My Homepage is finally a success

[kenandlat 0]

Howdy all Forum Members,

 

I was NEVER online until I bought my first Gateway Computer in early 2000. Shortly after, I became so distraught by my not having the computer skills to find information I wanted while surfing, or to re-find it when I needed it later, I talked a friend Frank Picchoine into putting a personalized website up for me to keep all my newfound "treasures" in.

 

I thank him for his ####, but as he had NO time to make updates to include additional information/urls, I began looking for another avenue to collecting and saving all information I found of interest to me that I thought might have some interest to others.

 

In 2003, I met a man named Mike Newman, who shared my interest in a homepage that would have the information from my old website AND be upgradable to include updates/additions each month.

 

What the finished product looks like is:

http://homepage.mac.com/mgnewman/KenLat/

 

You can page down the left hand column subheadings to find topics of interest to you, then click on any/all URLs under that subheading and find a wealth of info within one place (and if you bookmark my homepage, it will always be there easy to find when you need any info about any subheading later).

 

Little did I know how many people would actually access the homepage until Mike added a "counter" at the bottom left hand corner (looks like a globe with a cn on it). And if you click on Summary and all titles below it, you can tell exactly how many from all walks of life and areas of the planet are.

 

As of today, we are getting an average of 44 hits/day. I never envisioned that it would ever be that popular. I noticed, when looking at the counter, some of the active members of this forum have accessed it. I'd like to ask those who haven't yet had a look at my homepage to do so, and those who have would post a reply here or bc me and let me know what you think about the homepage and any suggestions for improving it.

 

My target audience was all those that "regularily" visit Thailand and all active duty, retired and veterans of the military. I have large sections of info under the titles Asia, Bangkok, Books, Hotels, Pattaya, Philippines, Thailand, Travel, and Weather that might be of interest to ANY of our members here, and if any of you have URLs on any of those subheadings I've missed, PLEASE let me know so I can add them.

 

I also have the largest subsection on Military of anyone I know. just FYI.

 

Hope y'all can give me some additional URLs I've missed and also hope you enjoy the Homepage.

 

Just last year, I also started puting out a daily column called THIS AND THAT.

You can access it daily at http://kenandlat.diaryland.com

 

Let me know if you have any quizzes, quotes, jokes, interesting articles, etc. that you think I could use for my daily column.

 

Thanking you in advance,

 

Ken Bower

San Antonio Texas

35 trips to Thailand so far since 1971

Next planned trip Oct/Nov 2005

[no9to5guy 0]

It looks like you put a hell of alot of work and time in collecting all the links. But for me it's not so easy to read, try not to work in frame pages (I worked with frames in the beginning and sson got off it when paople tole me they hate the scrollbars in the middle of a page), especially for those with a smaller screen, it's hard to read, and your bottomframe takes a lot of space with the googleadds, if you make it without frames you can add more adds on every single page. Let's say now when you click on games, that means that this person is interested in games, but you adds for Pattaya hotels still stay the same at the bottom, if you work without frames you can put adds for games at the bottom of that page. You are getting ranked very high in the searchengines because of all the different keywords you got and the links, if you work without frames, there will be more pages listed in the searchengines and you will get even more visitors. Also note that regarding the counter, unique visitors are great, but try working on recurring visitors, that means people are actually comming back to see your site and use it.

The sites you link to, make sure they link to you aswell, as that will give you a higher ranking aswell.

The main referrers you get now is from boards like this one where you posted your link, but remember that this won't last as your posts will get older end up on on the bottomtopics of the forums and people won't read them anymore.

The main keyword now is 'Ken', that means that when people look in the searchengines for Ken, they'll see your site, but that's not really what you want, you want people who look for Thailand or military on your site so you need to focus on those words.

Google adds are ok but only really make money when you get 1000+ visitors daily, if you want to make money with it, let me know and I'll give you some sites and affiliates you can choose from.

I'm not a company or whatsoever, I make websites for myself to do something when I'm bored and my sites pay for my trips to LOS

Please note that I don't want to break down your site, but you asked our opinion and I know how much time you have put into your website.....and it's a great start...

[doorman 0]

I have been forwarding your website to people I meet since I first found it. A while back. Very good site. thanks Doorman