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My website sucks

StoreTags: webdesign, webpage, website, hits

Author: jcd on September 18 2006

Viewed 4455 times. 4 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.

People who enjoyed reading this: kidko, ignatius, Matti, nightowl

--> My website sucks. Or maybe it's the music.

I spent two weeks making the slimmest, cleanest, most standards-compliant site that I know how to. I trimmed all the fat, kept it focused on music (to the exclusion of a blog, of photos, of random news stories), and began updating weekly with new tracks.

My traffic dropped to fucking zero.

I'm tempted to make a brash, stylish, slow-loading photoshop-based design to see if that reverses the trend.

my site is at link if you want to take a look. At this point I'm open to pretty much any suggestions, since my traffic literally cannot get any worse.

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Comments

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09/19/06 + hecanjog

ps, helvetica and large type sizes are so hot right now. so hot. ;-)

Recent blogs: yes!, cyclic defrost review of me record, Crutch

edited: Sep 19 2006 + jcd

Thanks for the advices, all. I'll be doing a redesign this week, taking into account many of your points.

Recent blogs: I'm on Magnatune! Kind of., An Orgy of Commerce, My website is better

09/19/06 + mixedtape

kidko said: "you can be standards compliant and exciting!"

For what it's worth, I like what you've done here. It's clean, simple and almost standard's compliant (no doctype).

However, yes, it is a bit boring. There is nothing telling me that this is a site about music when I go there. What does the name "building on fire" represent to you? It doesn't have to be literal fire, in fact, to me it sounds like creative inspiration. The fire of being inspired and building on top of that. Sounds awesome!

In short, what would you like people to think when they go to your site. When I surf the web I tend to bookmark things that inspire me. I suggest you go to some of your favorite websites and look at why you like them. Also, go here and check out the css showcases and galleries (among all the other awesome links!) and see if something helps you get that inspiration that I think your site is about.

Recent blogs: Robocop vs. Alec Empire, Barack Obama listened to your MP3, Radiohead Remixes/Mashup

edited: Sep 19 2006 + mixedtape

Another tip to get more traffic:
Think of what searches you would like to pop up as. For me this was "seattle actor" (link). I'm sixth down on google, sometimes even higher. Look at what the title of my website is.

Of course, maintaining and updating with relevant content helps in a big way.

Recent blogs: Robocop vs. Alec Empire, Barack Obama listened to your MP3, Radiohead Remixes/Mashup

12/13/06 + flies

just got linked from the random pic on the front page. your page is lookin pretty sweet there!

Recent blogs: vector granulator, no thanks, grade school

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