Tips on creating a good website!

[phatuis 0]

For the sake of it, I will point out some uneccessary things.

2) Privacy Policy: With all of the concern over privacy on the Web if you collect any type of information from your visitors (even if it's just an email address) you need to include a privacy policy. There are many online templates that will help you to create one easily. Once made, post a link to it on every page of your site.

I dont see that as a necessity, I am sure many of the users on my forum do not care whether there e-mail is given out, as most crap that comes from those sorts of things goes straight to the spam box.

6) Make It Sticky: Include interactive features if possible, such as live news feeds. Check out http://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/products/newsdesk.page for tons of news feed topics you can paste into your site for free. Use chat rooms, discussion boards, etc. You want to create a sense of community where people will want to return.

Now this can be just plain wrong to add to a site, if you have an Anime website, why would you add a News Ticker for the sake of it, it just takes up room that could be used in many more appropriate ways. Using chat rooms on forums is a big no-no, I have been reviewing forums for quite a bit now, and know how many say it helps the general morale of the forum. This is wrong, all it will do is take discussion where it counts, in the boards on your forum.

8) Browsers: You'd be amazed at how differently your website appears in different browsers. Make sure you take a peek at your site in Netscape and Internet Explorer. Recent stats show IE has about 80% of the market share, but you'll still want to make sure the other 20% can view your site without any problems.

From what I have seen, and believe, many users ban IE users from accessing their website, reason being IE is the least secure, and it displays things all over the place, where as the other browsers are most likely going to all display the same thing as each other, apart from IE.

Another highly valuable thing you have not included is your niche. Many owners of forums and websites own a forum/website which they are not passionate about. They think it is just another pastime, whereas you should be passionate about what your forum.website is about. This is where many fail.

All of this experience comes from constant reviewing of websites and forum.
Edited November 16, 2009 by phatuis (see edit history)

[contactskn 2]

I think really very good tips they are and most of the newbies in the field of website development will be helped with these tips. Such good topics only make the Xisto different from others.?

[legend112 0]

Newsletters

 

When i created my first site, i tried to make use of them but failed miserably. I think one thing that has to be said here is that for them to work, you need a very catchy layout and you have to make the newsletter interesting by including images and info on new promotions, etc.

 

You have to give people reason to click on a link in that newsletter, and people will only do that if they want to be a part of something great happening at your site.

Design

 

Believe me, most sites die because of design. Its one thing to have a million visitors and another to have many return visits. a good design should stick in people's minds and its one of the things that bring uniqueness to a site.

 

In summary, your design has to be relevant to your main focus, and you have to keep it simple.

 

SEO

I'm surprised people haven't talked about this that much...search engine optimization will account for +60% of your sites success. whether you are going to use money or not to fine-tune your seo in order to appear on search pages, your site has got to have a lot of content...and it has to have a good keyword density too.

 

I would advise newbies to focus much on optimizing for Google as the others Yahoo, Bing, etc have less market share, therefore get way less searches. If you got money to spend, getting seo people to sort it for you is not a bad idea or buying space on google or some other sites.

 

Affiliates

 

With a new site, you have to realise you cannot live alone. Word has to get out that your site is there so you need affiliates. you need to be part of a network of sites that more or less focus on your primary goals. you need link exchanges, one thing i do: i make sure i submit my site to at least one directory every day and also get at least two affiliates every week. if you keep at it, your site will get more and more traffic.

 

Reviews

 

you need to know whats right and wrong about your site even after doing everything under the sun. you have to submit your site for reviews a couple of times so that you get varied opinions and can make an informed decision in the end if you really should change anything...

 

good luck to all newbies....may your site be successful

[phatuis 0]

Newsletters

 

When i created my first site, i tried to make use of them but failed miserably. I think one thing that has to be said here is that for them to work, you need a very catchy layout and you have to make the newsletter interesting by including images and info on new promotions, etc.

 

You have to give people reason to click on a link in that newsletter, and people will only do that if they want to be a part of something great happening at your site.

