SEO For Adult Webcam Affiliate Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website or blog to make it more likely to rank in the popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Since Google is the main search engine, that’s the one we’re going to be focusing on. SEO is an important concept for all affiliate marketing (and marketing in general) but is extra important in the adult industry, due to the large search volume occurring on a daily basis. By SEO optimizing a website and get it ranked, you’ll secure a steady stream of high-quality traffic. Here’s what you need to know about SEO
DISCLAIMER: Google is constantly updating their algorithm, therefore SEO changes very fast. Due to that nature, this guide is going to be more focused on the broad SEO concepts, as opposed to trying to record the weight of every single algorithm signal.
Onsite SEO VS Offsite SEO
When it comes to SEO, there’s two main categories: “Onsite SEO” and “Offsite SEO”. Onsite SEO includes all the content curation, optimization of the onsite content and the technical stuff that impacts site speed, crawling and indexing, and so on. Offsite SEO is primarily link-building, social signals and other things that occur off of the actual website. We’ll get more in-depth into both below.
Onsite SEO For Affiliates
As mentioned above, Onsite SEO is all of the optimizations that occur on the actual website itself. This ranges from the actual curation of the onsite content, to making sure the onsite content HTML is optimized, doing things to improve site speed and more. Here are some of the main onsite SEO factors:
Onsite Content: In order to rank content, you first need the content to rank. This is where blogging and other forms of content curation comes into play. Each piece of content has the ability to target a wide range of keywords and search phrases. The more niche and targeted the content, the easier it is to target niche queries. Content curation is one of the most important aspects of the overall SEO strategy.
Header Text: Header text (<h1>, <h2>. <h3>) is one of the more important onsite content elements, and optimized header text is one of the easiest onsite SEO optimizations that can be tuned. There should only be one H1 per page and this should be insanely keyword rich.
Image Optimization: Images also play a role in SEO. Image optimization includes a number of things. For example; keyword rich image names and alt-text can help with targeting keywords and phrases. Image size optimization is also important, as it impacts load time. Site speed is a ranking factor, especially with the mobile-first indexing.
Site Speed: Anything that an affiliate marketer can do to make their affiliate site run faster will hep with SEO. This includes having the best hosting possible, investing in a CDN, having clean code, site caching, the list goes on. Bottom-line: Anything you can do to make the site run faster will not only help with your SEO, but also the UX (User Experience) and CRO (Conversion-Rate Optimization).
Internal Linking: Internal linking works just like backlinking (which will be covered below) in the sense that “PageRank” flows through internal links, boosting up the authority of the linked-to pages. When Google crawls internal links, they also look at the anchor-text (hyperlinked text) to get a better idea of what the linked-to pages are about. Optimized anchor-text will help the rankings of the linked-to pages.
Domain Name: There’s advantages of having a more keyword rich domain name. If you already have your domain name, it’s uncontrollable. If you’re still shopping for your domain name, it’s possible to snag one up that has some good keywords in it.
Crawling / Indexing: Perhaps one of the most important onsite elements, due to the fact that if the pages can’t get crawled and indexed, they’ll never show up in search. For example; if the crawlers are blocked by robot.txt, those pages will never be crawled. Definitely make sure your site can be crawled properly and indexed properly.
Sitemaps: On the topic of indexing, sitemaps are a great way to make sure the search engines are aware of all your content. If you’re using a CMS, there’s a good chance it’s insanely easy to auto-generate sitemaps. Once the sitemap is generated, it can be submitted to Google through Google Webmaster Tools and Bing through Bing Webmaster Tools.
Offsite SEO For Affiliates
Onsite SEO involves all SEO that takes place off of the actual website. This primarily means link-building and social signals. Here’s the main things you need to know about offsite SEO.
NOTE: We’ve got a list of sites for link-building further down this post!
