Hey everyone -

I was thinking of opening up a webmaster resource site (With links to feee message boards, mailing lists, headline servers, the like) and was wondering if it was even worth it with all the other similar sites out there.

Right now I run sites that pretty much have a specific target audience and there's one or two (at the most) sites that I compete with, so I'm able to get a large number of hits.

I'm afraid that buy opening up a webmaster site, I won't get the hits simply because of the hundreds of similar sites out there (I'm having a similar delimma with opening up a free offer site, there are tons of those two).

Any ideas you can offer me or thoughts on the subject? I'd be real interested to hear some feedback.

Thanks!

-Scott

I wouldn't be concerned with how many others are doing something similar. I'd be concerned with how well you are going to do it and what you might do differently. That is what will make the difference.

Had I been deterred over 4 years ago from creating my site about scuba diving becasue there were other portal sites, it would have been a loss With no advertising, except for word of mouth, it became one of the most popular sites for diving, eclipsing even some of the diving magazine sites. It has become well known as a respected source of unbiased and uncompromised information, had an effect on changing standards (for the better) in the industry, used by educators and others for reference, copied (and served as inspiration) by much larger commercial sites (who acknowledged the copying) brought people together in real life, helped countless people, and much, much more.

While your site may not do as much, the point is clear. Quality, rather than quantity, is what is most important. Your singular vision of what the site would offer may be different than what is currently offered, or the information might be more easily found, or have some difference that people will enjoy.

As many web sites as are currently extant, there is always room for one more that excels at something worthwhile. If yours does, you will find it well received regardless of how many others deal with the same subject.

The idea is viable as long as you intend to do something a little different. What I'd like to see is a site dedicated to reviewing, rating and most importantly re-reviewing webmaster resources; listing the best of them and making recommendations as to where prospective customers should head.

With that said, I wouldn't want a site that lists the "worst of them", one that does ratings based on click-throughs, one that is biassed or one that does not re-review (as resources are improved constantly, being stuck with 2 out of 10 even though you've improved your resource to a 7 out of 10 is a bit rough).

It would certainly take a dedicated team or person to run such a site, however. It would have to be constantly up to date with all resources judged fairly.

No matter how many ppl know html, there will ppl that still do not, a vast majority of the population.

If you have the programming ability to do so, then perhaps you could design the webmaster tools yourself. (Message boards, CGI counters, etc.) Then you could use the other webmaster tool sites as a promotional tool unto itself. Just a thought.

Here are some things you might include:

the problems with Front Page and why better tools should be used in many circumstances

articles and surveys dealing with ethics - should "webmasters" who have no knowledge of HTML represent themselves as webmasters when all they can do is use Front Page templates to create a site?

Reviews by users of tools. The reviewer's background and experience should be included and the reviews should show the total number of respondents, rathe the tools for beginning, intermediate, and advanced experience level.

Good books and other tutorials for people to learn more.

Use your imagination and think of all kinds of things related to the focus of the site. That's what I did with mine and people appreciate it for its wealth of knowledge and resources. It is singularly unique in that respect.

There's always room for more sites of this kind... IF you do it well.

The problem with a great many such sites is that they're not run by experienced webmasters who know what working webmasters want and need. As a consequence, most do poorly.

Just try to avoid making the articles long and boring. Try adding some images to it, and some jokes inbetween kinda thing. Noone likes old boring black peieces of text. :)

<< thanx EtLux :) >>

Originally posted by kunal
Just try making the articles long and boring.

Yeah. That'll do it... lol.