Running a website may look like a simple task to some, but it’s not always as easy as it seems.
When Stark approached me and Chris about starting FULLSYNC he showed us a business plan, setting out what it was he wanted us to create. A website that was committed to producing quality content and honest opinions. We didn’t want to be like other sites where they would cover pretty much every piece of news you could imagine, even if they did only copy and paste all the press releases they could find. We wanted to be different. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to put in the work of posting news, expecting to get free games for nothing. It was because there are so many websites out there already doing it, that it’s hard to compete for site visitors against the big guns of the industry.
Instead, we set out about trying to do things slightly differently. For example, rather than posting an update on a game based on a press release by some PR company, we’d see if we could do a Q&A with the development team and get the information people wanted to know directly from the horse’s mouth. Unfortunately, when you’re a small site and people have busy schedules, a lot of people don’t have the time of day for you. I’m not tarring everyone with the same brush though because we have made some amazing friends and acquaintances on our journey who despite our small size, have supported us in every way they can, and for that, we’re truly thankful.
But to ensure our site metrics improved and our visitor base grew, we needed regular content. For a while, that meant trying to post daily news. We were determined to stick to our values though and so everything you read on our site was our own words. We’d read through the press releases we received, picked out the important stuff and then linked you to the rest should you want all the itty bitty details. As time has gone on though and with all three of us working full-time jobs whilst running the site, it became difficult to keep things up as we were doing. It got to the point where I personally was spending so much time on the website, it seemed like I had no time to spend with loved ones or even just time to go down the pub for a swift one with the lads.
We’ve tried to think of ways to ease the workload because running this site should be something we enjoy doing and not something that feels like a chore. So, over the past couple weeks you’ll have noticed we’ve posted some news roundups rather than lots of individual posts. It seems that we have found a winning formula, for now anyway. These news roundups enable us to produce regular content and bring you the latest news, whilst allowing us to manage our time better. This means that we can designate more time on improving the site and writing original articles, as well as giving us the freedom to have a social life. It also means we aren’t overwhelming you with several posts every day, and clogging up the inboxes of those people who have subscribed to the website mailing list.
You can expect the news roundups to start becoming a regular permanent fixture this week. The game news will feature on a Wednesday evening and a Saturday morning, and Tech news on a Friday evening. Don’t forget as well that we have our #ScreenshotSaturday favourites article which has become a regular fixture on the site every Sunday. As we look to work more on our sports and entertainment section as well, we’ll be creating regular posts there too, for which we’ll reveal more information when we have some.
I think that’s all I have to rant about for now, so if you’ve bothered reading this then thank you and I’m sorry that you’ve wasted a few minutes that you’ll never be able to get back. Hopefully, this new way of working will mean we still keep the same quality content we’ve always supplied, whilst leaving me feeling a little less like I want to throw myself in front of a bus.