I think even with all the flashy pictures and info on new promotions, they are still not worth the time. A newsletter should only be used to deliver news, hence the word news in the name. Using it to promote your site, well, it is a waste of time.

 

SEO

I'm surprised people haven't talked about this that much...search engine optimization will account for +60% of your sites success. whether you are going to use money or not to fine-tune your seo in order to appear on search pages, your site has got to have a lot of content...and it has to have a good keyword density too.

 

I would advise newbies to focus much on optimizing for Google as the others Yahoo, Bing, etc have less market share, therefore get way less searches. If you got money to spend, getting seo people to sort it for you is not a bad idea or buying space on google or some other sites.

Actually, it counts for like 99% of it, as people really need to find your site before they can look at anything else about it. Having your keywords that you are targeting in your domain really does help in this aspect, and bolding your specific keywords on your index page is vital.

 

Affiliates

 

With a new site, you have to realise you cannot live alone. Word has to get out that your site is there so you need affiliates. you need to be part of a network of sites that more or less focus on your primary goals. you need link exchanges, one thing i do: i make sure i submit my site to at least one directory every day and also get at least two affiliates every week. if you keep at it, your site will get more and more traffic.

I find affiliate pictures will 99% of the time just be ignored. Like you stated above, SEO is key, try to get a good quality backlink with anchor text of the keywords you are targeting, it is worth much more than an 88 x 31 picture.

 

Reviews

 

you need to know whats right and wrong about your site even after doing everything under the sun. you have to submit your site for reviews a couple of times so that you get varied opinions and can make an informed decision in the end if you really should change anything...

 

good luck to all newbies....may your site be successful

You would not say this is a necessity, but rather a way to improve. I am a professional forum reviewer on a forum, I love my job, and many members will always go by an outside opinion, like when I review.

[legend112 0]

You would not say this is a necessity, but rather a way to improve. I am a professional forum reviewer on a forum, I love my job, and many members will always go by an outside opinion, like when I review.

i beg to differ, for a real newbie..it is a necessity

you can skip it but you'll be running the risk of wasting time on something that somebody would have told you to change long back. reviews do save time man. After creating a site, if not reviewed by lots of people who you wish to target, you might get lots of traffic but no returns...so reviews will put you in a safe bracket early on and thus, are a way for one to improve their site

[phatuis 0]

i beg to differ, for a real newbie..it is a necessity
you can skip it but you'll be running the risk of wasting time on something that somebody would have told you to change long back. reviews do save time man. After creating a site, if not reviewed by lots of people who you wish to target, you might get lots of traffic but no returns...so reviews will put you in a safe bracket early on and thus, are a way for one to improve their site

I beg to differ, for a newbie, they could just ask there friend. With all the trends and stuff changing all the time, the easiest way to get a review is to ask a friend, thus not making it a necessity.

[legend112 0]

I beg to differ, for a newbie, they could just ask there friend. With all the trends and stuff changing all the time, the easiest way to get a review is to ask a friend, thus not making it a necessity.

i think i was misunderstood here.

 

asking a friend for a review is still getting a review If you think its advisable for someone to create a site and not ask around to see if the target is pleased, then you haven't run communities. its all about improvement and moving with the times, what better way to do that than ask the experts for a detailed review?

 

I am sure one can manage without ever getting someone to say put this in that space and do this not that, but they would have to be well experienced to know so much.

 

I have run sites and saw the benefits of reviews, the activity increased like hell and i got frequent posters on the forums, reviews are important gents but there is so much that makes a good site so if other things are on point, one can still succeed.

[phatuis 0]

It is not a necessity, there is nothing saying you must please customers, it is just common sense. I am an expert when it comes to such a topic. Like I say, I review forums on a fairly large Promotion Forum, the largest out there, so I think I know what I am doing.

