BICYCLING WEB SITES...

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What do you look for in a Bicycling website?...

This question is mainly for the South Africans but anyone may answer. I have, and continue to run a South African Mountain Biking website. Recently I took the chance to convert it to a Forums based site, and am now wondering what you the user expect from such a site...

Any comments, and or suggestions are welcome.

TY.

Here is my opinion for what its worth  ;D

1) a forum will flop unless you have decent traffic, this one hardly has enough.

2) start the forum off small.....with maybe 3 or 4 sections and let it grow over time. People will request extra boards when required, its whats happened here. The thing with doing it like this is, you end up with boards your memebers want, not ONES you think they want!

3) For a forum only site to take off, i reckon you need about 5,000 page views per day. Your lucky if 1-5%% of people actually post on any given day, most are happy to read.

4) branch out!.....I've created a link index, and added some articles, news and a chat room. All get used and bring heaps of visitors from search engines except the chat room which is a total flop. Again overall traffic could be the issue here, or could it be that our members are members because they like the forum and couldnt give a shit about chat? dunno....

Hi Steve!

Thx for the input...

Unfortunately I am a student and cannot afford to hop on the .com train like you. I do, where possible link to every page no matter how small I find - I think I have linked to a couple of hundred over the past four or five years, and as for Search Engines...well they are pretty useless in finding a site among the thousands indexed in them.

All this effort has not gained me much, about 2000 hits since 1998. I update my site when possible, and try to learn as much about Web Design as possible to improve my site for people.

Even though I face great odds I will continue to fight for my place in the market eventually my site may even become commercial, until then, well...

If you know of a good way to get more traffic I would love to hear it...

Your info however is greatly appreciated.

TY - Merlin

If you know of a good way to get more traffic I would love to hear it...

Sometimes the subtle things can be very effective.  How about putting a link to your website in your sig on this board?  That way, everytime you post here, anyone who reads it will see the link.  It's a great way to generate traffic without having to resort to spamming.

Tx Chris - Already there. :-)

Link this one
http://mtb.dknx.net/mtb/write/forum/a/index.asp
It's a Queensland site (in Australia).
Has a pretty big turn over too.
It's mainly mountain bikes chat as well ;D

Hey rokems, dat you there?

http://mtb.dknx.net/mtb/write/gallery/a/file.asp?ID=220

http://mtb.dknx.net/mtb/write/gallery/a/file.asp?ID=270

Nope - I wish!!
But this is me....

http://mtb.dknx.net/mtb/write/gallery/a/display.asp?ID=220&page=12

and this one....

http://mtb.dknx.net/mtb/write/gallery/a/display.asp?ID=311&page=8

Hope they work....


Jasen

Darn it!!
How you get piccies to work? Leave URL there??

oh well.
The first piccie is me yeah but the woodhill ain't me. That's some lucky bugger in NZ.

http://mtb.dknx.net/mtb/write/gallery/a/display.asp?ID=311&page=8

tis me as well.



We build lots of North Shore stuff at Blackstone in Brisbane on the weekends while are bikes are buggered or we're injured  :-/

But it's awesome fun - any one here build/ride North Shore stuff??

Jasen

Darn it!!
How you get piccies to work?

Click here (http://www.cyclingforums.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?board=feedback;action=display;num=1012109653) and wonder no more, young grasshopper...

We build lots of North Shore stuff at Blackstone in Brisbane on the weekends while are bikes are buggered or we're injured  :-/

But it's awesome fun - any one here build/ride North Shore stuff??

Jasen

WTF is 'North Shore Stuff'?  ;D

It's da good stuff man, ya know then!
Free love, man!

;DNorth Shore is all the ramps and jumps off the ground. see saws n stuff. ;D

Here's a picture from today!!<br /><br />http://mtb.dknx.net/mtb/write/gallery/a/display.asp?ID=502&amp;amp;page=1<br /><br />enjoy....I did!<br /><br />roKeMS<br />

Instead of advice, I could give you an example. I'm based in the US, in Arizona. http://www.az-fattire.com covers our MTB scene. It has breakdowns and reviews of local trails, they post pictures from our state chamionship racing series, they have links to sites and information of interest to MTB'rs.

Originally posted by slipperypig
Instead of advice, I could give you an example. I'm based in the US, in Arizona. http://www.az-fattire.com covers our MTB scene. It has breakdowns and reviews of local trails, they post pictures from our state chamionship racing series, they have links to sites and information of interest to MTB'rs.

Hey nice webiste