Articles
Articles
So you want to build a fansite?
Last Updated (Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00) Written by admin Friday, 13 June 2008 08:50
First of all let me get the generic opening paragraph out of the way ;). Picture the situation you love your favourite celebrity, television show, etc so much that you need to build some kind of homage or similar buzzword themed website to them. But where do you start, what do you need, what is good to include?Hopefully this will provide some insight. But what you have to remember is there are no real limits – if you think a feature or page would be cool then put it in. The more diverse and different you can make your site the more chance you have of making your site stand out.
The building blocks
The core features I tend to put in a site depend obviously on what you are doing. For celebrity sites the core pages would be a biography, a filmography or discography (depending on whether it's a musician or actor, or if your doing Will Smith, Lindsay Lohan, etc you have to do both ;), pictures and other good stuff is links to other websites and shopping links if you feel like plugging your Amazon referral.
That said, as with all sites, fresh content is everything so a major part of most of my sites is news (my whole thing is daily news although you try providing daily news for a show that was cancelled months ago ;).
If you are building a site for a TV show then you will probably want to provide profiles of the characters and information on the episodes. Pictures, screen caps, web links are all applicable too here too.
Some more ideas
While I am writing I might as well throw many other ideas in. Discussion forums, guest books, facts and trivia, wallpaper, screen captures (although I already mentioned this), fan listings, buddy icons, media (audio, video, etc), quotes, polls, the list goes on.
Site design
The great thing about building fan sites is that people expect you to be lavish and colourful. People don't expect your site to be usable and a sensible design. Of course your site should be as a site that isn't usable isn't a good thing. But it allows us a degree of creativity that other site doesn't have.
If you want to make the site bright orange or bring pink then do it! That said there are some things you want to avoid as these are annoying even on fan sites: background music, scrolling text, different cursors, JavaScript affects you copied from a website to add a cool effect. Trust me, these things are not good.
From here on
It doesn't matter where you go from here – whether you pay for a domain and hosting or whether you just dump the site on Geocities or Tripod. Another great thing about fan sites is nobody expects them to be on professional hosting with domains (except the big fan sites).
Of course in the long term you should always aim to move to proper hosting. But just using a free host until the site gets going is perfectly acceptable for a fansite, there are some fairly well known sites on Geocities and Freewebs.
Conclusion
Building a fansite is great, you have creative freedom, nobody expects you to shell out loads of money or be sensible when designing. So go create, have fun and most of all remember to bookmark Fansite Webmasters ;).
Source: This article taken from http://www.fansitewebmasters.com/articles/so-you-want-to-build-a-fansite/
for more fansite webmaster related articles, check this website: http://www.fansitewebmasters.com/
How to Build a Fansite
Last Updated (Friday, 13 June 2008 08:48) Written by admin Friday, 13 June 2008 08:18
Here's How:
1. Check to see if the artist has an "official" site by searching one or two major search engines. If so, figure out what it does well and what it lacks.
2. Also, check to see if there are any fansites dedicated to your artist and ask yourself the same questions.
3. If there are none or few sites already up, you can make a big contribution with yours. If there are many, you should consider specializing in one area.
4. Some ways to focus your site: create a photo gallery, write/collect concert reviews, collect a library of links, create a detailed discography, hunt down old interviews and articles that can be republished, create a bulletin board or chatroom.
5. If there is a web ring dedicated to your artist, join the ring.
6. Be creative when naming your site. Many draw their inspiration from a lyric or bit of trivia. It is bad form to use the artist's name (ie. johndoe.com), since this can create the impression that your site is the official site or somehow has the endorsement of the artist/label. It also preempts the artist him or herself from getting that name. Some artists who were slow to get on the internet have had a problem with this. On the other hand, I had a client I was designing a site for and when I went to register her (very unusual) name, found it was already taken. When I looked into it, it turned out that a fan had registered it years ago in order to save it for her. Very classy. In the end, some fan sites have become so good that the artist adopts them as their official site. This is considered the highest honor. Next best: getting a prominent link from the official site.
7. Let people know about your site by contacting other webmaster fans and requesting links. Get on some of the newsgroups, mailing lists and discussion boards appropriate to your topic and announce the site's existence. Be sure to let the artist know too.
Tips:
If you are an accomplished webmaster and your favorite artist has an ineffective site or one that is not updated, you might offer to run their existing one. Depending on the artist, credentials and references might help.
Source: http://www.balladtree.com/features/ht_fansite.htm
