Trials Websites

[Bronz]

Hi all, quite a long one here but bear with me…

Basically, pretty much every trials website you see is badly built, inconsistent, poorly designed and either barely up-to-date, or a pain to keep up-to-date.

Nothing seems to look very good and a lot of sites are either built by people who don't know how to build websites, or agencies that aren't very good at building them.

I know (of) a few web designers/developer on here who will tell you that building a site isn't easy, and it's a pretty complex art that isn't as simple as dragging-and-dropping and using paint.

So yeah, basically the entire trials scene is filled with shoddy sites that don't do the riders or companies any justice. I'm talking company sites and riders' personal sites here.

Anyway, I've been off work ill the last two days so I've started on two trials website projects, the first of which is a 'social' type site (i.e. one site, many users) and the second idea is as follows…

Riders who are sponsored or are looking for sponsors often have their own sites where they can:

+ Blog about stuff

+ Post videos

+ Post pictures

+ Update comp results

+ Promote their sponsors

+ Direct potential sponsors to

+ Make a name for themselves (think of people who spend time on Damon Watson's site so they can see all his videos etc)

Now, riders like this aren't likely to have the budget to go to an agency and get a site built properly, so they either get someone with a copy of HTML for Dummies to do one for them, or they have a stab at making their own. Neither will often end well (in terms of getting a properly built and decent site out of it).

They avoid spending £1000+ on the cost a proper web developer taking the time to build something decent, but are often left with a site that is to the internet what a jellyfish is to trials.

So, my idea:

I'm a web developer. I can build industry standard websites.

Now, if you were to come to someone like me and say 'Hi, yeah I want a site that I can blog on and add videos and pictures to…' you'd easily get quoted over a grand.

But what I've done is got a pre-made website that gets built once and sold over and over (think of a CD, if you wanted a band to make a CD just for you and no one else it'd cost you a fortune, however they make the CD once, and sell it to thousands of people, so that CD only ends up costing you £10).

But what I've done is one better than the CD analogy in that you can customise the colours and photos that make up the background and banner, so it's the same site, but each one looks different.

It runs on a content management system (CMS) called Wordpress which allows you to add blog posts, images, pages, photos, links to friends' and sponsors' sites, you name it. That site, if you were to get it built solely for you, would cost well over a thousand pounds, but this one I'd retail at about £25–50 (not decided a price yet).

So for £25–50 (the cost of a cheap night out) you have a professional standard website (i.e. better than 99% of other trials sites out there) already built that you can just start using straight out of the box to blog, upload pictures/videos etc. It's coded to the latest standards and extremely nice to use (anyone who's used Wordpress before will tell you how amazing it is!).

Also, you can add user accounts, so a few mates could get a site between them and all have a user account where they can all blog and post up stuff from group rides and whatnot.

So, based on all that, my question is basically the poll.

EDIT:

I shall try get a demo of the site up in the next couple of days, so you know what I'm selling haha

Edited June 9, 2010 by Bronz

[N.Wood]

Um...

"Blog about stuff

+ Post videos

+ Post pictures

+ Update comp results

+ Promote their sponsors

+ Direct potential sponsors to

+ Make a name for themselves (think of people who spend time on Damon Watson's site so they can see all his videos etc)"

Isn't that what people use this forum to do?

[Krisboats]

Um...

"Blog about stuff

+ Post videos

+ Post pictures

+ Update comp results

+ Promote their sponsors

+ Direct potential sponsors to

+ Make a name for themselves (think of people who spend time on Damon Watson's site so they can see all his videos etc)"

Isn't that what people use this forum to do?

That's what i was thinking too.

With the amount of templates already about i'd just get a free one rather than spend that much on a site. Well that's what i did do a few years ago and haven't looked at it since. This forum does it all for 90% of people.

[Bronz]

Um...

"Blog about stuff

+ Post videos

+ Post pictures

+ Update comp results

+ Promote their sponsors

+ Direct potential sponsors to

+ Make a name for themselves (think of people who spend time on Damon Watson's site so they can see all his videos etc)"

Isn't that what people use this forum to do?

Yeah, but I'm talking along the lines of sponsored riders, or people looking for sponsorship, where they can establish their own brand.

