How To Create & Run a Successful Website or Forum

[ninjapenguins]

Before people start saying that this tutorial has already been posted before, may I point out that it was posted by a guest and I feel that I can expand on what was said in that post. BTW: nice thread Frogger.

Creating Your Site
Firstly, you'll need to create your website with a trustworthy site builder. May I recommend AtFreeForum, GetForum and MyFreeForum for forum based sites and FreeWebs, Piczo and Zoomshare for normal websites. BlogSpot is also a good place to start hosting a blog. If I've missed any loyal sitebuilder off the list feel free to PM or email me.

Weight up your options first. If you want modifications on your forum, but have not got the time to have them installed, then you'll need a forum maker which provides pre-installed mods ie. shop mod, bank mod etc. If you want a site centred around a blog, you'll need a leading blog provider (BlogSpot is a good starting place)

Forums
When creating a forum, bare in mind that you won't have many visitors at first (it takes time unless you get noticed by search engines quickly). You need to diligently craft just a few forums at first (seven maximum) and then as your forum grows you can then expand to say about twenty. The big mistake to make is jam your messageboard up with hundreds of pointless forums that nobody's really going to bother posting in. Many forums doesn't make your site fantastically opulent. Keep it basic!

Possibly the most important part of forum building is to get your messageboard noticed. if you don't do this, you won't get visitors. Now listen carefully, as I've seen this next mistake made several times before. Do not block guests from accessing your forum. Not only will people not be able to get an insight into what the forum's about, bots for search engines can't access your forum and you will not be added to the search engine database unless you sign up and keep pestering the poor people at Google to put you on their database. Another part of publiscising your forum is advertising on other forums (obviously make sure that you have permission from the administrator of the messageboard first though, otherwise your link will be removed or you will be banned from the site). Aim your forum at the appropriate audience. For example, if your building a site on RPGMMOs then maybe post your link on a site about RPGMMOs like Club Penguin, World of Warcraft, Runescape and any other wacky online game. If your site is aimed at car lovers, then don't make the fatal mistake of putting it on a site about sport, because the likeliness is that nobody will actually join.

Top priority is "user friendliness". Don't be tempted by fancy drop-down menus that take ages to load and don't generally work. You do need a nice template and great graphic design, but don't pile up everything so there's errors everywhere.

That's about it for hosting a forum, now let's get onto the Blogs & Websites

Blogs & Websites
The last thing that people want to here on blogs is what your name is and what your favourite colour is. Cause nobody really gives a damn. Entertain your audience. Make your blog/site humorous, even satirical! Keep the audience entertained and that's halfway to a successful site.

You also need to let users get their view across to you. A good idea might be to put a comments section on your website, or even a forum as above (but keep everything nice and simple). If users can't express their feelings, you generally won't get much site traffic (if any) for long.

Lastly keep updating all the time. You can't afford to take a month rest (at least without telling your users).

Hope this has given people an insight into how they can build a successful and professional website. And remember, don't keep starting new forums everytime you get bored of an other one. It'll trigger a chain reaction!

Happy blogging/building/foruming (or whatever)

Composed and compiled by ninjapenguins

[Xtreme22]

Well FROGGER already made a tutorial like this...

[ninjapenguins]

Originally Posted by Xtreme22

Well FROGGER already made a tutorial like this...

Yeah, but it was too brief. As I said in my post Frogger's tutorial was good, but I felt like I could expand on it. Feel free to unsticky if you feel the need.

[aaaphil]

well good tutorial

[blastjamyo]

yahh this can help other people that have trouble running a succesful site fine is suseful good job

[Xtreme22]

Originally Posted by ninjapenguins

Yeah, but it was too brief. As I said in my post Frogger's tutorial was good, but I felt like I could expand on it. Feel free to unsticky if you feel the need.

Oh okay, well nice post. BUT, I think only Admin should STICKY topics in this forum. I've seen some very good ones, but i'm leaving it to admin to decide. But if you want to, you can keep this stickied (;

[easmoore]

nice tutoral but somebody already did something like that

[sevengali]

thanks for the tips, what site would be best for mine?

its about lots of things

[juliat123]

Wow Great Post I Luv It

[Fred the Cat]

Actually it was posted by a registered user but a glitch did something to make the ranks guest for people with more minimal amounts of posts. Well I dont really know what happened but he wasn't a guest. and... I think that frogger's was OK but this one was a little too long and I dont own any websites so I didn't read all of it.