how did you get so big?? (unofficial poll)

[fancythis]

Updated Content is important. How much do we know about colors of our website and the effect it has on visitors. Do certain colors turn visitors away? Take a look sometime at high traffic sites and the colors of their pages. Blue is for Trust and so on and so on.

[AleR]

Do certain colors turn visitors away? Take a look sometime at high traffic sites and the colors of their pages.

As a professional designer I must say, that colors are nothing. I've read a lot about colors, their impression, psychological effect, etc... And have own expirience about it.
Most popular sites on the web has white background color.
Everyone has his own favourite color. Most of people like blue. Why? Because it is the color of sky. All peoples like sky and sun of course.
Yes, if you use blue it gives you + 1-2% returned visitors. ...but it is too little, as for me.
(example- google.com)

Just one thing - don't make your site absolutely red or yellow cause it's hard to our eyes.

[GlamKitty]

I have some thoughts on color use...

I agree, certain colors are hard on the eyes, especially when used together.

I also think color has some play in emotional response, like trust, or black for mood (which I don't think does well for, say, product sales, but works well for gaming sites etc).

I think the biggest impact color has is on branding. My site colors reflect my product, packaging & promotional materials etc..

Color can also work against you if it is not consistent (a major site design issue).

While overall, unless it is hard on they eyes, it may mean smaller numbers than some other aspects, I think color is a detail worth paying attention to.

Deanna

[dRD]

Originally posted by AleR

As a professional designer I must say, that colors are nothing. I've read a lot about colors, their impression, psychological effect, etc... And have own expirience about it.
Most popular sites on the web has white background color.
Everyone has his own favourite color. Most of people like blue. Why? Because it is the color of sky. All peoples like sky and sun of course.
Yes, if you use blue it gives you + 1-2% returned visitors. ...but it is too little, as for me.
(example- google.com)

Just one thing - don't make your site absolutely red or yellow cause it's hard to our eyes.

Actually colors do matter and they've been studied quite a lot -- not by web developers, but by retailers and such (just like muzak what we hear in supermarkets, etc). Best example is definately McDonalds who uses mostly orange as a main color in their restaurants. You would think that it is because of their logo or so, but actually orange is a color that makes you "rush" things -> people finish their meals faster and make room for new customers. I think that nowadays they're changing this slightly, I assume that they've found that if people stay longer, they take bigger Coke and larger fries which are the core of their income (profit margins from french fries are much higher than from sandwiches :-). Just heard this stuff few years ago when I implemented one European McDonalds intranet and it sounded so funny/clever that I'll always remember it :-)

[EvDeon]

No.... Colors are nothing. Content rules the Web. You should try to get maximum percent of returning visitors. They will never return to see your colors again - they will return looking for a new information, new content. You need to update your site as often as you can. It is a main key to success...

[Xshare]

I actually share the same problem with the beginner of this thread. I rarely get over 200 visitors a day, and usually much less. I have no idea what to do next. I've been working on the site for weeks now. Google, Links with others, but people just dont seem to even come to the index page! (If design were the problem, they'd leave, but they haven't even come yet!) Sorry for starting up an old topic, but does anyone have any more tips? I have already done everything you told, but I still am not showing up on google or anything. Thanks alot, hope you can help me out.

[dRD]

Originally posted by Xshare
I actually share the same problem with the beginner of this thread. I rarely get over 200 visitors a day, and usually much less. I have no idea what to do next. I've been working on the site for weeks now.

"for weeks now"... No offence, but :-) It took 10 months to grow from 50-150/day to 500/day. After that things started going pretty rapidly. After you reach a certain point, when people start finding your site -- I would say that this takes anything between 6 and 12 months -- you can easily see growth-% of appx 100% a month until your traffic "matures" and slows into normal level, maybe around 5-20% growth a month (which obviously needs daily and constant updating of the content, site maintenance and promotion).

[Xshare]

Yes, but as a soon to be 9th grader, I have alot of things going on and can't afford to work on my site all the time. The thing I'm counting on is that my site is quite unique, and that I hope others will tell others about it while I am gone for the next summer months.

