17 replies to this topic

[Shock260]

Well, I dont know about you, but when I started making websites, I was VERY poor with traffic, and I went on MSN begging my friends to Join the website. Well, theres a reason why this is, and I will tell you. Now, I followed a technique I decided to try out, and now I get hundreds - thousands of visitors every 1-2 months!

1. If you start a new website NEVER start a forum system with it! You should start the forums when your website is famous. This is because people will say "This website looks good, but no members, so whats next..." I dont know if it happened to you, but I certainly said that! When your website has at least 50 visitors a month, start a forum system, and for news say "NEW FORUMS - Sign up and gain much more!" and people will say "wow, New forums! I should signup!" and when your forums have at least 10 members, your members will start rolling in.

2. You should always keep your websites user-friendly. Just because you understand complex things, doesnt mean your visitors/clients will. Always treat your visitors as "new to the net" because most of them probrably are. I dont know about you, but 80% of my visitors sometimes don't know what this and that means. So use simple language, and keep your website simple!

3. Use a interesting website template! Don't just use a plain white page with text. Use a nice website template to make the visitors say "wow, what a nice template, let me check this out more." Also, with a nice template, it makes your website look like its been up for a long time, and that you are dedicated to your website, and you will help members whenever they require help!

4. Have a help system on your website! Someone might read something and not understand something, so the first thing that comes to their mind is "Ill ask." Without help on your website, they will leave your website and find another website which will help them! Whether its livehelp or email help, aslong as you have help!

5. Have PLENTY of pages! Its important to have MANY pages on your website so they will always stay entertained! Wouldn't it be boring if there was only 2 Pages (Homepage) and (Contact). We want things like Home | About us | When we started | Competitions | Testimonials and much more! Usually, you find most websites with at least 10 pages!

6. Check your spelling. Checking your spelling is high priority. If your visitors think you can't spell, you will loose lots of reputation!

7. Have a Guestbook! This will give your guests time to tell you about your website. Usually, they will say "Nice website!" or "Not bad, just try adding help" etc!

8. When you type messages (ie. News etc) try adding some emoticons! Emoticons are there for a reason 1) They show your emotion and 2) They make your content look good!

MORE COMING SOON!

Edited by Shock260, 09 June 2006 - 03:11 PM.

[Donna]

1. If you start a new website NEVER start a forum system with it! You should start the forums when your website is famous. This is because people will say "This website looks good, but no members, so whats next..." I dont know if it happened to you, but I certainly said that! When your website has at least 50 visitors a month, start a forum system, and for news say "NEW FORUMS - Sign up and gain much more!" and people will say "wow, New forums! I should signup!" and when your forums have at least 10 members, your members will start rolling in.

I strongly disagree with your statement and know of several sites that started out with just a forum and today are very successful.

[Shock260]

1. If you start a new website NEVER start a forum system with it! You should start the forums when your website is famous. This is because people will say "This website looks good, but no members, so whats next..." I dont know if it happened to you, but I certainly said that! When your website has at least 50 visitors a month, start a forum system, and for news say "NEW FORUMS - Sign up and gain much more!" and people will say "wow, New forums! I should signup!" and when your forums have at least 10 members, your members will start rolling in.

I strongly disagree with your statement and know of several sites that started out with just a forum and today are very successful.

Thanks for spending time to reply to my topic, Donna.
I don't know about others, but when I go on a website which looks good, I then go on the forums. When I see 3 members or something like that, I say to myself "grr, this website is not famous."

Also - If you dont mind me asking, but did the Pixel2Life forums start with the website itself?

Thank you,
John.

[Donna]

From memory yes it was both the site and forum, Faken would need to verify this. First time I came to this site I thought it was some type of gaming site, then Faken emailed me wayyy back then and I joined the forums. There was only a few members when I first came here 111 is not my true membership number as we all got deleted at one time, I've been here since July 2004.

[Faken]

Hi John,

I'll have to read through your article later this evenin, but to answer your question, yes the site started with a forum installed and ready to go. It wasn't even skinned yet either, but it was there

Dan

[Wolfe]

1. If you start a new website NEVER start a forum system with it! You should start the forums when your website is famous. This is because people will say "This website looks good, but no members, so whats next..." I dont know if it happened to you, but I certainly said that! When your website has at least 50 visitors a month, start a forum system, and for news say "NEW FORUMS - Sign up and gain much more!" and people will say "wow, New forums! I should signup!" and when your forums have at least 10 members, your members will start rolling in.

