The Ups & Downs of Running a Water Gun Website

Discussion of other water gun websites.
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SSCBen
Posts: 6449
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2003 1:00 pm

Post by SSCBen » Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:56 pm

Another pre-released article, I thought this would help somebody if it was released earlier. Please, if you run a site, read this to get some secrets of making a succesful website.

I've stressed making a site with good content in the past, but now I'm broadening my focus. Many new sites have sprung up, most still don't listen to my whole content idea, but the ones that do are disappointing most of the time. Of every site that has sprung up in 2003 and 2004, SSCentral was the only one to flourish and be successflist. That is good (for SSCentral and the people who run it like myself), but also very sad. Many wish to make a website and of course, dream of it being popular. I myself also am tired of seeing websites expecting the be popular, spamming the forums with links to the site, Good sites will spread by word of mouth, and you will not need to advertise much if at all.

Features of a Strong Website
  • Unique, well-written content
  • Good design and navigation
  • Lack of gimmicks
  • Constant updates
  • Good host
  • Speed
Content

Content is the backbone of your website, the articles and images. If you're site has no content, then there is no reason for anyone to visit your site.

In the past I've said that content was the most imporatant, but that was vague. Content is the most important, but from that idea sites with what I'll call "duplicate" content have sprung up. These sites, are nothing special. Duplicate content is what it sounds like, the same content from another site just regurgetated.

Some have also said that when making a site, it is best to choose a theme for it. My thinking at the moment is that's not good enough, you don't want to make your site have only one thing, rather everything. Make it unique though, if one site has a great article on sniping and it is well known, don't be uncreative and make something with the same stuff. I'm not saying don't make reviews, articles on common subjects and stuff like that, I just mean make it something new. People will find your site more interesting if it has something new for them to read.

Team sites typically will always turn out good. When a team runs a site, you can get updates from the battlefront, lots of pictures, bios of the team members, and a lot more. You also will get a lot of help and support from your team members. This can create a very high-quality website.

Design

I won't say everything I know about web design here, just what you need to know. Design is not the most important factor when making a site, just a very important one. If someone finds your site unattractive, they may not even read what is presented. It might even make them feel like there is no content on the site. You don't want that, that is death to a website.

Design is touchy, and I make the following recommendations:
  • Do not use a free host's template, it makes you look very unprofessional and you will not be taken as seriously
  • Keep the design the same for every page, it will make your visitors know what to expect.
  • Do not make your design fixed width with a very large width. Horizontal scroll bars scare people away.
  • Put some kind of reminder of what site they currently are on somewhere on the page.
  • Using FTP to upload your site is much more professional as well as faster. Please refrain from using a hosts HTML editor or web upload form.
Gimmicks

Gimmicks are what we get a lot of in websites... and I'm just plain tired of them. No, do not make your website sound like an advertisement! Never, call it the best website, or brag about it. A good website will speak for itself.

Gimmick site features also are bad. Every part of your site must get use for it to look as professional as possible. This also means no under construction parts, that leaves a hole in your site. Do not start your own forum unless it will be site specific. Believe me, most forums do not get much use if any at all. The popular forums are popular because they have a good large site to back them up. Build a fan-base before even thinking of making a forum.

Updates

When you make a website, someone could show up one day, read everything and leave, expecting to return to something new. You must always plan on updating it. People will not keep coming to your site if you make it once but don't update it, unless it has something new and phenomenal. You must have a committment to making new content.

I do know that some of your would mention what are called "archive sites" on this topic. Archive sites typically at one time were updated, but eventually went under for any number of reasons. Their webmasters did have a committment, but eventually stopped. That is different than never updating your site.

Hosting

I will not recommend any hosts in the article, but there is much you must know about getting the right hosting for your site.

Bad:
  • Annoying advertisements
  • Low space
  • Low bandwidth
  • New hosts with an unbelieveable offer
Good:
  • Has FTP (most true webmasters uses it)
  • High-speed servers
  • Allows hot-linking (not the most important however)
The best free hosts, are the ones that come with your ISP. They are reliable, usually give you an acceptable amount of space, are ad-free, fast, more than enough for most sites. The only issues would be space and bandwith for most.

If you would like to research web hosting, a site I have used in the past is Freewebspace.net. Joining their forums will get you lots of offers from other hosts, but keep in mind what I said earlier.

Speed

There is nothing more annoying for dial-up users than a website that takes forever to load. Until over 90% of all users have a high-speed connection, you should design your site to be courteous to the dail-up users. It also is good to make your site load fast even for high-speed users, I do know that I like it when a site loads near instantly. Images shouldn't be too large, 20k through 50k is acceptable for a large photograph.

Being a knowledgeable webmaster

Some web-technologies have specific uses, learn what they are. For example, JPEGs most of the time are used on images with a large amount of colors or photographs, and GIFs are for low color images, possibly with transparhency or animation.

Another thing is, don't require those who visit your site to get any propriety plug-in or program. A good website will not need loads of Flash (or any at all), or an obscure movie format. Keep everything standard. I personally hate it when I have to get a special plug-in or something, more times than not I close the window.

Advertising

As I said earlier, a good website will speak for itself, and spread by word of mouth. If you really make something phenomenal people will be talking about it. As the webmaster of SSCentral, I find it annoying when someone is always linking to their website on a forum, and trying to leech off as many visitors as possible to their site.

There are other ways to advertise, a common one being FFA pages. FFA (Free For All) link pages fill up, and after enough or added most would rather not sort through them. Over-advertising your site will also give it a negative image.

When SSCentral first started out, I did not announce it's creation on a forum. I was more concerned with making the site what it is today. You should be too, 99% of your website creation efforts should be on the site itself, when you spend more time advertising it you are only damaging your site.

I would recommend submitting your site to the ODP, Google and other popular search engines as your main advertising campaign. Get your own visitors, do not rely on a more popular site.

Other tidbits
  • Remember to always put the http:// in front of an off-site URL.
  • Pictures make a site much better.
  • Always close your tags.
  • Put contact information on your site, someone may want to talk to you.
  • Opening off-site or even links of a slightly different topic in a new window by default is helpful.

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Neuro
Posts: 1081
Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 12:00 pm

Post by Neuro » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:52 pm

a few spelling errors in there.... perhaps for the same reason all users were unsuspended a while ago? (don't worry folks, they have been resuspended, sniper is not coming back) other than that, very good article. although I don't think I'll be starting my own site any time soon :Hey, that's funny.:
"I used to care, but now I take a pill for that."

You can pretty much ignore the times on that, I rarely ever have Xfire on when I play. I should, though.
Image
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Soakologist
Posts: 575
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 1:00 pm

Post by Soakologist » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:45 am

Poplistar?
<Searching>
Not in my vocabulary...
Whatever music you listen to probably sucks.

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SSCBen
Posts: 6449
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2003 1:00 pm

Post by SSCBen » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:36 pm

Originally posted by Soakologist@Sep 3 2004, 08:45 PM
Poplistar?
<Searching>
Not in my vocabulary...
I noticed that a few minutes after posting. I went through, chaning the HTML code to BBcode. I changed ul to list when I should have changed <ul> to
  • .

    Poplistar means popular here, and there also is sholistd (should), and colistd (could). I'll change them right now.

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RacerSoaker445
Posts: 951
Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2004 2:27 pm

Post by RacerSoaker445 » Sat Sep 04, 2004 2:06 pm

Very nice Doom.
I don't check this forum anymore.

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