Forum Age

[Rich]

I was looking at some of the stats in the admin panel and it reminded me.. the board has been active for almost 1 year. It will be one year old on Feb 4th. I'm not entirely happy with the progress over the year as far as posts and users.. but the first 9 months I didn't really do much with this whole site. So I guess it's not too bad.
Tell your friends about us.. haha.

[CurtisS]

This is certainly one of the more useful sites I have found on the subject of general construction. Being pretty much a newbie at large projects, I found this forum very "approachable" when asking questions. I am definately learning alot just by browsing through the older threads.
Keep up the great work!

Ciao for now!

CurtisS

PS: I'll be sure to talk up your site to anyone needing good advice!

[Rich]

With your experience level is there anything that you would be interested in hearing about.. such as article wise? The one's I have currently are ones that many people ask about - but I would like to get more DIY and smaller projects up as well.
I appreciate the feedback.

[mreynolds]

As mentioned above, I also think this is a great site with a wealth of great information. The nitch you fill here is very important, building information is not always all it is cracked up to be and there are few college courses you can take to learn about it. I built a garage so far, and was able to go to the bank to get a loan and convince them I know what I am doing. This is largely due to the feedback I have gotten here. Before those projects I never built a structure in my life, so that says alot about what I have found. So the question is what niche does this forum hold? Compared to the other sites the size is important, fine homebuilding has a forum but there is so much traffic on that site I wouldn't know what to trust. So the size is actually a plus because you can quickly get back to people. I also read a lot of information from Tim Carter who is a syndicated columnist on the building trades, he has good stuff, but he also suffer from the traffic problem, there is so much he has trouble giving quality feed back.

As I see it, the greatest potential you have for the site would hit two target user groups
1. Home DIY individual
2. People having their homes build by contrators.

The DIY aspect is obvious, I have read tons about various building techniques, but what drives me nuts is there is so many ways to do the same task, it seems that experience is the only answer to these questions. Yesterday I just learned that using a fiberglass pressure tank for your water well is far better than metal because the condensation on the metal can cause rust. This was something I would of never thought of, but after interviewing several well companies, a very through and professional contractor explained this to me. This brings me to my next point. How does someone who is having something built know what a good contractor is and what to expect? You yourself made mention of the fact that lowballing bids is a major problem in the business. Also quality of work, payment schedules and the like are things that the average consumer should know about before they get into major money exchanges. So where to go from here? Here are my two cents.

1. Start taking articles and discussions that have generated alot of traffic and turn them into an article database that includes some pictures. This saves you time with rewriting, but would also make this information more accessible for the casual surfer looking for information. You could set simple goals like one a month. What I have found that makes a great construction site is the amount of data present for a user. Generally people will find their way here when they are in a bind, therefore the faster they can find the info, them more likely they would be to refer other people.

2. Look for other services that you could offer that your skills and knowledge would benefit. One of the coolest ideas I have seen is the one guy offers a blueprint review service. He looks over blueprints and adds notes to areas that can be cost saving or difficult to build. I began to see the value of this when I found out that many of the stock home plans you buy are designed by rookie artichets that don't have a lot of construction experence.

I hope that helps out. The reason I didn't suggest specific articles to write about is that you have them already, and the nature of home improvement is so wide open it is hard to hit one area. Sorry to ramble on, but I just finished a masters that dealt with several technology issues related to your plight, couple that with buillding a house and I have lot of ideas rolling around. :lol:

[Rich]

Wow mreynolds.. I appreciate the input. My biggest problem with writing articles is that I want to put too much information into it. I started an article on building a baby changing station and got so overwhelmed with the information I wanted to put in there that I ended up giving up.
Maybe I can break the articles down into smaller parts - one a month. For instance, I could show how to design a piece of furniture, then go into laying out for cuts, then a mortise and tenon joint ..etc. This is just an example - the same idea could relate to pouring a concrete slab.
I've seen something like this on some of the web design help sites where they have a mini-series of articles over a few weeks or months.
Pictures are sometimes a problem because I'm currently do not run a business and the home I am building is so huge that it doesn't relate to most homes. Who would ever think you would need to build 16' tall gang forms for a house?
You mentioned services - I actually do have a services page where I provide that very service you mentioned.
Construction Services (http://www.construction-resource.com/services.php) I haven't really promoted it as of lately because I'm so busy with this current project.
I'm currently targeting keywords for Home Construction.. so I will need to get another campaign going for Do It Yourself keywords. DIY is a tough market.. but I'm pretty sure I can do it.
Anyway I really appreciate the input and I'll look at getting a schedule together for getting some more articles out.

[utahcutter]

I think a more step-by-step approach is a great idea. Keep in mind when learning something new it is far easier to learn it in small chunks. Therefore the person reading you articles can read the "fist step" get that down. You can instruct them the next article they should go to, and then they can get that step. That way the user also doesn't get overwhelmed by too much information, and it also makes it easier for you to write a quality article. Oh, and congrats on the recognition from wink news. That's a pretty big compliment.

[Rich]

Now that I'm back from vacation I'll be able to take all the advice here and create some good step by step articles.. at least I'll try. I may even revamp some of the existing articles. I appreciate all the comments on the site and I'll try to keep up with everyone.