I would also agree with Donna on this one. I believe the member interactivity is key in the primary development of a website. This is best captured in the use of forums where members not only interact with the site, but also with each other.

====

2. You should always keep your websites user-friendly. Just because you understand complex things, doesnt mean your visitors/clients will. Always treat your visitors as "new to the net" because most of them probrably are. I dont know about you, but 80% of my visitors sometimes don't know what this and that means. So use simple language, and keep your website simple!

This really depends on the topic of the website. For example, P2L's audience is primarily vivid coders/designers/computer uses that have major background with computers. Because of this, I find it nice to go to a website that doesn't assume that everyone going to it is a complete moron and shows some equality on the intellectual level of the content.

====

6. Check your spelling. Checking your spelling is high priority. If your visitors think you can't spell, you will loose lots of reputation!

Same could be said about grammar, word usage, formatting, and appropriate punctuation.

Formatting is important in large pieces of text. I can't even begin to read something that is all one GIANT blob of excruciating text where you don't know if it's harder to read it or to find the beginning of a sentence.

For example, I could go on a frenzy with your post.

====

7. Have a Guestbook! This will give your guests time to tell you about your website. Usually, they will say "Nice website!" or "Not bad, just try adding help" etc!

Personally, I always found guestbooks more of a AIM Profile type thing. When on websites, I see them as quite useless and annoying. A cheap and easy way to utilize member interactivity rather than going through the trouble of the forums.

====

A lot of this is obviously based upon your opinion and nothing else.

Edited by Wolfe, 08 June 2006 - 10:42 PM.

[Jem]

8. Use lots of exclamation marks! Full stops/periods are obviously not in fashion!

[blainex]

. If you start a new website NEVER start a forum system with it! You should start the forums when your website is famous. This is because people will say "This website looks good, but no members, so whats next..." I dont know if it happened to you, but I certainly said that! When your website has at least 50 visitors a month, start a forum system, and for news say "NEW FORUMS - Sign up and gain much more!" and people will say "wow, New forums! I should signup!" and when your forums have at least 10 members, your members will start rolling in.

I also disagree with this, almost every website starts out with a forum and overtime they grow it's just personal preference if i say so myself you choose if you want to start out with a forum or not, and in some cases to get the user system running you might want to have a forum so that the main site and forum are tied together so yes people

7. Have a Guestbook! This will give your guests time to tell you about your website. Usually, they will say "Nice website!" or "Not bad, just try adding help" etc!

No No and No i never liked this guestbook idea it seems so unprofessional and i think it's more for sites who dont plan on making there site a long term thing. So no never go with the guestbook

[Shock260]

Hello Guys,
Firstly thanks guys for sending your useful replies. I am going to update my topic and remove the forums part from it. But blainex, I strongly disagree with you there. When I see other guestbooks, including mine they usually say "Great site, try doing this etc." We all have different tastes, and really you guys are right about the forums.

Faken, firstly can I just quickly say "Nice website, and well done for making it very sucessful."

Right, back to the other people. You guys have to learn this is a tutorial just to help you out. It is not forcing you to do anything. Also, personally I wouldnt start a forum with my website until my website gets famous.

As I said guys, thank you for spending time to read and reply to this topic,
John

[Donna]

Hello Guys,
Firstly thanks guys for sending your useful replies. I am going to update my topic and remove the forums part from it. But blainex, I strongly disagree with you there. When I see other guestbooks, including mine they usually say "Great site, try doing this etc." We all have different tastes, and really you guys are right about the forums.

Faken, firstly can I just quickly say "Nice website, and well done for making it very sucessful."

Right, back to the other people. You guys have to learn this is a tutorial just to help you out. It is not forcing you to do anything. Also, personally I wouldnt start a forum with my website until my website gets famous.

As I said guys, thank you for spending time to read and reply to this topic,
John

You shouldn't alter your article and yes it's an article not a tutorial, because of our comments.