[Strikee 1]

I dont think there are specific rules on how to create a website in order to get more and more visitors. Basically you need continuous SEO to bring the visitors for the first time , and second you need good and large content in order to make users STAY ONLINE and even COME BACK. It's not an easy job but thanks to all the tutorials out there , anyone who can read , can do it!.A few simple rules about a good website would be to keep it simple , especially if it's a niche oriented! , When people enter this kind of site they want to get exactly what they were looking for so a niche website should never be too complicated. Giving out too much informations and from diferent areas then the orietend ones will not make anyone to keep surfing your site.It's a risky choice ,having a niche website , usually means limited potential , becase of limited numbers of people searching for what you're offering! as opposed to a General Website or even a forum which can have content from all internet's domain and can be changed as times go by.I myself rather use blogs and forums then complicated html manual made websites , they are alot easier to manage , easier to get visitors , and of course alot easier to set up at start.Best and Easiest way to make a quick website THAT HAS TRAFFIC is in my opinion through BLOGSPOT , these blogs get almost isntant indexing and lots of traffic with so little SEO , but the sad thing about them is as i said before , they will never have the potential of a large general website! , blogs are limited no matther how well known are they , around the internet.There are bloggers out there with huge traffic , and as we all know visitors to blogs come mainly from feeds, google and.. well.. the fact that you want to come back on a certain blog because you like how he writes. Anyway.. the point is even this well known bloggers don't ever get as many impressions as a an Online Community.A Blog could have twice , thrice the unique visitors of a forum for example , but the second one will get maybe even 5-10 times more impressions.Good luck with your websites.

Edited December 25, 2009 by Strikee (see edit history)

[Xalor 0]

5) Fonts: Remember if you stray from using the standard fonts that everyone has installed on their computers (such as Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman) the viewer won't see your fonts as intended. Your users' computers will display your site in their default fonts. Stick to standards. If you must have a certain font used you'll have to turn it into a graphic to maintain its look.

Actually this shouldn't hold you back since you can use the now-implemented utility in CSS. Its called @fontface, and its probably the best design tool you can use. Even IE can work here, and basically every browser can work with either EOFF or opentypefonts except IE which only works on EOFF but fontsquirrel can also help you there. Font Squirrel also provides free fonts that have commercial licenses so you can just mass convert them using their tool. Its at fontsquirrel.com, its a really usefull site, just like dafont.com but it has only ones that you can use everywhere without linking back.
Most of your tips are usefull but I wouldn't always foster a community like you said in:

6) Make It Sticky: Include interactive features if possible, such as live news feeds. Check out http://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/products/newsdesk.page for tons of news feed topics you can paste into your site for free. Use chat rooms, discussion boards, etc. You want to create a sense of community where people will want to return.
7) Newsletter: If you're going to have a website you need to offer a newsletter, even if it's strictly going to be about sale items, specials or site updates. You need to start collecting a list of your visitors' email addresses so you can keep in touch with them. Ezines help to keep your site fresh in the client's mind and helps to establish trust and credibility. For more on how to start your own ezine see http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Instead I would work on providing content before community. By relying on community you lose the chance to become your own person and your site looks like another forum or facebook or a myspace. You need to provide the content not the users, in order to make it obvious that you are looking to improve the world with your site, not just gain some quick bucks of google adwords or adsense, whatever its called these days.

Notice from rvalkass:

Quote tags are required around all content you copy from other sources.

[Terko 0]

Really good tips for newbies...I think people will be greatful to you for inlighting their brains)) LOL))))

[Rael IAK 0]

My biggest concern with sans-serif fonts on a computer monitor is that, while they are "easier on the eyes", they leave certain characters in a rather ambiguous state. Uppercase "I"s and lowercase "L"s are impossible to tell apart. I figure I can guess what is supposed to be what about 95% of the time. The problem I have is with things like URLs, e-mail addresses, passwords and such. As these are strings of characters that are seldom English (or any other language, for that matter), context won't help you much. I suppose that you could put most of your next in sans-serif and then use a serif font in these particular cases but I'm not sure .....What do other people think about this?

[T X 0]

I never use flash for anything since it's overrated and not that great. However I usually do use a Java applet simply because it's simple and pretty much everyone has the plugin in their browser and if they don't it's their loss.