Link-Building: Link-building is one of the most important ranking factors. The number of “backlinks” or links to your site is very important. Also; not all links are created equal. For example; “DoFollow” links are more effective than “NoFollow” (NoFollow is generally used for paid links or UGC). Also; the higher the authority of the sites / pages being linked from impacts the value of the links. It’s also better to have links form multiple sites, as opposed to links from a limited number of sites.
Search engines will also look at the anchor-text (hyperlinked text) of the backlinks to better determine what the linked-to page is about. Having keyword rich anchor-text will help the rankings of the linked-to page.
Social Signals: It’s been long disputed whether number of social signals are a ranking factor, or a victim of the causation / correlation fallacy, as sites with stronger social signals generally have better backlink signals as well. That being said; there is at least a strong correlations that suggests social signals matter. In addition to number of shares, tweets, ect, it also appears that having “OG (Open Graph) data helps with a site’s rankings.
Ranking Pages On Other Sites: The other advantage of having an offsite strategy is the ability to get content on other sites rank. This could be a Twitter handle, a guest blog post, the list goes on. Although ranking content on other sites isn’t as valuable as ranking content on a site you control, it’s still a way to claim even more search engine real estate.
Content Strategy / Keyword Targeting
The content strategy and keyword targeting is very important. This is especially true when it comes down to the more competitive keywords and terms. Below we’ve got some general information and tips that affiliate marketers can use to be more effective at their content strategy.
Niche Sites Vs Broad Sites
There’s advantages about going niche, as well as benefits to going with a more broad site. The advantage of niche sites is that everything is so much more easier to target to that specific niche; you can have a keyword rich domain name, all the onsite content is focused towards that particular niche and all the internal links and back-links will be more targeted by default.
The disadvantages is that only that single niche can be targeted by that single site. You’d need to be running multiple niche sites to target more fetishes. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but a more broad site can be all-inclusive, without the need to run multiple sites and to SEO multiple sites. With multiple niche sites, your link-building will be splitting the authority between the different sites, as opposed to being consolidated on one single domain.
Do Not Use Content Without Permission!
Not only is it a horrible thing to do, but can also compromise your SEO! This is because that’s the easiest way to get your content DMCA’d to Google and other search engines! Even with completely compliant affiliate content, you will get DMCA’d in mass crawls / submissions. This is going to be increased by folds if you’re using content without permission. Also; using the content without permission is theft, regardless of whether or not that content is being used to promote the performer.
If you’re interested in promoting a performer, the easiest thing you can do is reach out to them and ask. If they say no, honor it! There’s plenty of networks that offer content for promotion. Take advantage of these networks.
Keywords Vs Longtails
When trying to determine what pages should be targeting what, it’s important to realize the difference between keywords and longtails, and how to go about ranking for either. “Keywords” are generally more valuable (depends on the keyword) but much harder to rank. For example; “Camgirls” would be a highly valuable but highly competitive term to rank for. Especially since any affiliate marketer is running an adult site, while competing with mainstream / SFW sites, such as Wikipedia or Vice.
A term like “Blonde Busty Camgirl” (a more “longtail” query) would be easier to rank for, but doesn’t have quite the search volume. It might be possible to rank a blog post for something like that with little or no link-building or internal linking at all. This might be achievable from a simple blog post alone.
To where ranking a page for that original “Camgirls” query would require some internal linking, backlinking, plus having a well optimized page that the affiliate marketer is trying to rank.
If you’re starting out a brand new site, the longtail content is definitely going to be the easiest to rank. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be making an attempt at the more valuable keywords as well. Targeting the top keywords are going to be a long work in progress, but there will never be progress made if the affiliate / webmaster doesn’t keep working at it.
SEO For Whitelabeled Camming Sites
Whitelabeled camming sites is where a webmaster / affiliate marketer is able to rebrand a camming site as their own. The affiliate marketer gets commissions for the sales that occur on their whitelabeled version. Most of the major camming sites offer whitelabels to affiliates. Whitelabeling a camming site is insanely turnkey and convenient, but whitelabels face a number of challenges. We highlight the challenges and give some tips about doing SEO for a camming whitelabel.
