Next in the series of website and social media teardowns that I'm doing for BrutalTeardowns.com is the teardown of a site called XLLProjectLLX.com, which sells (non-nude) professional twerking videos.
Disclaimer: There's nothing nsfw in this post, but it does deal with a site that has some nsfw themes. I'll try to keep it clean
Background:
I had a request from Jerome Carter to teardown his business website, which he explained like this:
Thank you for checking out my post I'm a new business owner working in a adult entertainment business catering to a particular niche professional twerking no nudity. They don't just bounce their booty. They're really good dancers.
At the moment I have one customer and 9 registered users, all on mailing list.
Looking a bit further into this, it seems like Jerome had hired some professional twerkers he found on instagram to create some original videos for his website, and was then looking to sell these videos in a pack for $49.99.
First Impressions
I think it's a hard sell when I imagine there are so many of these videos available online for free. The adult industry in general is being hit pretty hard by freely available content online
Consider a rebrand to something with 'twerk' in it. XLLProjectXLL doesn't tell me what you're about
You only have 14 videos total? This isn't enough. You need to constantly be producing more, original content, and pushing as much as that content out to social as you can.
Landing Page
Initial Presentation
I think the biggest thing I notice when I hit your website is that it looks like the default theme for online forum software. It's not really a landing page that looks crafted like a landing page. I'd highly recommend you go find some professional twerkers and check out how their pages look. Also, consider looking at some other adult/porn star sites and seeing how they structure the landing page vs free content vs paid content, and how they go about it.
I think having the menu below the logo/heading is taking up way too much real estate, that you could be using to present your twerkers. I'd throw the menu on the same line as your site name, ditch the sub-heading on your site name
Hero Section:
- The full-screen youtube video just isn't a great idea. It's slow to load, and it's annoying. It also doesn't really tell me anything about the site. If you're looking to highlight some videos, I'd probably have them in a youtube-like format, like Jessica Vanessa's site
- There needs to be some kind of value proposition shout-out here. Something to tell me that your site is THE site to buy twerking videos from.
Rest of Landing Page:
The copy for the Professional twerk videos kind of looks thrown together. Honestly I'd ditch this altogether and just have a grid of the preview videos. If someone clicks a preview video, it takes them to a page where they can view that video (not full screen) with a nice "buy premium membership now!" button.
Ditch the sidebar, I don't think it adds anything, and it takes up valuable real estate that could be used to sell people. Add the login link to the top menu.
Consider a "Top videos" column/row and a "New videos" column/row, with view more buttons. The key is to move the focus onto the videos, to get people watching them and to entice them to unlock the rest
I think the idea of listing your models is a bit counter-productive when you only have two models. You want to appear like you have a ton of content... focus on the plethora of videos rather than the lack of professional twerkers.
I'd throw some sort of "Start of 2018" special on the landing page. Make it the same price if you want, but something to indicate that now is a good time to buy, and that your content is fresh.
Why are you linking out to the models' pages? That directs traffic away from your site, especially since you're not even opening the links in a new window. Create a profile for each model on your site. And especially don't link to their patreon, where people can pay them instead of you
Footer:
Pay for a theme and ditch the copyright from the bottom.
This is a place to put in contact info, have a mailing list signup, etc. Make use of that.
Rest of Website
Professional Twerk Videos -> Model Pages:
I'd Change "Professional Twerk Videos" to "Our Professional Twerkers". Make the main menu link go to a page that lists your models, rather than the homepage.
The album/preview images are GIGANTIC. They take forever to load on my 100mbps connection
Again, ditch the sidebar. It consumes valuable real estate
You should have a longer blurb for each model. Have a big photo on the left, a detailed description on the right, then all of her preview videos underneath.
Do not have separate links to albums they've posted... just list all the videos on the main profile.
When you click to play a preview, it should open a modal or something, not play in the tiny tiny preview view it is.
Known Twerkers -> Twerk Leggings:
- Delete this whole section. It just makes no sense. Not sure why it's under a "Known Twerkers" heading either.
Forums:
- Delete this, it's not being used, and makes the site look empty
Projects:
- Delete this too. I have no idea what it's meant to be, but it's not working
Account:
- This is just a page with two login forms, side by side.
- Delete the side menu, then use this as an opportunity to have a sign up form on one side, and a login form on the other. That way, if non-members click here, there's enticement to join.
