Website Success

webcosmo · 01-09-2008, 02:53 PM

Few days ago I got an email from a reader saying "you should rethink of proudly showing your feed counter on the site". I replied back "every time I visit the site, it reminds me how hard I have to work".

In today's internet world websites are growing and dying like fungus. Even kids know of the internet before they are 5 years old. Everybody wants their site known to others. And that makes marketing efforts very difficult. You have to highlight a needle in a haystack.

In todays internet you can have success in three ways:

- A unique killer idea that will spread like a virus.

- Lots of money for advertising, building a good site.

- Work hard.

I prefer the third option. To mention as an example, in February 2007 I launched a website webcosmo.com. When I launched the site I knew nothing about marketing, nothing about SEO. I requested many of my friends help me post an ad on my site. To my surprise none of my friends post a single ad. One person who supposed to be my partner turned his back on me. That made me even more determined. I learned. With lot of sweat I have made that site quite popular now. And that's a good beginning.

I hear lot of people in different forums want instant success, asking for the magic. People opens a new website, and start thinking visitors will flock to their site. Unfortunately its not the case. If you can't come up with a unique idea, you have to have money to back up your site on marketing and other aspects. If you don't have any of those two you have to work hard, there is no alternative.

lifeofegypt · 01-09-2008, 04:57 PM

Success is usually the result of hard work, persistence and sheer determination to not fail. At least you know about your "friends".

greenfinger · 01-10-2008, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webcosmo

- Work hard.

You are not wrong! I find hard work does pay off in the end. Bringing something new and interesting and even useful to the fold often gets you noticed by your visitors not just as a "site admin" but as someone doing something for them. Loyalty is earned this way I'd say

At least this has been the case for me.

I think (like many others do) that advertising only goes so far, if you're lazy and let your site slip behind in terms of proficiency your opening yourself up for someone else to step in. Not a nice situation.

It always makes me chuckle seeing those requests for the magic formula on making a website, with all due respect to those people, this is about survival of the fittest, and those that are established through hard work and sharp learning garner their own magic formulas in their own unique way.

My 5 eurocents (they abolished the 1 and 2c coins)

webcosmo · 01-10-2008, 10:29 AM

Survival for the fittest sound very appropriate.

rembrant · 01-10-2008, 06:21 PM

You do need to be careful who you consider to be your friends.

siteman · 01-11-2008, 07:18 AM

Running a website in fact is like running a small business.

You do not have a manager to push you to work.
If you do not have the will, discipline, and passion to work on it,
it is much easier for you to just quit and let the site die than
making the necessary changes to the site and turn things around.

greenfinger · 01-11-2008, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by siteman

Running a website in fact is like running a small business.

Indeed, In fact I would go further to say that sometimes, running a website IS running a small business

It would be interesting to know how many hours/week you folks spend on your website maintenance, what you spend it on; such as:

- Coding new features
(me: 1-2 now that the site is past the latest major version)
- Bugfixing

(me: 2-3, less and less, thankfully!)
- Adding new content
(me: 1 hour a day, sometimes... mostly filtering user submitted content)
- Moderating and interacting with the community there
(me: variable, some weeks loads some weeks none).

However, for my site, the parts just before releasing the major revisions of the site usually have me working 3-4 weeks in the order of 5-9 hours a day! These times I personally spend far too much time on it, sometimes it's risking my health! But you know what - I think it's appreciated, although the little beggers hardly ever say so

webcosmo · 01-11-2008, 07:43 AM

Yep dedication and having fun working on websites are very important.

guinanie · 01-11-2008, 08:09 AM

Patience, hardwork, dedicate and being resourceful is the things you considered for website success.

InDi_GurL · 01-16-2008, 07:52 AM

it is also important that you love what you're doing.

KenMendonca · 01-16-2008, 08:26 AM

Not to go off topic, but they got rid of 1 and 2c coins in the Euro currency? That's awesome. I hate the weak US Dollar.

Anyway though, the idea that it really does require an extraordinary amount of work is what we try to get across to our affiliates every day. Everyone seems to think success just happens on its own online. So not true.

x3mario · 01-16-2008, 09:47 AM

Love on your work is anothing thing that let you succeed...

Avril · 01-16-2008, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by siteman

Running a website in fact is like running a small business.

You do not have a manager to push you to work.
If you do not have the will, discipline, and passion to work on it,
it is much easier for you to just quit and let the site die than
making the necessary changes to the site and turn things around.

Agree with that, most of all passion is important because without this there is a tendency that you lost interest to the things that you want...Also determination...