*An erect penis is considered hardcore and therefore can not be published with a rating below X. Photos of a woman's vagina, used to illustrate an article on sexually transmitted diseases were too graphic for the magazine's R rating.

Are these declining figures for the print world relevant to our online business? In some ways the closing of an icon in women's entertainment in Australia may show us that women prefer the anonimity of the Internet and are joining pay products online or that they are simply finding better information for free.

There's two very distinct sides to the debate of whether women pay for Internet porn. On one hand, there is enough information available for free that many women do not need pay products to complete their sexual entertainment. On the other hand, those who are certain that women don't pay for porn are usually the ones providing it all for free.

Remove the Free?
With all of the above to consider, you may be deciding that marketing to women is not something you are prepared to take on. With all that stuff for free, why would anyone pay for it? Its been a topic of discussion across the whole of the online porn industry for the last year or so - with so much for free, how long can paysites survive?

Its true that there are a few simple fixes to the overall problem - kill all tgp sites, movie posts, free sites with more than one picture and any free site that looks in any way decent. *grin* Realistic? I think not. On some scales we may be able to cut back the amount of free porn available online, but when it comes to 4women content, its not all photos and movies, and we aren't just working alongside fellow pornographers.

Most 4women paysites rely on making the experience personal to women with text based content such as articles, stories and so on. With so many mainstream sites providing information designed to keep their female visitors for the total of their Internet surfing life, it makes it very difficult to achieve an end sale - of any kind.

Mainstream's Master Plan
Data has been the key to the success of many mainstream 4women sites such as women.com, ivillage.com and Oprah's network of Internet sites designed for women on the technical learning path. Each of these sites have succeeded in creating the community feel, with each area set up to gather data - surveys, registration for services, check boxes, text boxes, information requests - take a look sometime!

Each of these sites have also been set up to sell a different product than those which we are aiming for in the adult market. Oprah's whole Internet campaign is designed to grow the name of her television programs and special features and to promote her book club and associated products - but with one of the highest incomes of any professional in America, we have to wonder just how much money they are able to spend on their goal. I'm prepared to admit that I'd have little concern for how much I was giving away for free if I could boast Oprah's income. :-)

Women.com has a goal of driving traffic to women based products. Their television and magazine marketing has been intense with a domain that isn't too shabby either. The left bar of their site is packed with advertising for magazines, other web sites and more specific products such as "Advil" and "Baby Goods", but unfortunately, the free content which they have crammed their site with, is the same as the content many of their advertisers are trying to charge money for. Can you see the problem here?

The effect on Adult
I've used mainstream as an example to prove my point. Human nature leads us to spot faults in the work of others before we assess our own piece of e-real estate. If you look at the above-mentioned situation, you can see clearly how it makes no sense to give away the same things as you are trying to sell and yet many of us still build our free sites for women with enough content to please a small amazonian tribe of sex starved women.

In the defence of those of us who do have free sites with way too much content, it has been a difficult road to FIND the content so we are all quite proud when we do - proud enough that we will publish anything as long as it makes our sites look fuller. Pictures which are specifically aimed at women are rare, so we tend to fill the gaps with words - too many of them - and expect to sell the paysites after the surfer has read our overabundance of words.

Words take longer to read that it does to flick through a gallery of pictures - 1 article can keep someone busy for 10 minutes, or even more if its an intense article. A survey can occupy a surfer for an eternity, but at the end, is the result a sale?

The Balancing Act
Perhaps the most difficult part of providing free sites for women is the balance. We need enough pictures to get listed at link lists and search engines (40+), but enough text and editorial to make a woman feel like this is her site. With only a little co-operation from link lists for separate consideration you add to that the challenge of sending the surfer off to the right sponsor at the right time and you've got what seems like an impossible task.

The Positive Side
With all of the above said, I can get to the good bits. There are several hundred webmasters currently with sites exclusively for women - template sites with pics, mini-portals and personal home pages to name just a few. Large portions of these webmasters focus solely on 4women or spend more of their time on their 4women projects. The ones with the best overall signup ratios are the ones who produce the templates. 4women webmasters with the longest retaining members are the ones who present their surfers with advertorials and information about the site they are trying to sell.

As with developing any product, there is a basic checklist that will ensure you are providing a balance of almost satisfying your visitors and making sales. Read resources such as WEN <http://www.womenseroticanetwork.com>, Fem Resources <http://www.femresources.com>, and Porn Resource's 4women guide <http://www.pornresource.com>.

Always keep in mind that if you give something away, you are removing the surfer's reason for buying. If your goal is to produce a pretty site with lots of happy visitors, follow the format of mainstream - but ensure that your advertisers are not your competition. If you want to make sales to a pay product, the same rule applies.

DON'T GIVE AWAY WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO SELL!!

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Written by CJ, Webmistress of Purve.com (The Original Adult site for Women) and PurveBucks.com (50/50% recurring payouts to the high retaining site Purve.com, plus 4 brand new paysites for women)