[Jan]

Welcome to the forums Xshare

[xplore]

The best way to get repeat traffic over time is to have a good newsletter. Why get one visit from a user... when you can get an endless stream of visits over time?

One of my sites (BrainyQuote) just keeps growing and growing as I keep getting new newsletter subscribers via co-registrations.

Jeff

[AleR]

Originally posted by Xshare
I actually share the same problem with the beginner of this thread. I rarely get over 200 visitors a day, and usually much less. I have no idea what to do next. I've been working on the site for weeks now. Google, Links with others, but people just dont seem to even come to the index page! (If design were the problem, they'd leave, but they haven't even come yet!) Sorry for starting up an old topic, but does anyone have any more tips? I have already done everything you told, but I still am not showing up on google or anything. Thanks alot, hope you can help me out.

..hm, but where is your NEWS? Of course I'll never visit your site again, 'cause it is static, without updating.
For example visit www.coolhomepages.com - first you can see is the NEWS. Thats why I visit them again and again.

Your design looks like design of your hosting company. ..why pills?

If your visitor number is groving 5-10% per month - it is normal.

[Xander]

Well, there are two things I see on your site that could be a problem for search engines.

1. Most of your pages have dynamic URL's.
Some search engines don't index these.
Try using Search Engine-Friendly URL's to maximize the number of indexed pages.

2. Create a unique <title> for every page!
This is very important as this tag is probably the most important for search engines.
You're losing a lot of traffic by using the same title for every page.

Do some keyword research for each page and use these keywords in the Title, meta-tags, headings and body text of that page.
Use tools like Wordtracker and the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool for finding these keywords.

If you work on these things, I think your site will do better in the search engines and it will get more visitors.

Hope this helps.

[Xshare]

What do you mean where is the news? Newest news was posted 2 days ago, thats not too static, is it? Sorry, I have finals and I'm practicing my lines for graduation so I dont have much time. The pills are a mistake (I used the wrong background for something, I'll change it soon. ) . Ok, I use postnuke as once again, as a 13 year old, I know nothing about coding PHP, just using it. I picked up a book and I'm on the section about include() so bear with me while I learn. I dont know how to make the URLs nondinamic without using some kind of frame or something, so I'll try that. The news on my site is there (theres just no date on it, I'll try to fix that soon.) I have a mailerdomo mailing list manager, so I'll be gettin that newsletter up as soon as possible. Thanks for your help people!

[123Cheats]

Hello, I am new too these forums, my name is Peter.

I have been making sites for the past two years now, I started out on homestead.com for the first 9 months, and then switched over to a domain name and got proper hosting.

From there I have gained alot of experience promoting websites. Mainly game/gaming related websites. I have a few sites at the moment, one you may of heard of being 123Cheats.net (which recieves over 15000 visitors a day/45000 pageviews a day) or even Xtreme-Cheats.com (which recieves 8000 visitors a day/25000 pageviews).

The older of the two sites is Xtreme Cheats, which I have been running since October 2001. I have been running 123 Cheats since January 2002.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have got to say that content rules 100% especially with gamesites, and if you havent got content you have got nothing. It doesnt matter if you have a pretty design, with pretty colours and flashing lights....if you havent got content you wont get much visitors.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You should also partner with a few bigger sites, preferably that offer the same content or similar products as you. I run a kind of partnership on my website called Affiliation, most sites, especially gamesites have an option for partnership.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TIP for CHEAT/GAME SITES: You should submit your site to special directories that will spider your site and send you 1000 's of free visitors everyday. The more content you have, the more visitors you will recieve. Such directories include: GameZone.com, GameZ.com, INEEDCODES.NET, ConsoleMonkey.com etc. etc.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HANDY TOOLS -
To check out your link popularity on searchengines you should go to: http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop , they give detailed results, and compare your link popularity to other sites. Including your competitors, microsoft.com & amazon.com.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------