I like to promote “Indie Sites” but . . .

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by AdorableAudrey

As an 'indie' when I started it was just me doing it for rlove of porn, exhibitionism, and certain fetishes. Indie = just me and my husband, trying to figure out huow to make our members and ourselves happy with the content and the site, no affiliate manager to tell us how a program needs to work, and no extra man-hours to design lots of versions of our sites.

Still we have learned and have leak-free versions of all our tours, but I will say affiliate sales have never been the majority of my sales and for many indies they may not know how important this is for affiliates, or it may just not be very high on their priority list. As a lady running my own site, I sometimes have to choose whether to spend my time supporting affiliates or members, and webmasters sometimes don't win. (sorry!)

And that is exactly what you should be doing, imo. The worst thing a true indie site can do is spend all their efforts on trying to please affiliates that don't send enough sales to support the effort required to maintain them.

We like to think of our marketing efforts divided into three main considerations. Internal traffic that is purchased or otherwise created through trades etc., affiliate traffic, and organic traffic generated through seo. We try to balance our daily efforts to maintain a healthy balance between each and this has served us well. I have seen big successful programs fall apart because they spent all their time on affiliates that eventually deserted them for another program - and because profit margins are so much less due to the high payouts they couldn't sustain bloated operations.

Besides, the more an indie learns how to sell themselves the better he/she becomes teaching affiliates how to sell the product.