Popular Websites

Something I have never been able to grasp is how to make a website popular, a lot of it seems back to front, organised, nice looking and easy to use websites seem to be on the lower end of the popularity scale while hard to use and weird looking websites are more popular.

Take for example myspace, I have a myspace here and I pretty much never use it, in fact when people started adding me to there friends list I just decided that I will modify the style, nothing is worse than keeping the default style it looks to repetitive and gives off the impression on not caring. As you can see from it I simple changed the colors, that's it and I like it, but so many other users seem to think the idea of style is to add as much as possible video after video and songs which they set to auto play and images for backgrounds that clash with everything making text almost unreadable.

I always used a simple set of rules when I design a website or simple web page, sure my designs aren't always great but I think there easy to use and that's because I follow the following rules:

No music

If I want to hear music when surfing a website I will load up media player so why should I force others to put up with my tastes especially when the song loads every time the page loads or changes and it can cause lag with your browser.

Pick colors which wont clash

Simple, if I want readers to read the content on my websites then it has to be well readable, if the text clashes with the background then in my opinion it will put users off.

No intrusive ads

I only recently started using ads with my websites because in the past the most common ads were pop-ups and pop-unders which I find off putting when I visit websites so staying with that logic I decided from the start not too use them, same goes for flash ads they usually involve some annoying audio such as someone talking or annoying sounds.

Know the audience

You should have an idea who your website is aimed at and ensure the content is focused on the audience, I have seen a lot of websites suddenly stop and decide they want to go in a completely different direction which is fine but the problem with changing direction is asking yourself how it will effect the current user base.

Don't lie to the audience

Its never nice to be treated like an idiot and giving your users false impressions because you think it will create a stir it can easily backfire, some websites act big and make downtime seem much longer than is needed because they see bigger websites having longer downtime so they think if they do the same then users will assume that the sites popular. In reality this may work with some users but most web designers will know its either a lie or a lack of efficiency.

Be commited

Making a website popular requires hard work and you should make sure the direction of the website is something you can keep committed to, if the website is rarely updated or has a long dry patch hits will take a dive, I made a mistake when I first launched R-D and focused it as a design website, which was the reason it eventually closed, then when I decided to re-launch it I wanted to make sure it would focus on an area I enjoy which is why its now coding/software/template based as that's areas I enjoy working within. I have also seen websites which continually close and re-open and while it can give a boost on hits when it re-launches it eventually gets old and turns members away, since every time its the same site that closes and then re-launches. Its simple why visit a website that continually opens and closes when theres similar websites which offer the same content and are always open.


Don't be bitter

Theres nothing worse than a webmaster who complains about other sites for whatever reason, if you say a website beat you to some content (such as a news article) or they ripped off one of your ideas then if you target them not only will they have gained extra content but they will also gain traffic from other users and not to mention the internet is huge its not unheard of for an idea to have been thought of before. Also who wants to visit a website with a moody webmaster, unless that's part of the sites style such as with Stick Guy.

Take criticism in a good way

If someone criticises your website (and trust me they always will) then the best way to take it is too look for the constructive criticism which will help you improve the website, don't just shoot them down if theres no constructive criticism then just treat it as spam, theres nothing worse than looking on a forum and seeing a user say 'ha this site sucks' then a staff member replying with insults, it will put off other users from giving feedback.

Advertise properly

Ensure your advertising isn't misleading, the best example is ads that use the suggestion of porn as the focus of the advertising, this will get you a lot of hits but whats the point of having 500 users click the ad see the site isn't a porn site and closing the window never to return.

Be realistic

Don't expect your website to be popular the instant it launches, most websites take time to build up a user base (sometimes years) if you make a website with the intention of instant popularity then it will more than likely fail.

Create your own audience

When I first started working on forums/websites it was with friends from another forum and as a result the majority of our users were from the same forum, this is great at first because there active and the sites looks good but very quickly they will drift away and focus on the original forum also it makes it easier to create enemies as theres always users who feel they have allegiances to the upper staff of the other website so will be quick to report back any negativity towards the forum, we had a bad case of this when the forum name, its address and the owners name were censored on the original forum and as it was made public knowledge all our members just vanished. Now don't get me wrong you will pick up some good members who visit the site/forum because they enjoy it and like the users and continue to come back we have some members like that on the club who have been there since the start and as I am sure the rest of the admin crew will agree they are the best members from our old forums.


I know the last tip was heavily message board/forum related but I will now focus on using message boards with a website:

Don't let the website be forum driven

The entire point of a message board is for discussion and should focus on the website, its far too easy for a website to lose focus with a message board, the key is to keep the website up to date and keep content exclusive to the website, I have seen numerous sites where the main website hasn't been updated for months but the forum still has some activity.

Be active

The only way to keep activity up on a message board is if you are active yourself, why should a member be active if you are inactive.

Don't harass guests to register or inactive users to post

Theres nothing worse on a website than seeing 'register now and get less ads' or 'registered users don't see this message', unless theres something that will interest them a user is unlikely to register and theres plenty of forums which don't give users messages telling them to post.

Plan the structure

Its always best to work out the main categories you will have and which forums you want to be on the forum index and which you want to be sub-forums, I have seen a lot of forums which has every forum on the index page which means the index is bigger and if theres forums which are rarely posted in it stands out.

Adapt

Don't keep your message board as is permanently, if one forum is becoming popular then move it up towards the top of its category, if one is unpopular then move it to a sub forum or down the list.

Rules

Okay order is needed with a message board but there shouldn't be a huge list of rules, the key to a message board is to make it a friendly place and things such as spam/flaming can effect that but when you list rule after rule effecting every part of the users experience, the key in my opinion is to keep the rules short and simple not to make it a case where a user has to check all there activities against a huge list of rules. There is also the issue of the style users type, personally I don't like to see things like 'OMG he PWND you' or constant mistakes in the users syntax but its a message board not an english class and users shouldn't be forced to type in the style you like, how would you feel if you joined a message board and were banned for typing properly.

Advertisements

Same as with sites, keep it simple message boards have a lot more pages than websites in general, so if you have a pop up load every time a page loads then to view the second newest thread from the forum index they get 1 pop up on the index, a second on the forum list and a third when the thread loads and that's just viewing one thread it all builds up the more posts the user looks at so eventually it gets unbearable and the user leaves so your left with the users who get the pop ups leaving and the ones who have good pop up blockers staying so you make no money anyways.

Layout

A custom layouts always the best way to go, no one likes default message board skins and if you just buy one off a website or download it off a free skin site then chances are theres a lot of other websites which use the same skin of there forum and if there bigger you will just be compared to them.


I have always tried to stick with the above rules when working on a website, at the end of the day the best advice is keep it simple and logical and be original.

Sites to check out:

Rampant Designs Baby Seal Productions Stick Guy The Club BSP Blog Stick Guy Blog