These would in no way compete with TF, they'd be totally separate. I'm not going to pick examples of riders' sites because that would look like I'm singling them out for being bad, but riders do have their own domains etc, just the sites on those domains aren't always that great…

The majority of people would be happy with the forum, sure, but I'm investigating the market for more people to set up their own 'trials portfolio' if you like.

[konstant]

I do agree with what you're saying... particularly about the poor standard of trials related site design.

But I'm still not overly clear on what you're actually trying to sell...

Is it just a customised Wordpress installation with your theme (which is nice, by the way), plugins, settings etc?

So you sell the installation and then it's up to the site owner to do the rest? The installation, the hosting, the backups, SSHing into the server when you discover that your host has mauled php.ini...

How's the ankle?

Edited June 9, 2010 by konstant

[Bronz]

I do agree with what you're saying... particularly about the poor standard of trials related site design.

But I'm still not overly clear on what you're actually trying to sell...

Is it just a customised Wordpress installation with your theme (which is nice, by the way), plugins, settings etc?

So you sell the installation and then it's up to the site owner to do the rest? The installation, the hosting, the backups, SSHing into the server when you discover that your host has mauled php.ini...

How's the ankle?

It is a customised WP theme, but tailored to trials (differing post styles for videos, photos etc).

The theme isn't the one in the other thread either, that's another site altogether.

Hosting etc would have to be down to the buyer though, yes. For £25 it's just not viable to do all that too (WP is such a simple install though) and I can advise on which hosts are easiest/best suited to WP in terms of DBs and stuff.

And the ankle is slowly on the mend, thanks for asking

[konstant]

It is a customised WP theme, but tailored to trials (differing post styles for videos, photos etc).

The theme isn't the one in the other thread either, that's another site altogether.

Hosting etc would have to be down to the buyer though, yes. For £25 it's just not viable to do all that too (WP is such a simple install though) and I can advise on which hosts are easiest/best suited to WP in terms of DBs and stuff.

And the ankle is slowly on the mend, thanks for asking

Thought as much. It's a nice idea. Wish I'd thought of it first

Wordpress is so nice to theme compared to bulkier CMSs with templating engines...

[Bronz]

Okay, as a very Work-in-progress preview I've screenshotted what I have so far, and in three different colours to show how simple it is to make your own colour scheme etc.

Ignore the white bit at the bottom, that's just how the screenshot came out, and also ignore the right-hand side as that's not been styled yet.

H

[mintsauce]

I shall try get a demo of the site up in the next couple of days, so you know what I'm selling haha

Very interesting idea but I'd find it difficult to vote before seeing the actually product you are offering (i.e. the demo site).

I look forward to checking this out in a few days time.

--------------

Edit:

Made my post at the same time you put your screen shots up - typical!

Edited June 9, 2010 by mintsauce

[Mark W]

Isn't it essentially what most sites like blogger.com and all that lot do? I mean, the reasons you outline for it are essentially the reason we started the tartybikes.blogspot.com site.

[Bronz]

Isn't it essentially what most sites like blogger.com and all that lot do? I mean, the reasons you outline for it are essentially the reason we started the tartybikes.blogspot.com site.

To an extent, yes. However Wordpress is infinitely better than blogger IMO, plus this site's build will be tailored toward trials content, as opposed to any old whatever.

[Mark W]

To an extent, yes. However Wordpress is infinitely better than blogger IMO, plus this site's build will be tailored toward trials content, as opposed to any old whatever.

Not trying to be argumentative, just curious How's it going to be tailored?

And yeah, Wordpress does seem better, Blogger was just easier and I'm lazy, haha.

[Bronz]

Not trying to be argumentative, just curious How's it going to be tailored?

And yeah, Wordpress does seem better, Blogger was just easier and I'm lazy, haha.

Ah, apologies, I didn't read your statement as argumentative, nor was my reply meant to be

Tailored in that it's going to house a varied amount of media (videos automatically get pulled out to the left of the content so as to make sure they get displayed nicely), various methods of displaying pictures. There's also tiny little stuff like different icons for post type.

