Clip sites are a great traffic source, but do you have a “home base” for your clips?

Having your own website is very important as an independent porn creator due to the fact that oftentimes sites can be unreliable. Whether they go down due to tech issues or disappear permanently, no site that isn’t under your control and being hosted by you will ever be a completely safe bet. Outside of having your own website for the SEO value and to help bring yourself more traffic as a performer, it can also be beneficial to have your own clip and tip store on your website. If you are a performer who has a large customer base already it can be worth the investment longterm. You will generate a higher percentage on each individual sale and you will generate your own dedicated fan base that knows they can purchase your content directly from you rather than paying a middleman. It can also be a great way to take orders for custom content, sell photo sets, or sell tangibles.

What should I use to set up my website?

This guide will be covering a self hosted WordPress website (with an adult friendly host) utilizing the WooCommerce Plugin. If you aren’t at the step where you have your website and hosting set up, you will need to do that first.

How do I create my store?

First things first, you will need to download the WooCommerce plugin on WordPress. You can do this under the Plugins sections of your WordPress Admin. You will need a “sample store” to submit to CCBill for approval in order to pass through their compliance review as well as the Visa and MasterCard compliance review. You will need to set up a few example products to show you have a working store, you will additionally need to add information to your website in order to pass the compliance review from CCBill. CCBill will assign a representative to you that will help you throughout your set up process, don’t hesitate to ask questions!

Make sure you’re ready to request CCBill processing:

• Company or sole proprietor info (including a DBA if you do not have a registered business)
• Two forms of identification
• The URL for the site where you wish to accept payments
• Visa and MasterCard high risk annual registration fee ($1,000)

What does your site need to be CCBill compliant?

• A terms and conditions page
• A refund policy that allows refunds
• Contact information for your business
• Contact information for billing support
• All offsite links should open in a new tab

Ask your CCBill representative for the CCBill WooCommerce Plugin, in order to use it you will go to Plugins within your WordPress admin and go to “Add New.” You will upload the file they provide to you and it will automatically put CCBill as a payment option under your WooCommerce Settings. From there, once your CCBill account is approved and passes CCBill compliance you will get the information that you will enter within your payment settings on WooCommerce.

Once your account passes the CCBill compliance review it will be sent off for Visa review, the whole process should take no longer than 2 weeks if you stay on top of it and communicate with your CCBill representative.

How much does a WooCommerce / CCBill store cost to start?

The cost of running your site will include site hosting, content hosting, any theme you may purchase for your site, and the Visa/MasterCard high risk annual fee of $1,000. You can expect to keep 88%-92% of your income after high risk card processing fees. If you are someone who creates a lot of custom content and wants a place to take payments for custom content where you keep a large percentage, this is a great option and will usually pay itself off rather quickly. When you factor in the extra 8%-12% you will receive rather than using a site that pays 80% for tips (or sometimes even lower) if you make at least $100 a month for the entire year you will make your money back on the fee.

How will I deliver my content?

WooCommerce is equipped to handle digital goods if you provide them with a link. Personally I use Muse.ai because their support confirmed that they are adult friendly and it only costs $8 a month for 500GB of storage. I have the option to link to video only and only allow those with the link to access, which is perfect for these types of sales. I also use them as an adult friendly alternative to sites like Google Drive or DropBox which are not adult friendly.

How do I know if this is a good option for me?

If you don’t have your brand built up and don’t get many custom content requests, this may not be a good option for you. You will be responsible for driving any traffic to the page which is something you don’t have to worry about with most existing clip sites. Having your own clip store interface on your own website is a great option for established models who want to invest in building their brand further and have some money to spare because it is “risky” and may not have the return that you would expect.

How do I get traffic to my own store?

Getting traffic to your own store can seem overwhelming but if you set up with self hosted WordPress you are already a step ahead of the game because you have blogging capability which is super important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and by utilizing SEO you will be able to get organic web traffic to your website and viewing your clips. There are many other ways to drive traffic to your store, including marketing it on your social media, live on cam (if your cam site allows it) and on your fan clubs, watermarking the link onto your clips that you post to clip stores, buying adult traffic, cross promotion with other models, posting previews with watermarks and links to tube sites, posting extended versions of clips onto it and posting the shortened versions to clip stores with an upsell to visit your website, starring in content with another model and requesting a backlink to your website, and more! It is very similar to how you would market your clip sites but with a little more webmaster work on the backend to get the full potential of traffic.

What do I blog about / post about to bring traffic to my WordPress site?

Blog about your launch, blog when you post a new video and link to it, blog when you are planning a collaboration, blog any time anything happens basically! You can get great keyword reach by blogging about pretty much anything you do, even if it isn’t relevant to your store. You can blog about your live webcam schedule, or if you open up a new storefront on a clip site, every time you post a new clip to a tube site! When creating your blogs think “what would I search for if I was looking for this?” For example: people don’t often search full questions or sentences, if they are looking for a porn clip of a hot blond milf they will probably just search… “hot blond milf porn” so you’ll want to utilize keywords that people will actually search!

What are the benefits of having my own store versus a generic clip site storefront?

• Better customization and personalization options
• Control over the information you require from customers
• Higher payout percentage
• Personal branded websites create a stronger foundation for your business
• Ability to troubleshoot tech or payment issues with customers personally rather than relying on an outside party
• More control over uploads, descriptions, keywords, amount of categories
• Control over how and where the content is displayed
• No signing over rights to your content to a clip site that can use it for free for promotion of their own brand
• No on-site competition
• Ability to further monetize your website with advertisements and upsells
• Decreases the likelihood of data breaches on clip sites impacting you
• Control over minimum/maximum pricing

Are there other ways I can bring traffic to my website?

Utilizing tube websites like Pornhub can be a great way to bring more traffic to your self hosted website. You should also advertise your website on all of your social media platforms as well as any website you sell on that allows you to put outgoing links on your timeline or information. It can also be a great idea to use your website as a watermark so that if your content is ever pirated you will get traffic from the views and it will be easier to get taken down. Essentially market your website like it’s the only website that you have and let other websites you are already on do the work for you with internal traffic that they have. If you have good keywords on your website you will also be able to rank for yourself in the search engines so when people inevitably google you after seeing how hot and amazing you are, they will find out that you have an official website created by you!

Other things you should know before self-hosting your own site

First things first, it is a pain. It isn’t going to have the fancy features that your typical clip site has because they paid a tech wizard to make the cool feature that allows you to grab previews straight out of your videos and automatically do screengrabs for your thumbnail. You are going to need to put in the leg work or hire an assistant to do the legwork for you. Depending on your level of technical skill it can be relatively easy to get started or it can be the most painstakingly difficult thing you’ve ever dealt with, your level of perfectionism will also come into play here.

Additionally, this is not the sole way to self host a site. There are plenty of other things you can use besides WordPress, but in my personal experience WordPress is the most SEO friendly as well as the most customizable. There are thousands of templates at your disposal that you can try (I recommend an e-commerce one for this specifically) and plug-ins and other things that you can use to jazz up your website and make it reflect yourself and your brand.

Lastly, if you take this project on then be prepared to put time into it. You will have to go back and forth with CCBill to sort out your compliance and make sure everything is working, you may need to make changes to your website to stay compliant, and you have to stay on top of things to ensure customers aren’t experiencing any issues on the site. You will be handling everything except for payment processing. That includes content delivery, communications, technical support, etc. With the right mindset and the desire to grow, designing and building your own “home base” can be a fantastic way to improve your brand!