You have to admit that you – yes you – have been to a fansite or two in your time. A fansite meaning, specifically, to be a website dedicated to a celebrity or popular topic of some kind (I.E.: a film series) made by an “average Joe” type of fan/admirer who is not affiliated with the subject itself in any formal way. When I was a youngster1, celebrity websites of almost any kind were always official and endorsed by the celebrity and/or their management. Nowadays that is definitely not the case. There are fansites to anything and everything, and there are more often than not multiple ones for a single topic. When there are multiple fansites for a single thing, things can get pretty complicated.
One of the biggest “complexities” of the fansite world is the naming of these sites in regards to the celebrity or topic they are dedicated to. There seems to be a very specific algorithm used by fansite creators to determine just how their domains and site titles are chosen, and I have finally exposed it! Amazing! I shall now explain to you all the extremely difficult and tedious task of choosing a fansite name, but please: do not try this at home!
STEP 1: Make it sound official even though it’s not official.
We all know that if a website claims to be official and thus represent or be endorsed by someone but doesn’t have that credibility, that can result in some big trouble! Oh my, we do not want that. So to avoid any legal issues surrounding representation and/or affiliation, you can’t use the words “official”, “approved”, “endorsed”, “authorized”, “recognized”, or any of those other awesome words because that would be a big boo boo.
STEP 2: Register a .com, .net, or .org with [some form of] the topic’s name in it.
This one actually makes sense to me, though, because you obviously want a domain name that says what the site is about. Keep in mind that even when yahoo.com and google.com were new on the block people had no idea what they were when they saw/heard the name. Thus, if you name your site something that is not correlated to the topic of your site, you might hurt your traffic in the long run. The closer you can get to the actual name of the topic of your site, such as a celebrity’s working name (I.E.: britneyspears.com for Britney Spears), the better. If you need a dash in between the first and last names of a person, you may do that. You may also cut down the first name of a person to a single letter and leave the last name intact if that’s what it takes to get a relevant domain (I.E.: kstewart.com for Kristen Stewart) purchased. Hell, if you’ve got the funds, buy anything and everything you can that is related to the person’s name. It doesn’t really matter as long as it goes to the same place under the same crappy site title which is in step 3.
STEP 3: Use specific “keywords” in your site’s title to make it seem more important and useful than it really is.
There are a lot of words that are used over and over and over by fansites that used to seem really innovative, but because they are used over and over and over, they are definitely not. Oh well! Use them anyway so you can fit in! There are levels of superiority in the keywords, so chose wisely. If there were two fansites to a person/topic with the same title that would be some epic dramarama right there and hate mail or possible hacking would ensue. The highest and most desirable level of keywords consists of thing such as:
celebrity name + “fan”; “fans”; “online”; “network”; “source”; “web”; “daily”
If none of these are available because there are just too damn many fansites for the topic you are making another fansite about, make something up that is vague but overall positive, like “Supergirl” or “We love ____” or another unoriginal name/phrase. If you end up doing this, step 4 will definitely be more important to you!
STEP 4: Pad your site description and content with propagandistic and exaggerated words to infer your site is superior to all others around.
This is a rather crucial step for every fansite and not just those that didn’t get a great domain name or site title. If you want your fansite to seem like it is the cream of the crop regardless of the content you have on it, you have to advertise like it is! Using phrases like “non-stop” and “24/7″ make the site sound as though it is always ready to report news and the latest stuff visitors may want, even though fansite owners can’t be available non-stop, 24/7 to update their sites2. Content should also speak to the visitor on a personal and individual level, so using identifying words like “you” and “your” to directly address the visitor at that moment is a good strategy. The last part of this step is to mix in various words representing quality and excellence throughout a fansite to reassure the visitor that your site is the best site to be at. The most commonplace words/phrases are “best”, “number 1″, “ultimate”, “definitive”, and “premier”3. Try to jam in as many of these as you can in as much space as you can find because invariably the next owner who makes a fansite to the same topic you have a fansite for will utilize this strategy. Thus, you might as well join the club and follow suit because if you don’t say your site is the best then what kind of fansite owner are you, anyway?
Voila! You now know the secret to success in the fansite world! Now that you have been briefed on the most tedious and painstaking steps of the fansite creation process, I highly encourage you to go out and make a fansite for something that already has a half a dozen fansites and see how well you do. Good luck!
- …referring to a time when Google was virtually unknown, social networking had not been coined, and a cell phone could only be used for communicating verbally. †
- If the fansite owner(s) are indeed available non-stop, 24/7 then there are much bigger problems going on that need to be dealt with off the internet entirely. †
- The word “premiere” is probably used more than “premier”, but this is only because people are too stupid to realize the former is inaccurate in the vast majority of cases. Oh well. No biggie, right? †
I remember in the community I was in the word “online” was seen as The Best. Domain names didn’t matter so much, very few people had them, but the title of the first website to be made was usually Person Name Online. And if someone didn’t take the opportunity to use that word then the next person would. It was a weird hierarchy. The rest of your steps I didn’t come across as much, key words were important, but simply for the basic information. I used to think we were over confident, maybe it was just because we didn’t have the resources etc that are around now.
It’s funny, I’m making a fansite at current for something I’m absolutely rabid about right now, but considering the name of the subject it’s impossible to get a related name as it is right now– but a lot of these steps have gone through my mind, cliche as they may be. Honestly, I wish I could be more clever, and had more ability to create innovative site designs and compelling content, but sooner or later people just cuddle up to familiarity like it’s a warm fire on a cold night.
I tend to feel as if I’m repeating myself in fansites and the like as well, like if I don’t make the most compelling and new content no one’s going to give a crap– I tend to not care, because in the end I’m making the site for something to do, and for people to come around and get information if they need, so there you go.
I think I just ranted for no reason. >D Sorry, Hales. <3 That being said, I'll shut up now, but I agree whole-heartedly with what you've said.
You post made me laugh, partly because I myself am a fansite owner and have been for for the past 7 years or so. We I first started hardly anyone had domains and sites were more about content and originality. Now people care more about the domains and the site layouts than anything.
I still run fan sites, but they’re becoming more of a chore than good fun because everyone and anyone is starting fansites on everything and anything. I noticed you have an Anna Popplewell domain – I have been running http://georgie-henley.com for as long as I can remember, but now many preteens have opened Georgie sites, all with domains and I don’t know, maybe I’m old and bitter but it was never that easy when I was 13? It’s boring now, to have to listen to their drama when I update with the same news as they do.
I tend now to stick to sites on less known subjects, namely British, who I just thoroughly enjoy following the careers of!
I honestly cannot believe how cookie-cutter all the big fansites are for every celebrity under the sun. It seems like they all copy each other in the most obvious and blatant ways, some of which including the names of the sites/domains (hence the entry)! Lameeee.
I have run my Anna Popplewell site since early 2008 and my William Moseley site since mid ’09, but I’ve had way more experience with non-English speaking celebrities in regards to fansites since a very young age (around 14 or so; I’m almost 22 now). Regardless of the ethnicity or demographic involved, fansites bore fans when they all have the same crap on them. I try my hardest to come up with some interesting stuff and have a different looking site. I browse the current batches of fansites and pretty much try to do the exact opposite as much as possible. Otherwise I don’t see any point in me even running the site myself if mine is just the same as someone else’s! D: Poo.