What's it take?

[on:]

How do you guys, with your conglomerately known websites, get so well-known? And how can my miniscule site (www.geocities.com/shadowstar_freakboy/futuramaguide.html) get as visited? Probably by resources...

[Reply #1 on:]

Kinda dangerous to answer as it might sound arrogant... but I will assume you want to learn from it:

• Be realistic. You can only get so many visitors with a niche topic. Not everyone wants to read futurama graphic guides and few of them will return daily.
• If you want recurring visitors, you need to either have a lot of time on your hands to create new content people would return for  or have some "self-feeding" going on, like interactivity.
• people would probably visit your site more often if it had an URL/domain they could both remember and type within 3 seconds. Everything else is too much of an effort.
• See that your site is google-friendly to bring in new visitors. To get an idea, CGEF gets about 1,000 visitors a day from the different google sites alone.
• Be active on peel and have a slick sig with a link 
• Give it time

In short: You can make some improvements but you'll probably not be able to get a huge amount of visitors simply due to the nature of your periodic content. You'd have to screw the focus of your site if you wanted that. Don't do that.

[Reply #2 on:]

Ok then.

You need a decent layout, if someone comes and sees something that's laid out crap, they aren't gonna stay long. Also, your site does look a bit rushed, that banner (IMO) doesn't look professional. Try making a nice clear scan or make a very high-quality drawing.

E-mail webmasters of other sites asking to do a button exchange, the worst they can do is say no.

Get a good button, the one you've got isn't that clear (purple on yellow?).

http://www.cjb.net  <-Get a nice short forwarding URL.

Do you need that episode list on the left? If you do keep it, try linking the episode names to the episode guides.

A few constructive points there. As [-mArc-] said, don't expect millions of visitors and don't expect to change overnight. The problem with your site is it only has those Futurama guides, and although they are great, anyone into Futurama doesn't need an episode guide.

[Reply #3 on:]

Do you know a site where I can get a domain name, like futuramaguide.com for free... or for a cheap price per month?

[Reply #4 on:]

If free domain names existed then we'd all be happy  Like aslate said the best you can do is used a forwarding URL. Although with cjb.net your visitors will be attacked by pop-ups (and I just typed "poop-ups" which is not good).

Another good idea is don't be modest. Your reviews are titled "Shadowstar's Pointless Reviews." People are just going to agree with you and not bother reading them if you're like that about them.

And I do agree your top banner is pretty awful. Not that I find the drawings bad (they're good, they make your guides yours.) but they don't tell a first time visitor to your site anything about the site other than it's about Futurama. So put a few smaller images of the guides up or something or draw the characters reading the guides like on the back of The Simpsons: ACGTOFF.

Lastly, is it your site you want people to see or the content? As far as I know your guides are already up at CGEF and FSAC. That's basically all there is to your site. People who see the guides on CGEF and FSAC know they are done by you so you should be satisfied that they are reading them there. Just like I am satisfied The Neutral Planet's transcripts are read at TLZ [/shameless yet necessary plug]

[Reply #5 on:]

Frankly, I'd hate to be attacked by poop-ups.

[Reply #6 on:]

Who doesn't?
OK, thanks for all your help. Even though I sounded like a desperate newbie in the process. New banner and background, new redirection: http://futuramaguide.cjb.net  and... that's it. And also, 2ACV09's guide is up.

[Reply #7 on:]

In some cases luck also helps, finding the right people to give you a helping hand when starting out.

When FSAC first started I never dreamt that it'd still be going in 2003, let alone be as popular as it apparently is.

Don't be afraid to try and submit the site to web-search engines and contact other sites to show your buddy button (didn't know you had one .. sorry! - I'll rectify that on FSAC in the next day or so.)

A nice and friendly design does help as well as a friendly URL (which you seem to have got sorted now), as I've found out over the course of time.

The main thing is you've got your own niche at the moment (I think) being the only site dedicated to Guides to the show.