Whitelabels and Duplicate Content Issues
The major issue whitelabels face is the fact that everything is 100% duplicate content, all on the same IP / nameservers. This is one of the worst SEO practices possible. To add on top of that, some whitelabels have very minimal things that can be changed. For example; you might be able to change some of the meta and some of the onsite content, but how much you can change varies based on on the whitelabeled site builder and what is possible.
Whitelabels Associated To Brands More Successful
One major reality with whitelabels is that the ones associated with brands are usually the most successful. The most powerful example is Pornhub / MinkGeek‘s Streamate whitelabel that’s highly integrated into Pornhub’s site. Pornhub doesn’t even really need to worry about SEOing their whitelabel, as they’re able to leverage their tube sites high traffic to sell their users on cams on their platform. In fact, you’ll notice that the majority of the tube sites are also running camming whitelabels.
Building Niche Whitelabeled Camming Sites
One way to stand out from the crowd and stand a better chance of running a successful whitelabel is through building out a niche whitelabeled camming site. Many (not all) of the whitelabeled cam platforms will allow webmasters to select what categories / fetishes to be featured on their whitelabeled version. By using a niche exact-match domain name, and doing some targeted link building, you stand a chance at ranking for “<Fetish> Camming site” and other relevant queries. Keep in mind that not all whitelabeled platforms are this customizable.
Whitelabels VS API-Powered Sites
If you’re considering going the whitelabel route, also consider going the API route. Basically every camming site with an affiliate program offers an API. This can be used to auto-import the affiliate content, model information, ect. The advantage of going API over whitelabel is that you have full access over the source code. This means that you can make the content much more unique than you ever could with a whitelabeled site. Sure, you are hosting your own content, increasing the overhead, and it requires some coding knowledge, but if you can pull it off, this is definitely the way to go.
If you’re looking for a product that makes it easy to import camming site affiliate program API content, definitely take a look at RoboScripts or WPLiveCam. You’re going to have to come out of pocket a little bit of change, but both are solid platforms and definitely worth it.
Sites For Building Backlinks
As mentioned above, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factor. Therefore, link-building is very important and something all SEOs need to practice. Not only will building links via these sites help with the SEO, but they’ll work to drive traffic as well. Here’s some sites that adult affiliates can use for link-building:
AdultNode – AdultNode is an adult-friendly social media site. Any links shared on AdultNode will provide a DoFollow backlink.
AVN Stars – AVN Stars is a fanclub platform / social network developed and ran by AVN. With AVN Stars, users can get DoFollow backlinks from the profile description, as well as links in the actual posts themselves.
LoyalFans – LoyalFans is a new fanclub platform / social network powered by Clips4Sale. LoyalFans users are able to indicate a website link. The website link is NoFollow. Links can also be shared via the feed / social element.
NewTumbl – NewTumbl is a SFW Tumblr alternative. All Newtumbl links are DoFollow.
Sex.com – Probably the most popular porn-pinning site. Sex.com has great traffic and can be used to drive traffic and it helps with SEO. You can also place your own custom banner artwork that will appear under your pins and direct traffic to your website.
Sharesome – Sharesome is an adult social network. The profile link is NoFollow, and it doesn’t seem like search engines crawl the actual posts.
Smutty – Another porn pinning site with a unique layout and interface. Porn pinned to Smutty will contain a click-through link back to where the content was pinned from.
Switter – Switter is an adult-oriented Twitter alternative build on the Mastodon platform. Switter is designed primarily for escorts, but camming models can take advantage of the platform as well.
Twitter – Twitter is a popular (and adult-friendly) social network that provides a NoFollow website link.
Jizz.xxx – In addition to pinning free content, models can also register and get paid from selling content sets and from live camming.