This is pure plagiarism, a copy and paste, with all kudos going to the big kahuna, BT himself, dating back to August 2002. I posted it here because, in my search for guidance regarding a project I'm working on, Brett's statement is, well, you decide: [webmasterworld.com...]
You want to know the secret of WebmasterWorld's success? Here it is: Focus on the members - focus on their messages - focus on their contributions.
Make that the most important thing on the page. Everything else on the page is noise - it's counter productive. It just clutters the page.
Information is what you came here for, it's what you stay for. Features and gimmicks? I've got dozens upon dozens of features built into the software that have not been (and won't be) turned on. Signatures, karma system, Upload Files, html posts, Images in posts, Polls, Ignore/twit lists, ThreadRank (shh-top secret) moding system, calendar system, who's online, chat, threaded/unthreaded, plugins, ad system in 3 flavors - etc etc...on and on.
I put them in there for a potential commercial system and some folks want that stuff on their forum. I don't want them here because it's just noise - it's just noise. Your messages are what we are here for, and that's what we focus on.
Interesting this discussion popped up. There's an opportunity here to talk about some things that have went on this week and have been also building for months. The following is in general terms only.
This business of seo and site ownership is laced full of half truths, unsupported hearsay, and outright lies from weekend experts who learned it on some other site saying the same thing.
There is an entire legion of site owners who go to forums, usenet, and other online places in honest attempts to learn the secrets of the wizards. How can I build a successful site? How can I get more traffic? Most often in other forums those are answered by people just repeating what they read on some other site that was previously repeated from some other site.
I wouldn't put myself in the class of a webmaster wizard, but my previous post was based on years of experience doing this. That's not one you'll find in an internet book of the month club. Even when you draw back the curtain and expose what is behind, some people just don't or can't believe their eyes. Yes, there are occasions when the emperor isn't naked and a cigar is more than just a cigar - this is one of those occasions.
Specifically, I don't think there is a more informative or valuable message about community building on this system than the previous one I left above. Reread it - that's it - it's all I got - all cards on table.
Polls? Sure they are gimmicks. We aren't about polls here, we are about webmaster education and help with specific problems. We are "News and Discussion". We are not "polls and surveys". They are a distracting gimmick.
Everything on a page of this site that isn't directly involved in discussion between community members, is clutter. Most of that clutter is a Gimmick.
E-a-friend? Gimmick.
StickyMail? Gimmick.
Printer Friendly? Gimmick.
Control Panel options? Gimmick.
Flags, Skins, My threads? Gimmick, Gimmick, and Gimmick again.
Profiles? Gimmick, but a gray area since it's still in direct and personal support of members and their messages.
Here's the full monte soapbox version:
- Content is still the king. What brings people to a site and keeps them coming back is content. Unique, original, and engaging content. Don't have that? No success.
Our content is provided by the members. Members and their content is what we are here for. It's what we are here to do - it's all that really matters.
- Gimmicks do not support that. They are actually counter productive to the sites mission. Chat, Polls, Surveys, and other "junk", are just gimmicks that clutter a site and obscure it's mission.
Look at Infoseek, Yahoo, Altavista. What happened to all them? They forgot what their users came for and instead went off on tangents that have turned out to be -- you guess it -- gimmicks. If you treat every user as a wet collar newbie in search of a portal and all your site will have is newbies. Speak to a higher audience and that's what you'll attract.
Everyone seems to think there is a magic golden goose out there laying millions of new internet users ever day. The big web expansion is over, and users are much more sophisticated today than they were just two years ago. They know how to find what they want. You can't be everything to everyone. Trust the Google Tom Peters (In search of excellence) model. Do one thing, and do it better than anyone else. The model works.
Content is what we are here for - it's all that really matters.
- Google proves that there is room for single task excellence. There are a million untried ideas out there and a million more that could have been successful. They were cast off with the portal one-site-fits-all madness of the late 90's. Do one thing, do it better than any one else.
Content is what we are here for - it's all that really matters.
- Again, striped down sites are retro cool. Google is not an accident. Users want brain dead obvious navigation systems and don't want to spend 10 mins figuring out some motor head groovy rolled over flashed out dom navigation system. Black text on a white background, done.
Design is just one minor aspect of the bigger picture. 60% Content, 35% Usability and 5% Design are what make a site.
Some of your content brings them, your navigation system helps them to find more, and the design stays out of their way so they aren't distracted. That brings em back for more.
Some talk about SEO and a few bad apples out there. SEO can't begin to compete with the web page graphic designer and some of the web page designers out there. An entire community has been sold on "graphics are everything to the success of a site". Now we are into an era where there are so many designers that do nothing but visit design sites and give each other awards, that they think they are successful. They are going around screaming, I got the data to prove graphics makes the difference. It has become a self fulfilling prophecy.
When you look at the people with real world independent success (Google again) or are doing the real world testing (Neilsen), they all say the same thing: graphics don't do anything but hurt a site. They only work when they are in support of content - a picture to go along with a story.
Content is what we are here for - it's all that really matters.
- A sites reputation is important in a world of instant communication. After you are successful, the challenge isn't to do something brilliant (you've already done that), it's to keep from doing something stupid. Continue to tweak, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Content is what we are here for - it's all that really matters.
- Don't be clone. Millions upon millions of sites out there are clones. You won't get noticed because of that latest "gimmick". You will get noticed and stay noticed because of your content. Guess what?
It's all that really matters.
</soapbox>
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Thanks Brett. I needed that. It was getting complicated. It just got simple again. ;-)
