STATUS of Photoshopgurus as of October 2006

[Gaussian]

Hi guys, I started redesigning the Photoshopgurus site a few weeks ago. I've decided to convert the old tutorials back to html, since it's better for the search engine ranking of this site and Photoshopgurus? popularity. If you're interested I'm happy to explain what the whole idea behind it is, but trust me on this one; it?s better for the site to have tutorials in html.

Converting the tutorials was a lot of work, so that's one of the reasons why it?s taking a bit longer. I've also not done a whole lot during the summer, but then again I never work much on the computer during those months, because... well, it's summer right!?

Anyways, I'm pretty much 80% done with the site. I was close to finishing it a few weeks ago, but I got side-tracked by the release of the new Intel Conroe Core2Duo processors.
I was maintaining my two sites on this old Pentium III piece of antique so it was time for an upgrade. I decided to built my own computer and that took a lot of time and preparation and I?m finally finished setting up this new system. Wow, especially when it comes to Photoshop these Conroes are really fast, highly recommended, I hope they put them in the Macs too so that we all can benefit.

Shortly after I took over PSG, Namvet started to contact some old members so it was pretty busy for a month or so on our forum, but already then I knew that this was just going to be temporary. The reason is that the only way this forum can be a success is pure traffic, nothing else. PSG is getting only 400 visitors a day and that?s way too low. This number will go up after I upload the new site design, because only then I will have the proper foundation to promote the site. I can easily see the number of visitors going up close to 1,500 in a short time.

Now do understand that a forum is getting its main success from its members. I have 4,000 people visiting my other site every day, but its forum is pretty much dead. I know sites that have half that number of visitors, yet have a very active forum. When you run a forum you have to be lucky, meaning you need to have a few people who can drag the forum to new heights. I call them ?golden? members. Those forums that are successful always have 5-10 of them. I just hope it?s going to happen with PSG too.
I will be visiting the forum on a regular basis, but the amount of help I was able to offer years ago when I was a member, is not possible anymore, simply for the fact that running the sites itself uses a lot of my time, not the mention that I need to spend more time on developing my own skills in certain areas of Photoshop, but I also want to improve in Illustrator, Indesign and Premiere.

Anyway, traffic to PSG will return, however if it?s going to be translated into a success on the forum, only time will tell.

Btw, I haven?t seen Namvet in a while, I hope he?s ok (I know he had health problems in the past). I tried to contact him by E-mail, but the address was rejected. I have to see if I can find another address.


I will keep you all posted about developments at PSG.

[sPECtre]

Thanks for the heads-up, Gauss!
Keep us posted about Namvet!

[Gaussian]

Originally Posted by sPECtre

Thanks for the heads-up, Gauss! Keep us posted about Namvet!

You're welcome Pierre. As for Namvet, I still have to find a way to contect him, because for some reason his current E-mail address doesn't seem to work anymore.

As for PSG; the design is pretty much done and I hope to upload it this or next week. After all this tedious work the real fun starts, starting with site promotion which should translate in increased traffic. Also all web pages are heavily optimized for Google so we will also have an increased (constant) flow of search engine traffic in the long run. All tutorials will only be available as HTML (instead of PDF) which will also translate in an increased return traffic.