I agree with the first and the second points totally. If you provide original content it stands you apart from the rest of the crowd and people do come back to your site.

wow thats great and was really useful. Most of the points you've mentioned helped me to rectify my website and get more users.

Thesw will be also useful for all the newbies in web designing, to keep users flowing into their site.

It's always best to advertise your site over the internet. But even though you copied everything above from another source, it's true for the most part. But the thing about contests and giving away things on your website got me. I don't see many sites do this anymore, except the well-known ones with popular forums, like this one.

I disagree with some of them. Not all sites are going to have contests and affliate programs. Personal sites most likely will not have that kind of stuff. However, I do agree with the first point - original content. People will not come to your site if you have the same content as everybody else.

This is a good document and I want to share my thoughts on it

I pretty much agree with some points with the exception of 2 and 3. On top of that, there can be other ways to make people visit your site.



2. Current ongoing websites is hardly going to outmatch the database for free softwares of bigger sites such as download.com and sourceforge.net, this is not really a requirement for a visitor to visit the site.

3. In fact, many websites do not have provide such contests. It all depends on the kind of audience you are targetting. If they are teenagers, they are unlikely to bother much about these sort of things.

Finally something to add on. The appeal of the site is the most important in drawing visitors to it. If your site is going to be designed in plain html with tables and frames and no design whatsoever, people will be turned off. I am saying in the case of me, if the design is sleek and really user friendly, I would definitely want to explore it further. Things such as Ajax, CSS, dynamic content and even flash would certainly increase the appeal. But then again if the content in this site is lacking in substance, there are chances people would not even bother coming for the 2nd time.

For a successful website to have its base, you need to have a good appealing design as well as content with substance. I know many medical sites are the ones without much design, so that is why I do not bother to go there for the 2nd time unless I am looking for research documents. Other things such as frequent updates is crucial, if you update your site every few days or a week for that matter, people will always want to come. They want new content and what better way than to have frequent updates.

User interactivity would do the site good. Polls and comments would allow user to interact with the author in 1 way or another. And visitors would feel like they are actually getting involved instead of having to only read what the author of the site is trying to convey to his visitors.

The last thing which should (try to) never be on the site are ads. I personally feel disgusted about ads. They make revenue for you but it generally spoils the whole site. One of the reasons why I decided to use Trap17.com instead of Trap17.net was because there was no ads.

Feel free to share the other things which could affect people visiting your site.

well original content isn't really it, there are plenty of sites with similar content and they are doing great, free software..., i'm not a software engineer so i can't make anything they want, i can't make anything fllstop for that matter. a lot of websites don't offer prizes etc. and they are doing great, also i don't want to spend that much money. i have a directory that never gets used! also many sites don't have directories and they are doing great.
e-zones are a bunch of ........ i hate them and i am totally against them, if people are smart and want them then just go to msn and sign up for a couple of theirs. i have a chatroom and message board, they are basically never used at all!
i don't want ads on my site, if they want to advertise i'll set up a section on my never used board (like thats gonna help).
i have a free search engine submission, they would normally go to google instead (duh), other utilities either cost to much or my audience don't want.
i would supply the latest news if there are more people to read it, making it worth while.
i do offer free samples, thats probally why the website gets any visitors.(since it's a music site i offer clips)

basically theres one point there that works for me thats the last one, all he others are rubish.

I believe that original content is most important. Sometimes I'll look for information and I can't find it anywhere. I'm tempted to make a site that can offer that information even if I only have a bit of it.

Well obviously we are all trying to make websites, and there is simply too much competition. millions of sites out there just like ours, so the only way to succeed is to be original and unique which is very hard when your competition with so many.

All of the points in the original post are good I think as well as all the points in the replies. I really want to create a website that uses all or most of these things but I just can't think of any good ideas. I can do all the design and programming for it, I just have no ideas on subject matter. I'm not very imaginative in that area I guess. I can't think of original content. I hate writing web content (even though I CAN do it). If anybody wants to parter with me or start a group to make a nice site PM me. I will pretty much work on any site. I just need somebody else to come up with the idea for the topic and somebody to write most of the content maybe. I can do the design and programming.