How to make your website popular

To make your site worthy of visiting it should do one or more (preferably) of the following:
- provide unique content
Don’t copy or take content from others, this include: taking a complete text and making it yours, using free content such as free articles from articles directories or from wikipedia or another persons work. When you provide content no one has ever read, you make sure your readers know where the fresh content comes from. I’m irritated of browsing through the search engines results finding the same content over and over in different websites. I would also add that these articles generally tend to be short, not that useful and that’s because they are generally used by the author to promote their websites. It’s possible to find good content over these free articles directories, but most of the time, you’re better to read and keep the stuff there. Yes, you can inspire you from these articles, but when you write, write a new one, completely new format, new comments about the ideas, perspectives, opinions, etc. Sometime you can write some gems for others and this is how you can gain some of your readers interested.

- have good features while having an easy use
Google is the best example: good search engine results (feature) while having an easy use (just check the search engine front page, you get a logo, a text box and a search button). When you provide features which are valuables to your visitors, you make sure they come back again. Make sure those features are well programmed, they are useful (they have a goal, at least I expect) and that it’s not ultra complicated to get them working.

- provide unique features
You need to make sure those features are unique if you want visitors who already use such product to change to yours. If you have nothing different, how can you get them to come to your own website to use your product? Well, give them new options, better performances, lower price, better products. If you have already been using your competitor products or something like it and you’ve been thinking about what you’d like to see it doing, just add it to your own product. More than often, many other people are looking for the exact same feature, or at least something similar.

- only give out the best of the mass (filter)
I’ve got this idea from Digg. Even though the content is voted by the mass, I often feel like there’s a bunch of crap on the front page. Don’t ask me why, I can’t answer that question. What I thought about writing was a variation of Digg. I would get their feed in RSS and then choose from the pack what I think is REALLY valuable and throw the rest away. From that selection, I would create pages where they would be listed. By doing so, I would have filtered the “already good” Digg content, giving only the best stuff, or the targeted stuff to my visitors, thus making them more happy.

- provide provocative content
Ah. This one is amazing. You can get really great results by speaking about the stuff people don’t. It’s one of these things people love reading about because no one wants to touch to this kind of stuff. You have to have a strong personality in order to write this kind of stuff because you must be sure of what you’re talking about, otherwise people will laugh at your ass. Maddox is one of those writers who gets a good response out of this provocative writing of his own.

- content is nicely designed
I think it’s a great feature for your website. When it’s nicely designed, it can bring those “finest” readers, those who are judging website content by how the website looks. I think everyone generally does that. If I were to go to a website for information, I would rather read from a website where the owner took the time to design it well instead of the not-designed website where everything is only in text format. Designing a website to look great generally doesn’t take ages, but just making sure it’s better than the generally website quality will give you better opportunities for your website to become popular.

- provide a point of view of things that other don’t
If you think everyone is wrong, you’ll like this one. This can happen sometimes that people are being mislead by others and that’s when you should step in and give out the right information, but be sure to back it up with great facts otherwise you might be forgotten as quick as a page load.

Even though most of you know this, it must be said once again:
- Have a lot of content
The more you have, the more you make sure you website becomes a resource. If I were to give you only 5 articles on online marketing, they would have to be really good in order to make sure you bookmark my blog and come again later for new articles. But if I give you 100 good enough articles, you’re more likely to save my blog because you see there’s content available for you to read. What’s even better is if I give you 100 really good articles, you’ll only be reading one and my website would be bookmarked instantly.

When I say have a lot of content, I don’t mean lot of useless, unintentionned articles. Those will drive your visitors nowhere and that’s not a place you want them to go. You want them to go and browse your archive deep down.

- The content should be reviewed for grammar, spelling, etc.
It’s okay to have 1-2 errors per thousand words but if you get over that, you need some help. And when I mean errors, I don’t mean those kind of errors that happen when you type, I mean those grammatical errors where the sentence simply doesn’t make sense anymore. Avoid that at all cost or your visitors will wonder what they have to think.

- Try to have a specific subject instead of touching to everything.
If you have a lot to talk about, make different websites about each subjects, it’s better than one site about everything. If my blog was about marketing, what I did yesterday, what I think about music and such, people would wonder what the hell I’m all about. You generally will find me because you were looking for marketing advices or anything that relates to money, and I don’t think you want to know what I ate for breakfast, at least I hope you don’t. When you’re writing about a specific subject, you make it clear to your visitor’s mind. It also tells them that each and every articles they’ll find here will relate somehow to the subject you’re talking about otherwise they’ll have to turn their internal content filter on.

- Mouth to ear is still the best way to get yourself some traffic and popularity
It’s really great to have free advertising. What is great is that when your website becomes popular, this happen more and more. It’s amazing how just telling a few of your friends about your website can increase it’s popularity, especially if it gives them something they have been looking for. The mouth to ear process is a good thing because sometimes you can get feedback from those people who have been discussing about your website and have found similar needs for improvement. The job is now done by your visitors, what a great thing!

If you can work on each of these aspects a bit, you’ll get results, may it be short term or long term. The content part is something which is really powerful, if you can release fresh content often (everyday preferably), you’ll have visitors to your website daily and those visitors might bring you new visitors. Also, by writing new content daily, you make sure your website is up to date, and maybe, you don’t know, some of your stuff will be picked up by bigger website with amazing traffic power.