My first website and failed.

[555]

Hello,

3 months ago, i created my first website, I started with a good domain name (anim.tv) and then i created a forum out of it with a very cute web designm strong SEO and keep adding contents...

One month passed and i still get no visitors... So I though that maybe my domain name is bad and decided to get some high quality domain hacks (anim.al) (anim.es) (anim.us) ect...

Two month passed and no visitors... So I got 2 really good domain name (anim.co) & (foxy.co). Unfortunately, still no visitors Just 2 members... those are my RL friends.

Now... I really don't know what am i doing wrong

This is what i learned: You can have the best domain name in the world with an outstanding design template and still be unpopular.

I am crying right now for my failure.

[machoman]

I really feel sorry for you 555. I understand how you feel. I guess you need to find some alternate job until that website becomes popular.. I just searched for any other blogs like yours and man, this type of blog is really popular! My thought for you is to be persistent and maintain a positive attitude. Keep adding interesting contents in your blog.

Another thing I would like to tell, please don't take "no visitors" as a failure. But as a feedback. This is one of the NLP presuppositions. Let me quote a text that Iam currently reading:

Living life by this presupposition changes all areas of life, but especially those areas that demand persistence and the wisdom of learning from "what doesn't work." People tend to give up too easily. Many marriages would not end in divorce if the couples considered communication as feedback rather than failure. Thomas Edison's 10,000 experiments (some say 1,000 experiments) in search for a filament to work in his light bulb illustrates this principle. When asked, "It must be hard to have failed 10,000 times!" Edison replied, "I didn't have 10,000 failures. I just found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb." No failure—only feedback!
How many relationships end because people "fail" to get what they want
immediately?
How much business ceases because people take "failures" as
a reason to quit or back off?

[Canarybird]

You've already achieved more than many by actually getting your website live, so feel good about that.

Also, failure appears to be a major component of success - just ask Bill Gates, Thomas Edison etc etc. Think about what you can learn from this to take your website to the next level.

Just one thing, and I'm by no means an expert - as I understand it, the more non-conventional domain endings, such as your .al, .us, .co, do not hold as much weight with search engines which may be affecting your traffic. Could you use a .com domain? And although you think your domain names are very clever, they may not necessarily be the first thought for your target audience. Could you devise a domain name which uses some of your key words or phrases?

The main thing to remember is that you are way further down the path to success than many of us. Keep passionate and keep fighting!

[Lucidism]

Hey 555,

Try not to feel too bad! It sounds like you tried your best and surely you learned some new things.

I must tell you, buying more domains does absolutely nothing to help you get more visitors. In fact, it may even hurt you, because ideally you want all of your energy focused on bringing visitors to only one domain.

Was your web site ONLY a forum? If so, that's probably why you had trouble gaining visitors. The most important thing for gaining visitors is having a lot of unique and interesting content.

I'd like you to visit this web site, which is full of good tips for you: How to Create a Website - Free Tutorial for Beginners

Lisa Irby is an awesome lady and she's very wise!

Be sure to check out the free traffic guide: How to Get Traffic To Your Website - Increase Your Traffic!

Good luck buddy!

[ragtag]

Can I be a bit critical? I hate to kick someone when they're down, but here are a few pointers anyway.

There are a few technical problems with your site. If you search google for anim.us you get the following blurp.

Discuss about news posted at Anim. 1 Topics; 5 Replies. Icon 24 July 2010 - 09:59 PM; In: . ... Have a suggestion for improving Anim somehow? Let us know. ...

This isn't very helpful, and doesn't tell me what the site is about. Then when I go to the site, I'm greeted with a forum, that's rather empty...and still no blurp on the page to tell me what it's about, or a one liner to sell me on the site. (like Steve's Personal Development for Smart People).

Then checking your code I can see you have no meta tags for keywords and a short description of your site. I believe these are still somewhat important for search engines. There is also no robots.txt file, for the search engines to use. In addition, it seems like the css is all inline, move it to a file of it's own.

These are all technical problems that are relatively easy to fix.

Having an empty forum is not inviting for people. Why post something on a forum where it's likely nobody will reply? There are also too many disparate categories, maybe try to keep it focused. You need to draw people in with interesting articles and content, and then when you have a small following, you can set up a forum so they can talk amongst themselves.

