Some of the biggest money makers I’ve worked on are “user upload” sites, things like Youtube that get all their content from their users, and all the owner has to do is set it up and market it until it gets off the ground, and then sit back and watch the money roll in. There are a few types of “user upload” sites:

• Content sites: Sites like Youtube, any of the Youtube ripoffs, and Jailbaitgallery.com, where users upload content and look at other users’ content. A key principle of these sites is they always have “related posts” (or “related videos” or whatever the theme of the site is) on every page, so people go to view one post, get sucked in, and end up spending all day on the site. The longer someone is on your site, the more pageviews you rack up, and the more ads they’re likely to have clicked.
• Social networks: Myspace, Facebook, Twitter. Users register an account and then interact with each other while the owner does nothing. These sites are set up in such a way that encourages people to spend as much time on them as possible, for example Myspace top friends (how many times have you been looking at a friend’s profile, seen a hot girl on their top friends, and spent ten minutes looking at her pictures and saving them to your desktop to whack off to later?), Facebook’s unofficial “if you’re in college and you don’t have a Facebook, you’re a loser with no friends” slogan, and Twitter and Digg’s apparent magical ability to generate massive amounts of traffic to your website, provided you understand how to work them correctly, which of course takes a long time to learn.
• Forums: Ah, forums, the easiest of the easy. Sign up for vBulletin, throw up a free template and you’re good to go. Members post topics, reply to topics, and generate 100% of the content on their own, with no help needed.

You might be thinking “that all sounds good, but creating a successful social network isn’t that easy,” and you’re right. Most of the Youtube ripoffs have huge budgets (as in 7-8 figures) and there’s just too much competition. This is why you have to be creative.

Very recently I started a “Hot Facebook Babes” blog. Installed Wordpress, designed the theme, and was ready to go. I got a couple of my friends onboard by telling them how successful my other projects have been and that they’d each get 10% of the profits (I always like to pay percentages rather than salaries or set amounts because they understand that if they don’t work, they don’t get paid). Every post took about 3 minutes: post title was the name of the girl and a (very) corny headline, post body was a NextGEN gallery of 4-12 pictures of her, and that was it. I didn’t do shit. My friends posted a few pages and I signed up for a single blog network, added a few friends, and posted a total of 5 comments on high traffic blogs that allowed me to link back to my site.

In the site’s first day, it amassed more than 5400 pageviews from more than 800 unique visitors, 15 incoming links, a whopping 8 minutes average time spent on site, and only a 38% bouncerate. It also had 16 registered users (uploaders) and received 15 Adsense clicks as well as FIVE AFFILIATE PRODUCT SALES. All that in it’s first day. How in the world did this happen? I was actually very surprised, but these are the key principles I worked with that led to its success:

• Creative idea: If there are any similar sites that have any significant traffic, I couldn’t find them. It seems like a simple idea, but if it hasn’t been exploited yet, it’s free for the taking.
• Attention grabber: I admit “Hot Facebook Babes” sounds totally ridiculous, but it gets the job done. All of the traffic came from the blog network and the comments we left on other blogs. When you see the name “Hot Facebook Babes” along with a picture of a beautiful girl, you’re going to click it. A friend of mine produces music under the name “Lil Ringtone” - yes, it sounds ultra retarded, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t look twice if you saw it somewhere. It doesn’t matter how cool your name sounds or how good your content is if no one sees it.
• Exploiting what’s hot: People want to look at hot girls. There will always be a market for that. I was there to capitalize on it.
• Marketing tactics: I didn’t advertise on Adwords because there would be too much competition. I didn’t do any SEO because it’s too much work, and the point of this site is making money without doing work. I advertised for free via other people’s blogs by finding blogs with high traffic, subscribing to them, and commenting early on. If you are one of the first people to comment on a John Chow post, I guarantee you’ll get at least 30 clicks per comment (provided you do everything else I’m telling you to do. If you have an unattractive avatar and a generic sounding name like “SEO Tips” you won’t get nearly as many clicks). Another strategy that I later implemented was Facebook social advertising. The site is about Facebook girls, so why advertise on Adwords when I can advertise on Facebook for the same price? (more about how to “exploit” Facebook ads in a later post)
• Catering to your target market: Once people are at the site, you want them to click on your ads and buy your affiliate products. What kind of people were visiting my site? Obviously males, probably in the 18 to late 20’s age range, whose interests include looking at hot girls. Rather than selecting Facebook related products, I chose offers that were targeted specifically at this demographic. A “how to meet girls on Myspace” ebook and a “how to seduce women into having threesomes by using hypnosis” were the ones that generated sales. Yeah, they sound stupid and ridiculous, but when you’re actively visiting a site about hot girls, and you see all these pictures of hot girls, you’re thinking “I want to meet girls like this.” And my affiliate offers were right there.

I ended up shutting down the site because too many users were stealing pictures on a ridiculous scale and the site received a few complaints, so it just wasn’t worth the risk. But in the time it was up, it was definitely a success. All in all, it took about a week to set up and a total of 1 hour to market it after it was running. Hopefully this gives you some insight into “user upload” sites and you’ll now be able to think of your own creative idea. Leave me some comments with your thoughts, ideas, and questions!

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