I get a lot of questions on the celebrity niche, and how you can make money, if you can make money, how easy is it to make money and so forth. So I am going to give you a crash course in celebrity sites. But before I get started, let me explain a few things.

If you are worried about DMCA and other celebrity issues, this is not a niche for you. Many people are too scared to be in this market. So do not bother reading any further. Secondly, if you are one of these people who think anything remotely along the lines of, “Why would people pay when everything is free on web”, or, “Why would people buy porn when it is all free on torrents, tubes, etc.”, do not bother me. You have the wrong mind set for an online business, and should head back to your fry vat. You will never make money if that is your thought process.

Alright, now that those people are out of the way. First things first. I am going to briefly touch on some of the things, especially western world, people need to concern themselves. However, I am not going to go in depth into them. That is what you pay CONSULTING for.

1. Set up an LLC ($350-500).
2. Set up business bank account. ($25)
3. Get/buy/license some
4. Get/build/buy a celebrity site CMS.

I personally have two CMS’s I have built, and a few variations of them. One of a base line CMS that will do a pay site ($500.00), allowing previews of your membership area. It allows the first 24 hours free, and then after that, you have to pay. Clicking on an archived image will only get you the join page.

I have a second celebrity CMS that is a tube hybrid pay site script ($1500.00). This would allow for celebrity videos. This works the same way. You get the first 24 hours preview free, and then after that you have to pay or you will get the join page.

You can tinker with the settings, and have the sites auto shuffle via a cron job if you wanted, or are a lazy fuck, and do not want to update daily. However, I do actually update daily.

5. You need a processor. Not all processors will work with celebrity sites. However, Verotel (14%) and Zombaio (4.9%) both will. Better yet, you have no VISA ($750-1500.00) fees. You can opt for check, ACH, or WIRE to your business bank account.

6. Setting your site up correctly for SERPS. This is the folly for most people. Not setting up their site correctly from the get go. People think you need 100’s of links, and all this other bullshit. Wrong.

Here is one, of many, examples where an old (sold) site that is not even being actively marketed. I have spend NO time promoting the site, nor have I done much linking of any kind. I do not buy traffic, or links.

SKIN SERPS

Now this is a site that I have not done any promotion on. But it is a good example of how proper page set up can make a huge difference in getting you some decent SERPS and traffic to your site. I have some blogs, and other sites that are doing the same or better examples as this and I have never actively promoted them in ANY way.

Good keywords, proper page set up are KEY to getting you good results. If you want to spend your time, money, and energy further promoting the site with mainstreams traditional methods to increase SERPS. Have at it.

7. Type of site(s). You can take your vast content library and do a number of sites. I typically only do pay sites. That is my forte. However, you can do blogs, use for image hosting, do survey sites, among countless other things. You can do one, or all, and over time be the celebrity king.

Ok. So next, how do you get some members to your site(s). Again, I am not going to go into all of the various methods in detail. However, I will list some ideas for you.

Examples:
Image hosts. Forums. Sigs. Blogs. Fan Sites. PPC Ad buys. Buy traffic. TGP Submits. Free Sites. Link Network. Banners. Among many other things.

8. Picking a price point. If you look around the price on celebrity membership sites varies. Many of them are charging more money… $30-50 per membership, however, I have always been around $10-15. The reason for this is, I am not looking for massive charge backs. I am also not looking for affiliates. So I do not need to have a huge price point since I do not have that overhead. Because of that, I have never been over the 2% charge back imposed by processors. In fact, I have never even been over a half a percent in over a decade in the celebrity niche!

Keep those things in mind when you are setting the price for your site, and what your short and long term goals are for the site(s). You are better off doing a smaller price point, and then doing the marketing yourself then having to deal with massive charge backs or fraud.

One of the best things about celebrity sites is that you have so many marketing and traffic options available to you. Which is very nice if you have some money to spend. It will NOT circumvent you building traffic yourself, but you do have some options available to you that not all niches will.

9. Use your content library to build a network. Yes, this will take some time to build and set up your different sites and link them, get traffic and so forth. But over time, you will build yourself a nice little traffic generator. Just because content is on one site does not mean you can’t use some/part on another. There are many ways to monetize this business model.

10. Install OpenX or an ad server. Make sure that ALL your sites on your network are running ads. Preferably centralized. This can be done many ways, from links to ad rotation and so on. You do not need to stick to just one. You can try many different ways to do it. Whether you start selling ad buys on the boards for $50-100 a month, or you simply want to use PPC or some other company to sell your ad space for you (typically taking 50%). It is another revenue stream you should not forget about.

This is just a short overview, of course, as this is typically what I give those who ask me about the celebrity sites and market. The rest you either need to do yourself, or pay someone. Realistically, you can easily get 200+ member in a short period of time to your site, and most will rebill for a number of months. (Keep in mind, this is subjective on your offering and price point as well)

ex: $12.00 (after processing costs) x 200 = $2400.00

I have been in the celebrity niche since getting out of college in ‘97. For me, it is a labor of love. I have always enjoyed the niche, so it is not that hard for me to put in a couple of hours a day, M-F, collecting images, and updating my site(s). However, like with ANY membership site. You need to put in the work and effort. Motivation and consistent work ethic is what will make, or break, you.