Online diary site

Features?

[MattVrecar]

there are many online diaries out there but i still have a feeling that it would be possible to succeed with a new diary site. what features do you think are necessary to offer at the start and what would you like to see in the future? please try to keep it simple. simple doesnt mean that site cannot be good. if i just take a look at friendster.com. so simple and so successful...

[rogerd]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, MattVrecar. A couple of the areas you'll want to look at in choosing software to run your site are ease of updating and visitor interaction. The better blog packages make adding new comments very simple and efficient, and also have decent security.

If you are going to let visitors comment, check out how easy it is, whether you can moderate comments, and what kind of spam prevention features exist.

[MattVrecar]

rogerd, what about traffic? do you know how to drive traffic to such a diary? adsense, word or mouth, directories? i have learned that submitting to directories or search engines as free links doesnt help at all. i am talking about reaching 1000+ visitors per day. what do you think?

[rogerd]

Usually, diaries/blogs rely on word of mouth, links from other sites, and free search engine results. Usually, paying for traffic isn't practical because the cost of the traffic exceeds the benefit. (If you have a great business model, or a big ego and lots of money, then buying traffic might work. :))

To drive traffic to a diary site, I'd do a few things:
1) Get some content out there. Make sure it's interesting; edgy or controversial might be even better. You need content both to drive traffic and links, plus to give those who visit a reason to return.
2) Start soliciting links - directories, similarly themed sites, etc.
3) Be sure your site is readily indexable by search engines so that as they begin to find your site they can pick up your content. WebmasterWorld is the right place to learn about how to set your site and pages up for good indexing and optimal rankings.
4) Work on the community features of the site to bring people back.