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Site Tips
These tips are solely from me, my experience from visiting other websites, and my own, when I make my own website. Believe me, a nice, lookable layout will get you many hits and visitors, not to mention affiliates and friends. This tutorial will seem a little harsh, so read at your own decretion.
1. Name. The name can reflect yourself, what you do, your interests.....whatever. Make sure it's not a cheesy name like "Princess *yourname*", that's just really..not good at all.
2. Backgrounds. This is a very important thing. One look at your background could determine whether the visitor will stay or not. NEVER use pictures as backgrounds. (like a picture of your favourite anime show) Use real backgrounds. Don't include more than 4 different colours in it.
3. Fonts. Make sure the colour of your font matches the layout, like pink and grey. Not orange and purple, they match, but the colours are too similar, they are bright and harsh on the eyes. Your font should match your background colour. If it can't, find another colour. Fonts should not contrast against the background. So if you're background is a light bright colours, use a dark font colour, and vice versa.
4. Layout. Make it neat and organized. Use high quality images. If you're putting up layouts from video games, try to use CG images rather than the normal images. Organize your navigation so that visitors can access your pages easily, not jumbled all over your layout. If you have text on your layout, make sure it's big enough for visitors to see it. Again, the colour is very important. (see #3) Have 2 or less navigation bars; any more will be too crowded and won't look nice. Have one content box bigger than all others, this will be where all your content (blog, reads whatever) and make the navigation bar smaller for your extras. (tagboard, welcomes, affiliates, links etc.) Just put all your highlights of that page into the bigger box. Make sub-headers so your visitors will know that a new topic is being introduced.
5. Content. You can put anything in your website, it's all your own page. You can put anything, but don't put anything offensive or racist. Some people don't tolerate swearing. If you want visitors to flow in and stay longer, put up visitor content. Make your own graphics that would help others' websites, or put up tutorials that would help others to make your kind of graphics. Put up stuff that you're good at making or producing. So if you like and know how to make AMVs, put those up. But if you don't know how to make presentable avatars, don't put them up.
6. Graphics. Visitors will only come back if your stuff is high-quality. None of this cropped image with slapped on text. Have some originality and creativeness. You can only get better if you practice and keep at it. There are tons of tutorials out there, go read some and your skills will develop in no time. (The only exception is if you have Microsoft Paint. Then..... all I have to say is good luck with that, buddy.)
7. Writing. When I go to a website and I see "4" or "u" or "lyke" I immediately leave. Don't use slang or MSN language. It's hard to decipher what you're really trying to say. So write normally, use capital letters and punctuation. If you can't, go back to kindergarten. Of course, the occasional typo is allowed, nobody is perfect after all!!
8. Etiquette. Your attitude towards web-design and your visitors counts very much. Nobody wants to hang around a dirty-mouthed and rude person. It would scare your visitors all away. If you really need to spill your anger out, put a little warning message before your blog so visitors will know. If people pay you compliments, return them kindly, but don't be so smug and cocky about it. If you have questions, ask them kindly. If you requested a graphic, wait patiently and don't pester the make. After all, it is they're time you're asking for isn't it?
8. Hits and visitors. The best way to start is to compliment others. Have yourself recognized. Look at some websites that you find interesting and drop a nice line like "Hey, nice site!" or "Keep up the great work!". That will get you noticed. AND, if you have good content, you'll get visitors and comments in no time. However, there is a line to draw. Don't stalk everyone's tagboard. If there is a chain of affiliates, they'll notice that and think you're some kind of annoying bug. Know when to draw the line. If you just wait, your visitor numbers will go up.
9. General. No stealing or direct-linking other people's graphics and other materials. That is frowned upon greatly in the World Wide Web. Never steal or hotlink, it'll just make the person mad, and may possibly end up embarrassing you if they put you up in their Blacklisted or Hall of Shame page. If you have a splash page, don't just put an enter sign on it. Have some other stuff that doesn't fit with your main site, like rotations or hit counters or what requirements you need in order to enter the site. Maintain your site. Nobody wants a dead site, especially hosts. They are giving up their space for you to use, not to waste. Update on a regular basis or you'll lose visitors fast. Keep pages under 300kb. If you're over, the visitor may not want to wait for your site to load.
Well, those are all my little hints and tips in having a successful website. Yes, it's a lot of work making a website, but if you're really passionate about it, you can have a really good and famous website. All your work is paid off!
Final Note
I hope this tutorial helped you lots! I worked hard writing this tutorial, so I would appreciate it if you provided a link back to me if it helped you in any way. If you have any questions about this tutorial, don't hesitiate to email me.
Aureus and all content © 2004-2007 to Celes. All Rights Reserved. No part of this site may be duplicated, altered, claimed, sold, changed, or in any way or form without permission from the owner. You may view the credits here. Thank you so much Chie for hosting me!