You also say:

Well, I dont know about you, but when I started making websites, I was VERY poor with traffic, and I went on MSN begging my friends to Join the website. Well, theres a reason why this is, and I will tell you. Now, I followed a technique I decided to try out, and now I get hundreds - thousands of visitors every 1-2 months!

hundreds - thousands of visitors every 1-2 months and you call that not well known? It's a little contradicting to what your saying.

Lastly I forgot about the guestbooks, IMO they just fill your database up with gunk and completely pointless and look tacky on corporate websites if you have a contact page with an email to contact you on why have a guestbook as well?

[Spooky]

May I prove this wrong? Thanks.

Example: *cough* *cough*

I have a personal site! Please visit one of my pages ! I have 10.2 million of them to keep you entertained ! Look I can use an emoticon : This one relates to my face

OH YA! I HAVE A FORUM NOW!

Please join! It is all about me, when I go to The bathroom OMGZORS ROFLZ!!! EXCLAMATION POINT!!! YA

Cheese! Oh yes click on my navigation

Home | Other Home | Forum About Me | Forum About My Dog | Guestbook (This one is full has 5 entries, use next) | Guestbook 2 (full) | ... | Guestbook 124135 (1 space left, write!) | !!!!11!!! | EMOTICONS!!! | I have a template, instead of white on black its black on white (this link explains how I did it) | My friends | My poop pictures | My dogs poop pictures | My life story | How we (<< note the we part) started)

Oh yes I forgot to mention our forum, it has 10 members, it must be famous!

Oh but your forum only have 9 members to might loose some because your not famous.

----

Paleeease, you can throw a personal site out there, with a forum linked to it, maybe just a blog and thats it, and get a couple of members fast. ChrisGross.net for example. (Ok he took his forums down, but he had like 100 members, all there to talk about him)

Might want to reconsider your article, I am not trying to be mean, just trying to show you that those are your opinions on making a successful website. Hundreds to thousands of visitors each month. P2L and Spoono.com rank in the what, hundreds OF thousands a month?

Think about the article more, maybe a rewrite.

And Donna is right, don't just edit the article.

Edited by Spooky, 09 June 2006 - 11:02 PM.

[Wolfe]

Right, back to the other people. You guys have to learn this is a tutorial just to help you out. It is not forcing you to do anything. Also, personally I wouldnt start a forum with my website until my website gets famous.

Even if it is meant to "help us out," you're basing everything you're saying off of your opinions and not factual information. Nothing is wrong with opinions. Provided you know that it is widely believed; however, this is obviously not the case with your article, as it is quite disbelieved by all of us.

Not to mention, you're contradicting yourself throughout the entire thing.

Show me a good example of a guestbook that isn't LOADED with bullshit, and I'll consider considering your idea.

I think the largest factors of success are content, presentation, and professionalism.

[blainex]

Exactly tell me which professional website you'd go on and see a guestbook. I've never seen one on MSN.com, neither at yahoo or google and it surely wont reach at my website. Think about it guestbook.. are well guestbooks are for losers:p yah i said it i'm only joking though but seriousely if your planning on making the website unprofessional by all means get yourself a guestbook

[Dirk Black]

well guestbooks are for losers:p yah i said it i'm only joking though but seriousely

this is awesome, oh and spooky you are the man, just kidding no seriously

[Danny]

If you have a forum dont use a guest box or shout box. Webnovices use shoutboxes and guestbook

When i released my site, i focused on the forum first, purely because i wanted my members to be able to contribute and earn from my website.

After a few months, its worked out great for me. I have 68 members, some templates and tutorials. All for about 1 hours work.

The site originally started as an example site for uni (i want to take web design so i wanted to be able to show what i know).

its just been growing from there. Ive had about 260k hits since i started. back in april i think it was..

obviously i cant be to lazy about it, ive made quite a few new additions to it since then, such as web site intergrate, search engine optimization and a hit counter.

And the site its self has cost me nothing

[Dirk Black]

is this a signiture or an ad? lol

[Aussiestinger]

I think if you start off with a forum it is a lot easier if you have a good base of friends, if that makes sense. Go around to other forums, be active and make some friends, talk to them over messenger and they will be a lot more likely to join your forum, then you have a small backing for a forum, which will if you have a good site/forum/ideas then you will get going great.

[Danny]

just start both at the same time its what ive done.