What sells better simple design or fancy design?

[marcus]

would I be better off doing a crappy design myself or paying someone like $2k to do a design that's really glitzy with all bells and whistles?

does it even matter?

what works better for a paysite tour?

[Carrie]

Depends on your niche and your traffic.
Just because you do it doesn't mean it'll be crappy, especially if it's a good niche where you really know your stuff and a designer most likely wouldn't. You'd know what to highlight, just how to crop the pictures to get the best pull, and what the main things are that your niche surfer would want to see.

If it's a generic thing though like teens then I don't think it matters so much, as long as the "teen" theme is there with lots of cute girls who LOOK like teens (none of these 30yr olds in ponytails and schoolgirl skirts).

I once commented on some banners that a designer was showing off... one was a BBW banner using a girl that looked to be about 135 pounds. I *know* that wouldn't appeal to the BBW crowd and said so - and summarily got laid open for it by both the designer and the board regulars. Some people just don't know their niches... *shrugs*

Try it yourself first. It never hurts. If you feel it's not converting well enough and you know the traffic is good, go for a designer. But you just might surprise yourself with a tour that you've made.

[cj]

how long is a piece of string?!??!?!


the copy, photos & advertising methods you use to sell your members area content in your tour is more important than what the site looks like, and as a designer that hurts to say

if you aren't very good at design, stick with a really simple page layout and lots of thumbnails with really good captions & lots of 'join now because ...' links throughout the page.

this is pretty ugly imo, but it sells well & its really simple to build - just a few table rows of pictures that are the same size ...

http://www.amateurnudies.com/tour.html

my suggestion would be to have a go yourself, send some traffic, change a few things, send some more traffic, and if you still can't get a few sales, maybe have a designer look at it. At least then you know what to ask for.

imo the most important thing you can do is make your site different to everyone else's standard porn site tour ... very few designers seem to know what they are selling well enough to think as they design, therefore you get a template copy of the same site they sold a week ago.

Feel free to post your design as you go and i'm sure there are plenty of people who can offer you advice on what to do differently ;-)

[Vick]

Oooooo I know, I know



But I'm not telling

[Candice]

a fancy design with nice content is better!!

[SykkBoy]

Surfers just want to see the pussy

the flashy design is to get affiliates to send traffic as they won't send to a "plain" looking site

[sarah_webinc]

sometimes a lot of work goes into making things look simple

[JohnV]

Keep the design clean with quality content....

[Mike AI]

KISS method always works!!

[TeenGodFather]

Fancy content is to get affiliates, not members. But what do I know.

[XXXPhoto]

Originally posted by Vick@Jan 14 2004, 05:56 PM
Oooooo I know, I know



But I'm not telling

Turn the image sideways, crop and put some antialias text on it... it'll pull...



"How's the magic biz going?" Mark asks sheepishly...

[cj]

Originally posted by Candice@Jan 15 2004, 09:26 PM
a fancy design with nice content is better!!

why?!?!?

do you know anything about paysites or are you just make a sweeping statement for the sake of getting that button displayed one more time?

[QuaShe]

Originally posted by cj+Jan 16 2004, 05:09 PM-->