Tips on creating a good website!

wow i must say impressive list! here is some things that i should say should be better:



1.newsletters can be regular emails sent to people who asked,you dont really have to go to that site for reference

2.good list

thats all i have to say about your list! i must say i do to do not like to look for their contact information when i make my sites i add my email to the bottom of the page in the footer.

well what i feel is, apart from all the other things, guestbooks and live chat facility would be a better option for any professional looking website and offcourse the forums.

i learned a lot into this topic because of those tips you gave guys i want to thank all of people who post some tips here..
i am on my way creating a good website for a source of income

the biggest factor that can make your website amazing and can attract user is User-ceneted sollution. Always prefer your user what they want rather what you want to make. Studies show most of the project fail because of Developers own thinking and not including actual users.

My suggestion is, find somethings you are really interesting with it and you can pay fully passion with it. Otherwise you will give up very very soon. Many successful internet millionaires start their online business with their own interest.

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



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.



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.



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.

This post has been edited by phatuis: Nov 16 2009, 05:22 AM

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 Trap17 different from others. 

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

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.



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.



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.



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