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Starting Out

August 15th, 2001

Here's a tip for anyone who's thinking about starting a site. Hopefully you'll read over this and seriously consider it, which will help make your site better. 

First off, I've been finding a lot of general information anime sites. For the most part, they contain basic information that's very un-detailed. Not only that, but they also copy it from other sites. These general sites never try to go into great detail about anything though, because most likely, the webmaster has never seen the series he has a section dedicated to.

That's where I have to draw the line. There are way too many people out there making websites based off of what they learned from other websites. They only have different sections on their sites to "get more hits." In fact, they have news blogs that constantly remind you that their hits are either going up or down. Since when did having a website become a popularity contest? I'll tell you when, since people stopped making sites about what they enjoy.

Ten to one, if you've got a big anime site that just skims the surface of everything, I'm not going to visit. I might take one look at it, and then go somewhere else. I'd go to a shrine, or a site that has information solely about one series. Why? Because, that means there will be not only more information, but more pictures and more everything that has to do with that anime. And it's not like I'm the only one that thinks this way. Most people prefer series specific sites. General sites are generally, well, a waste of time. And for the webmaster, if they want to improve the site by adding more content, they soon find out that a general site is way too time consuming. It's always best to start out small and build up, no matter what your site is about.

If you can't be a 100% interested in what you're writing about, you can't expect anyone else to be either. Enthusiasm shows in what you say, and how you say it. You're not going to gain someone's interest by listing off character stats that are posted on a hundred different sites. That's probably a tip that most CCS webmasters can use.

In fact, if this whole thing doesn't start shaping up, I want to start seeing credentials. Like, "I can tell you about CCS because I've seen the entire series" not "I can tell you about CCS because I watch the American version and visit websites that have already written stuff about it."