*Do a comment train. For every comment that you get, promise to comment on thier blog and somebody elses. Then, they're supposed to do the same. It's a great, origianal, fun, fast, kind thing to do especaily when you have just worked off your to-do list and desperately need something to do without the guilty feeling of being "site-absorved"
If you dont wanna do the comment train, then plug every commenter you have.
*Have at least 10 pages in the "You" section and/or the "Tutorials" section. The only reason i say this is because what is the first thing you look at in a site? The "me" section? The "site stuff" section? NO! I bet you look at the tutorials or the you area. So you might as well build that up as much as you can and make the pages in the "me" section intresting and funny =)
Try not to have any broken links :)
Try to have a team or a staff. Most sites don't have this, or keep it hiden wich is "yeah ok" but like, when your stie is just starting out it seems so hard. Then, when you have about 50 subpages, you feel pretty good. But then, you discover half of them dont work. Your getting lots of layout requests. Your getting bad reviews. You feel overwhelmed. Your site is suffering from limited bandwith and files and space. You need somebody to take care of it for you. Vist my Choosing Staff section for more.
Don't use frontpage if you can help it
Make as many orignial, smart, funny and easy-to-understand tutorials. The best way to make tutorials are to experiment in your graphics program or with HTML and make an effect that you like. Other people are bound to like it too =)
Have an origianl layout. Nothing is wrong with free layouts, but don't "run" on them. At least TRY to make your own layout, and if that fails, don't forget to credit the layout artist!
Give credit to sites that helped you
Give credit to particular programs that you used
Give credit to people that helped you
Make the navigation easy. Put it in a small I-FRAME if you can cuz if you wanna have a layout with 3 boxes, then you got room for it ;) and also, more space for the content so it doesnt have those ugly bottom scrolls *uggh*
Try to have lots of things for the visitor to DO rather then READ. This is very hard to do, i know, but it's possible.
*Plan stuff out in Notepad and code things in Notepad and go to spellchecker.com to spell check them.
*Have some speacial offers from time to time. Like a double plug or a good word or (my fave) a custom layout.
*Have some rubbish sites to test things, put in site history or just to host files that you like.
Have a site history, it can be very intresting!
Get rid of geocities ads.
Always have a HTML troubleshooting or FAQ page.
Have some pictures, and try to use bullet pints rather than paragraphs.
Have some sort of link me page where people can link you or you link the people you like.
Check your site regulary for broken images, pictures and clear out any not-used files. Also, go through your whole site checking that every page is neat, has the the right font and spelled correctly. Also make a list of all the things you ened to update or change. Then get to work!
Ok, i hope these helped. Any more? Email me!
