This section of the web providers' FAQ talks about general business issues, including selling points for a web presence. I will have my own white paper here, as well as the contributions of other writers.

(My own white paper is coming soon - watch this space!)

Here are a few miscellaneous questions I've been asked, that don't seem to fit in any other category.

Okay, my site's up. Why aren't I getting any comments?

Sadly enough, you won't get many. A typical site just runs quietly in the background of your server, and a typical browser looks around and then leaves, even if you do your darndest to exort him or her into saying something, anything about your site.

My Wonderful Women site, for instance, gets around 2,000 hits a day, but I get maybe one comment a day plus a couple of nominations. So naturally I decided to do a survey to find out what people thought of the page.

And what I discovered is that they give it a very high rating (average around 8.5 out of 10), but still don't include any comments, despite the nice large comment box I gave them.

So, how can you get more people to comment on your page?

• Say something controversial. Tell people abortion is a rather frightfully good idea, or that it should be banned. People with the opposite viewpoint will be on you in droves.

• Talk about a topic that inspires strong feelings. My Old SGI FAQ was an excellent example of this. A lot of people genuinely love the old systems, and so my plea for information about them was answered - in spades. I had more comments on that FAQ then I did on Wonderful Women, even though about fifty times more people saw Wonderful Women in an average day.!

• Avoid sex. I think people are really embarassed when they see a sexy site. They really don't want people to know they were looking! So when there's a site with sex, you're going to get fewer comments than a site with more "acceptable" subject matter. It's sad but true.

  Of course if you're a pretty girl and you pose naked on your site, you're bound to get lots of comments. Unfortunately, most of them will be shockingly rude. Pitiful, eh?

My thanks to Denise for inspiring this question. So rush over to her page and make a comment, won't you?

Links of Interest on these topics

Business Models for the Web is a thought-provoking paper that tells you how to market your Internet Presence service by working out proper business justifications for a site. Often, they can be radically different from what you might think coming in. Thanks to Michael Dillon for suggesting this link.

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The Web Business FAQ has been accessed times since it was created on 20:26 29 June 1996.