Why directories get abandoned
I'm here today to write a little article because I keep getting asked how to do the simplest things with IndexU and people seem to think a plugin or a mod is needed to do them.
So today's topic is "Why directories get abandoned" and the short answer is one of the three following items
1) The owner doesn't have any imagination
2) The owner doesn't have the skill set required to make the required changes
3) The owner either doesn't have enough money to pay someone to do it for them or is too cheap
I'm a very cynical person, and now I'm going to detail the above items and if you fit one of the above you'll learn the reason(s) why your site will eventually fail miserably.
Lets go in reverse order.
3) You either don't have money to pay someone to do the work for you or you're too cheap to pay someone. This is your fault. Why would you expect someone to work for hours on your site for free? Do you really think you're that special that you deserve that kind of attention?
Please.
A decent coder online will charge you at least $15-20 per hour. Someone more experienced will charge $30 or higher. Perhaps if they're being nice you can get a discount, but don't count on it.
You're paying for their time. If you don't like what they have to say then don't ***** at them. I will guarantee that the price just went up if you decide you can ***** at them.
2) You don't have the skills to make IndexU do what you want. Again, this is your fault. You haven't bothered to take the time to learn HTML. No, you don't need to know PHP or SMARTY or MySQL or Javascript or CSS or anything else, just HTML.
Seriously now, it only takes about 10 hours to get a decent understanding of HTML and how it works. With this basic understanding you can then search the web (and the forum) for your answers and impliment your ideas eventually. You could also ask intelligent questions instead of just asking for others to do the work for you.
You can always tell the users who don't have the skill set. They constantly ask for help and then say they don't understand and ask for an example or how to do it.
No one here wants to do your work for you for free. They don't benefit from it at all.
And the worst part is? These types of users blame the software for the failure, but it's not the software. It's the user.
3) You have no imagination. You saw a site and wanted to copy it not realizing that 10,000 other people copied it too. Then you end up with no traffic because visitors saw your site and said "I've already been here and they didn't have what I want" and closed it and moved on.
Be original, or semi original at least. Modify a template to make it yours. Change the logo and an image or two and the background colour.
Don't be cheesy, don't be spammy and don't be lame.
A great site that makes decent money can be made even from the free templates. You NEED content, you need structure, you need a market and you need originality or you will fail.
I might even say you need a niche to survive. Most general directories are too large and cumbersome to work with and not very attractive to users unless they have a lot of content.
Say what you will and think what you want, but if you're one of these three types of users your site will eventually fail and be abandoned. The good news is that most of these issues are easily solved by working hard, learning and perhaps hiring someone to do the work for you.
