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You don't have to be in business long in the real world before you begin to realize that quite often it's not how good you really are at what you do that ensures your success or failure, it's how people perceive you that has a great impact on your chances of survival. You can be the hottest web designer and search engine optimization specialist on the planet ... but if you dress like a slob and behave like a caveman you're going to fail.

On the other hand you could have no clue at all about search engine optimization and not be able to develop a website without the help of Front Page but if you tell people you're the best, dress like you're a success and behave like a winner then people will believe you and flock to your door to thrust money into your hands.

Even after you've shown them that you don't have a clue you can go on fooling them for years because once they have a perception of you as a success then they're not going to change their mind in a hurry. If you have trouble accepting that reality me then just trust me on it... it's something I see and experience every day.

So what's that got to do with this industry? Well over the weekend there was a little discussion on Fark about porn and the very first person who made a comment said that he would never join an adult site because all they had were shitty little images and crappy little video clips. As far as he was concerned there was no value for money in a porn membership and there never would be.

Of course you might think that was a perception of just one person ... but it was a point of view that was supported by many other posters in that same thread. All those people just could not be convinced that their perception was wrong and if you have checked out some of your sponsors lately you would know that their perception was definitely WRONG.

Undoubtedly that perception was once quite correct ... and even today there are plenty of sponsors out there who still only deliver 'crappy little video clips'. In fact some of the biggest sponsors do only deliver that but there are so many sponsors who now do deliver great value for money ... but despite those good sites we're still screwed.

The perception is there ... the online porn industry is nothing but a rip-off and we're just never going to beat it. In fact those sites that still deliver the worst experience - and the review sites that do nothing but recommend the crappy sites simply because they get more money from signups from those sites - are doing nothing but reinforcing the perception so how are we ever going to beat it?

Frankly I doubt that we can; parts of this industry have been screwing the consumers ever since online porn began and now the perception people have of our industry is set in concrete forever. Of course, on a personal level we can still work hard to offer quality paysites to the surfers we get to our sites and we can build some level of trust with those surfers that will put money in our pockets.

The power of the tick
Actually getting our surfers to believe that what we're offering is a quality site can be difficult but when you want to know how to encourage that belief in your surfers it's time to take a walk through the aisles of your local supermarket and look at some of the grocery lines you'll see on the shelves.

Take a look at the wording that you'll see on some of the food lines there. Here in Australia many food makers are keen to promote their products as being healthy low-fat alternatives to what many people have enjoyed in the past. To do that and attract people's attention to their products they use key words that resonate with people who are browsing the shelves.

They also use symbols that resonate with consumers too. When I was shopping on Saturday one brand really caught my attention when I spotted a large tick on the box. The product was not something that I would normally buy ... or even notice ... but that tick had a subliminal effect on me and I walked away thinking that perhaps that product was worth thinking about in the future.

Of course the reality of what that tick had just done to me did sink in further down the aisle but if it had that impact on someone who understands marketing then think about what impact it probably has on average consumers. Of course that tick will encourage people to buy once ... but they may never buy again if the power of the tick is not backed up by a quality product.