Back to Basics & the Golden Rule

The internet and by extension the www was meant to be a place of freedom, freedom to share information and ideas in a totally unprohibited manner. This means that a website – any website – exists to primarily provide information and/or a useful service. Then, much later, the website may make money as a consequence of its usefulness (one hopes!)

How do you make your website useful? Remember the golden rule: when designing and creating a website, get your priorities right: you are making that website so that people may visit it and use it; you are making it for its users. Therefore:

1. Provide useful content. Visitors to your site should have access to this content in the easiest and most efficient way possible.
2. Make your website the best it can be without thinking, at first, of how to make money with it. It is often said that the most profitable sites were first created to enrich users’ lives and then, relatively much later, ways were found to make them earn money. Does Google or Craigslist ring a bell? Both started out with these principles.
3. Do not mistreat your website’s users. Let them come and go as they please, do not obstruct them with ads and other crap. Moreover, NEVER ask for their emails, names or for them to register with you unless it is absolutely necessary.

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This Post is part of a series of posts describing web 2.0. If you find it interesting, you may want to check out the rest of the posts. Not sure? Try read this summary of this series of posts. Otherwise, the other posts in this series are:

So, you want to go web 2.0?
web 1.0
Web 2.0: All the rage?
Back to basics & the Golden Rule
In with the New.