I guess when I say 'tailored to trials' what I really mean is 'tailored to displaying varied media such as video and images' which a lot of sites can do, but don't necessarily do so well.

I also have a lot more work to do if there's enough interest. I need to take what people would like from a trials site and build that in, but no one's looking interested right now.

Ah right, I did the same a few years ago, opted for Blogger over WP for sake of ease.

Oh it'll also most likely be iPhone/mobile optimised but that's nothing to do with trials, that just a nice-to-have I guess.

Edited June 9, 2010 by Bronz

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

what benefits does this offer over the free blogs that are available now?

[Bronz]

what benefits does this offer over the free blogs that are available now?

The whole 'tailored to trials' aspect.

[Bronz]

Feedback please, I'm just trynig to do some market research to decide whether this is gonna be a viable venture…

[Simon]

Feedback please, I'm just trynig to do some market research to decide whether this is gonna be a viable venture…

To be honest, no.

You've clearly got some big ideas and a lot of enthusiasm, but it is sadly misplaced.

Hardly anything in the trials world is worth doing. The audience is just too young to both understand how important a website is, nor have the funds to spunk money on a website they don't understand the use for when that could pay for consumables like grips, pads and tyres.

Could be a good idea, but you'd need to expand a whole lot on the idea. Right now, it just looks like a customized WordPress theme, maybe with some administration to change the colours and banner, with some fancy tagging/categorisation to theme posts differently to each other.

Nice enthusiasm, but misplaced.

[anzo]

A blog is only as good as its content - whilst it might look ok, the read could be shit.

I think you'd be better at looking in other avenues - trials is just photos and videos, both of which can be found right here.

(Also, over £1000 for a blog design? I've no experience in web design...but f**king hell!)

[Revolver]

Interesting.

Pay £25-50 for a blog site based in wordpress, or go to wordpress and get one for free?

I guess I'm missing soething out here, but a quick skim read led me to that conclusion.

[Bronz]

To be honest, no.

You've clearly got some big ideas and a lot of enthusiasm, but it is sadly misplaced.

Hardly anything in the trials world is worth doing. The audience is just too young to both understand how important a website is, nor have the funds to spunk money on a website they don't understand the use for when that could pay for consumables like grips, pads and tyres.

Could be a good idea, but you'd need to expand a whole lot on the idea. Right now, it just looks like a customized WordPress theme, maybe with some administration to change the colours and banner, with some fancy tagging/categorisation to theme posts differently to each other.

Nice enthusiasm, but misplaced.

Cheers for the feedback, it is just an idea at the moment, that's why I made this thread, seems it's not a viable venture and therefore (unless people other wanna offer up anything constructive) it will get shelved.

Cheers for your comments.

A blog is only as good as its content - whilst it might look ok, the read could be shit.

I think you'd be better at looking in other avenues - trials is just photos and videos, both of which can be found right here.

(Also, over £1000 for a blog design? I've no experience in web design...but f**king hell!)

Interesting.

Pay £25-50 for a blog site based in wordpress, or go to wordpress and get one for free?

I guess I'm missing soething out here, but a quick skim read led me to that conclusion.

Yeah but riders seeking and/or with sponsors ideally need their own web presence, I'm not talking any/every rider, I mean to those who might benefit a site, would they consider paying £25–50 for a decent one tailored more toward their own uses.

To all:

This is just market research. I spotted a potential gap in the market and decided to research it to see it'd be a viable venture. It's looking like it's not gonna be viable so thanks to everyone who gave feedback.

[dirt jumper jake]

Theres only so many riders who would be interested in this though, and considering company websites like inspired basically do that anyway i dont see your point mate, t'was a good idea though but maybe just not for this market

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

think of people who spend time on Damon Watson's site

Damon has a site? To be honest, I pretty much never go on any riders sites as everything of interest tends to get posted in here or on the TartyBikes blog. Now I'm far from an expert, in fact I have zero clue about website design or promotion at all, but from what I can tell it's just going to be like any other free blog site except you'd have to pay for it... Being 'tailored to trials' in that it can house media doesn't really seem any different to any other blogs which lazy people like Mark seem able to put pictures and videos in while being lazy...

Overall, I'm with Simon- good enthusiasm but it's a non goer in my view.