FREE, AVS, OR MEMBERSHIP
Before you set up your site, you need to figure out what type of site it will be, free, avs, or membership (pay).
1. FREE
Free sites are intended to build traffic. Some free sites are designed to attract surfers, then send them to pay or avs sites. Other free sites are designed to make money through click-throughs or partnership programs. Click here for some click-through and partnership programs.
As one webmaster at IA200 said, a free site should be ugly and make the surfer want to go elsewhere. Bandwidth should be minimal as a good free site can attract tons of hits. So keep the pictures to a minimum, enough to whet the appetite, but not enough to make the surfer want to camp out.
Also, while it might be a good idea to intersperse the pictures with banners for click-throughs, don't over-do it. If the surfer sees a million banners, and if it not easily evident where the pictures are, he's going to hit his back button and get out of there.
2. AGE VERIFICATION SERVICE
An AVS is perhaps the beginning webmasters' best friend. By signing up with an avs, you become immediate partners with hundreds of other webmasters. You get their traffic, they get yours. You can put together a small site, then offer the surfer access not only to your site, but to thousands of other sites. Some people advertise these sites as free. While technically correct, this may be stretching things.
The concept behind an avs is that you want to ensure each browser is at least 18 years old. The US government has determined that owning a credit card is proof of that, so if a surfer uses a credit card to gain access, he or she is old enough to view adult material. Of course, the webmaster gets anywhere from 60% to 80% of the membership fee, so it can be a good way to generate income (some avs webmasters can get $80,000 per two-week pay period!)
I have a pet peeve with some avs webmasters, though. They say that they use an avs to keep kids from accessing adult material, then they put samples outside the avs! Doesn't make sense now, does it? My personal experience is that having a sample or not makes very little difference in conversion rates, anyhow.
For a list of recommended age verification services, click here.
3. PAY
If you have a large site with plenty of content and you are able to generate large numbers of hits, then a pay site is the way to go. This way, you keep more of the money and you can charge for recurring billing. You can either put up a pay site inside of an avs site (they see 20 pictures by just proving their age, then you hit them with the ability to see hundreds or thousands more) or put it up in its own right.
Pay sites are much more difficult to keep up. You have to go to more work just to build it, then you have to change the content and keep offering new material. On the other hand, the pay-off is bigger.
I do not recommend that anyone, except for large corporations, manage their own payment/password system. Getting a credit card merchant account can be a hassle, but more importantly, just being around to process memberships and issue passwords can be a giant headache. I recommend that webmasters use a membership service for this. Let them deal with the work--the 15-20% they earned is well deserved.
Click here for a list of payment/password service companies.
One final point, just because you choose one method, do not exclude the others. You can be very successful having a combination of all three.