site should share the same basic design philosophy of those sites. Begin with an outline. Determine how many "pages" your free site will have. A page is a single HTML document. In order for the user to move from one "page" to another, they will need to click on a button (preferably either the "TOUR" button, the "JOIN" button, or the "MEMBERSHIP" button), although there is nothing to prevent them from clicking on the browser's BACK button (and in a later chapter we'll discuss how to STILL make money even if they do that!).

A good rule of thumb is to have one tour page devoted to each "element" of your site. For example, at XXXBodyParts.com, I have one page devoted to selling my exclusive articles entitled, "The Weekly Score" where I offer advice on picking up women. The next tour page contains images and descriptions of my "Cover Girls" where I offer galleries of women who have posed for me. The third tour page sells the "niche" content of my site, i.e., the "body parts" submitted by amateur exhibitionists. The fourth tour page mentions all the streaming and live video feeds available within the member's section. And the last page of the tour is the "JOIN" page. Along the bottom of every tour page is a button inviting the user to press for "Instant Trial Access."

My membership content has four main areas of content so my free TOUR contains four pages and finishes off with the JOIN page. (Of course, if you examine my site, you'll also see that it contains many more elements, like fresh daily content, hourly changes, and more. These will be discussed in later chapters). If I was to design my site differently (and I'm working on it as you read this), I would start off with a "general" page with enough content on it to entice the user to click the TOUR button. Then, from there, I would present the four individual TOUR pages.

So, just to beat a head horse, let's look at a good, general, design. Begin with an eye-catching page that contains images and sells the nature of the site. Three buttons should be clearly visible: The JOIN, MEMBERS, and TOUR buttons. The JOIN button should click directly to the credit card processing page set up by your credit card company (discussed in a previous chapter). The MEMBERS button should click directly to your password-protected membership directory. The TOUR button should click to the first page of your "tour."

For every element of your site, you should have one tour page. Generally, this is broken down by still images and galleries (page one), live feeds, webcams, and videos (page two), and exclusive content (page three). This third page is important. Why should someone join YOUR site rather than the others? Because of this third page! Then, lead into the JOIN page. Of course, every page of the tour should be designed within the same "resolution box" and the three buttons should be in precisely the same location.

You now have an overview of designing your new site. Look at examples. See how pages load differently, and how various sites use consistency and cutting-edge graphics to attract customers. Since this is a complicated (and very important) step to a successful adult site, we'll discuss it more and in greater detail next week).

Article written by Richard Follock - Freelance writer and webmaster for XXXBodyParts.com, the ultimate collection of sex on the Internet.