Hints of running a popular site
Mon 19 Feb 2007Filed Under: Wisdom
After many years of running various BLOG type and review websites I can finally share some of my experiences which I find not many people talk about. If you are trying to do what I did with the original Hayabusa site ie a personal site. The most important thing is not to get discouraged if your site is number 10000000 in the search listings because that’s not the point. Being popular has its own problems which you may not like. So here’s a list of things you must be prepared for:
– You can’t answer 100s of emails a day.
– You will get 1000’s of spam emails every week that the spam checker won’t block.
– You can’t remember everything you’ve ever typed.
– You don’t get paid.
– Even running Ads the ROI is poor.
– You will get abusive emails form gutless wonders who don’t leave proper email contacts for a right of reply.
– You get forgotten by people who want to take the limelight and credit for some thing you help start.
– You can spend many hours and late nights trying to get a single sentence just right.
– You may get conned into promoting stuff which there is absolutely no benefit to you or anyone.
– Your stuff will get copied completely by others (your spelling errors included) despite copyright laws. Don’t worry too much because the search engines knows if your content is duplicated and they don’t rank that sort of thing highly!
– Be careful who you give permission to put your content on their site.
– Finally don’t copy other people’s hard work just link to them as thanks after all it was their work that helped you.
– Most of all show respect. If tables where turned see how you would like it.
– Be creative and original about what you want to write about. No-one likes reading the same thing over and over.
There are upsides of course!
– You get to experience and understand so many new and different points of view.
– You get genuine thanks from people you’ve never met.
– You can make a difference.
So my advise – do it for fun that’s all you should expect.