And then there is marketing, which I really don't know much about, so I'll leave it up to someone else to come with suggestions. :P

That said, the graphics and design of the site is very nice and it definitely has potential. You just need to find your audience.

[tc65681]

Originally Posted by ragtag

Can I be a bit critical? I hate to kick someone when they're down, but here are a few pointers anyway.

There are a few technical problems with your site. If you search google for anim.us you get the following blurp.



This isn't very helpful, and doesn't tell me what the site is about. Then when I go to the site, I'm greeted with a forum, that's rather empty...and still no blurp on the page to tell me what it's about, or a one liner to sell me on the site. (like Steve's Personal Development for Smart People).

Then checking your code I can see you have no meta tags for keywords and a short description of your site. I believe these are still somewhat important for search engines. There is also no robots.txt file, for the search engines to use. In addition, it seems like the css is all inline, move it to a file of it's own.

These are all technical problems that are relatively easy to fix.

Having an empty forum is not inviting for people. Why post something on a forum where it's likely nobody will reply? There are also too many disparate categories, maybe try to keep it focused. You need to draw people in with interesting articles and content, and then when you have a small following, you can set up a forum so they can talk amongst themselves.

And then there is marketing, which I really don't know much about, so I'll leave it up to someone else to come with suggestions. :P

That said, the graphics and design of the site is very nice and it definitely has potential. You just need to find your audience.

There is a lot to a website- not just the domain name
I have several websites also- average around 200 visitors per day

Have to have content- that is key
the meta tags that were mentioned-what keywords you are focused on- h1 and h2 headings- images- links- linkbacks-etc- do some research on what is called SEO- search engine optimization-
also 3 months is a short period of time- very few sites go viral and get a lot of traffic fast- typically takes 6 months to a year to start to build traffic

[ellie]

Oh I understand...when I first got interested on creating a website on the net, I thought it was as easy as putting a nice domain name and nice looking site and all would come.

Wrong. It just doesn't work like that.

You first need to build an audience before you attempt a forum.
You need to find "your tribe" and I believe "your passion".
Read seth godin's book Tribes.

You also have to good engaging content. A forum with no content is not engaging.

So if you are interested in anime, start a blog, start talking about your journey, connect with others.

Now why I said passion...well to be honest the first few years are going to be tough, people may barely come to your site for the first year...so if you're not passionate about your topic, then in inevitable that if no one is coming, then you are going to get bored and switch off.

However, if you are a truely passionate about something, you're more likely to plod along, without an audience...and I believe that's the trick.

I've already made the mistake of trying to force a website topic that I was not interested in, it was a big failure...but now I have learnt from my mistakes, and implementing a site about something I am truly passionate about, and well...I can see a huge difference.

[Strangemagik]

It can take years keep positive and keep at it. A lot of the successful internet marketers take time and yes even failures to get there. We'd all be sitting in the dark if people didn't keep trying.

[success21]

Originally Posted by 555

Hello,

3 months ago, i created my first website, I started with a good domain name (anim.tv) and then i created a forum out of it with a very cute web designm strong SEO and keep adding contents...

One month passed and i still get no visitors... So I though that maybe my domain name is bad and decided to get some high quality domain hacks (anim.al) (anim.es) (anim.us) ect...

Two month passed and no visitors... So I got 2 really good domain name (anim.co) & (foxy.co). Unfortunately, still no visitors Just 2 members... those are my RL friends.

Now... I really don't know what am i doing wrong

This is what i learned: You can have the best domain name in the world with an outstanding design template and still be unpopular.

I am crying right now for my failure.

It seem to me that you are too naive

It is going to be rude, but let me tell what I think about your website truthfully: You say you created that website 3 months ago and yet there is no readable content in your blog.I expected some content about anime, but it only made me disappointed.What were you doing for 3 months? To me your situation is like a dude who bought a personal development program for $1000,listened to it once and complaining that it didn't helped him change his life! Do you see what I mean here? Seriously I don't know anything about internet stuff,but I guess if you did not add content to your blog, you will not get any members to your site.

I have to agree that the design of your site is really cool and pleasant. But does that helps me to sign up for your website?No. So please follow all those advice that people gave here.

I wrote this post as a "kick in the butt" type.I know I haven't given useful advice here,but I do hope this post gives some idea to think about.