About xllProjectllX:
Inconsistent branding "XLLProjectLLX" vs "xllProjectllx"
Move FAQ, affiliate disclosure and privacy policy to your footer
Delete the "Where to find xllprojectxll" menu item and just add social links to your footer/header/landing page. Remember to only include social links for platforms where you are actively posting content and engaging with your followers
- The funding section is just confusing, because it changes the entire business model of the site. Are you charging a monthly subscription fee or are you charging a one-time fee for lifetime access? In fact, this page seems to imply a patreon-style influencer payment model. You need to step back and re-think how you're going to charge people for these videos.
Social Media
Vimeo/YouTube:
- I would suggest if you want to build an audience on either of these platforms, that you're going to need to create and publish longer videos
Twitch/LinkedIn/Deviant Art/Minds.com/Vk/Pinterest
- Probably not worth linking these from your site.
Instagram:
Your account is named "Jerome Carter". Fix that.
Your post descriptions should be more than just a sales pitch. Write a story for each video that encourages people to "read more" and then engage with your post
Your videos are basically just ads for your site. There's no real content for people to sink their teeth into.
Your content mix should include some photos.
Hashtags and posting schedule look fine, though I'd watch out for 'banned' hashtags like #twerkvideo. It not only reduces your likelihood of being discovered, but also can potentially flag your account for a shadowban when you keep posting to banned tags.
- Spend an hour a day making non-spammy comments on other photos for the hashtags you're using, and also on the posts of people that are engaging on photos posted to the hashtags you're using. Eg, I go to #shakethatass, I see this photo, and two comments - So comment on this video, then go to the profile for each of the people that posted those two comments, and comment on some of their posts.
Twitter:
Don't just share links from Instagram. Post content separately to this platform
Post better captions to go along with your images/videos
Use 1-3 hashtags on Twitter
Engage in every discussion that's happening on hashtags relevant to you. Try and look for the top performing accounts on those hashtags, and engage with their audience.
When I say engage, I mean "write non-spammy comments". It doesn't take long and the return on investment is pretty high.
On twitter it's okay to post about stuff that's not your own. Eg, links to youtube videos about twerking, articles about twerking, etc. There's like a recommended 3:2:1 ratio of Links to other sites : your own content : links out to your own site, though I wouldn't be afraid to post more of your own content if it's mixed between photos, videos and text.
Facebook:
- I'd still recommend re-posting Instagram content to Facebook separately, even though it posts the actual content natively. The main reason is so that you can delete all the hashtags, and also post a longer story in the content of the post
- Use a Facebook pixel to build an audience of visitors to your site + then target them down the track with advertising... though to be honest I'm not entirely sure if your site will get through their filters, in that regard.
General Growth Strategy
I would feature blog articles on "How to become a professional twerker", "the key to a perfect twerk", "Who are the top 5 professional twerkers?" etc. Do all your keyword research around this topic and write articles that match what people are searching for... then don't just rely on SEO to get those articles out there. Share them on your social media, post summaries of them to social platforms on reddit with link-outs to your blog (eg, do one in /r/socialmediamarketing about how one of your models built her social media following). Anything educational is great for SEO and inbound traffic.
I would heavily feature your videos on relevant reddit groups. I'd probably remove the "THIS IS A TRIAL ONLY YOU HAVE TO PAY TO SEE THE FULL VIDEO" stuff. Post a few full-length videos that get people wanting to see the rest. Make the branding subtle but obvious.
I'd also look at making your videos embeddable, and featuring them on tube sites. Also Pornhub (even if there's no actual porn in the videos). Pull the "high res / full video available trick" that you're sort of doing. I'm sure there must be some blog posts around about how to optimise click-outs from pornhub - go find them and read them.
Generally, more content. If you can convince your models to keep letting you share their photos and videos, or better yet have them send you the ones that were rejected from their social media feed, but that they're still happy to share - a model may take 300 photos to post 1, and there's probably 5 she's happy with, which means 4 that she's not posting to her profile that you could use. (or something like that)
The Response
Literally sent this teardown to Jerome minutes before writing this Steemit post, so am yet to receive a response. Will definitely post it up on BrutalTeardowns.com when I do receive one back. In the meantime, if anyone has a site/business that they want torn down, plase feel free to send it through. It'll get posted here, and on the site.