Types of Visitors
After a while of owning a website, you'll come to realize that each visitor can usually be placed into a category. There are several types of visitor categories, some good and some bad, and different ways to deal with each. The hard part of owning a website that most people never know about is visitor communications, because you can't offend people if you ever want them to come back to your site.
The Nice People
Some visitors are just nice. You want to keep all of these people as you can so your site has a friendlier atmosphere. If they compliment your site, just reply back with a simple 'Thanks!' and that's it.
The Needy People
Some people who visit your site are needy. Needy like they want your help, because you, the owner of that fabulous website, know absolutely everything and can easily answer their question. That's not always the case. You might know the answer, but first you have to figure out what they're asking when they're not completely sure about the topic they're talking about, then you have to explain it in a simple but not dumbed-down way. Generally speaking, the people who need the most help from you are the ones who ask if you can go through a tutorial step by step. This is where you REALLY need to acquire some of that amazing stuff called Patience. Why? Tutorials are almost always step by step, so it would be pointless to try and explain it any other way. But you have to for the visitor's sake. Any time I've been asked this, I just rewrite the tutorial in as few steps and sentences as possible with really tiny steps that are very easy to follow. So far, it's yet to fail, which is amazing because you'd expect something more time-consuming. Of course, if you're getting a lot of questions about how to install something from your site, how to get the code for a graphic, or how to follow a tutorial, you may consider rewriting your instructions, if there are any.
The Givers
Some people try to be nice by giving, giving, giving! The problem is, you probably don't want their help, much to their dismay. Even if you are looking for site staff, the people who just email you to say 'can I help with your site?' just don't create a memorable mark of professionalism in your mind. Others ask if they can make graphics for your site, because they like your site. If you are planning on being a submission-based website, you'll probably want to set some standards for the submissions, and then people can submit stuff, but if you want to just run your own personal site the way you want, there are a few responses. If you don't have staff, you can say 'Sorry, but we're not really looking for help. Thanks for the offer though! :)'. If you do have staff and aren't looking for any at the moment you can say 'Sorry, we're not looking for staff at the moment. You're welcome to apply when we open applications! :)'. The trickiest is if you are accepting staff but you don't want the person, you can say something along the lines of 'Although you had a great application, you haven't been accepted as staff because [yada yada sugar coat your reason with honey..]'.
The Stealers
If you have a site that has great stuff that you spend tons of time on (which is the obvious reason Smiley Helper don't have many stealers ;D), you're going to have stealers. That's not to say that getting a stealer is a sort of mark that your site is good, but if you do have a stealer you can look on the bright side that way. ;) So, how do you deal with stealers? They don't think they're doing anything wrong at all. In their mind, they don't have time to put effort on something, so if it's just sitting out innocently they're going to use it on their site. That is incredibly wrong and illegal under many copyright infringements, even more so if the site owner has registered something as a trademark or copyright. I even came across a site once that said something about 'Don't have enough time to make your own layout? Nobody does! Just use our new Layout Stealer to copy someone's layout code and get a great layout today!'. It wasn't exactly those words, but seriously, what goes on in their brain? With stealers, you have to email them politely asking them to take down the stolen stuff. It works better if your message comes with proof that it's yours, and a direct question like 'Do you have any proof you made those graphics?'. If the email doesn't work, you'll have to send another email, and this time you can drop the visitor communications stuff and be as blunt as you want. =) If they don't respond or they still deny they're doing anything wrong, try to contact their host and get their site deleted. If they have a domain it's really hard, but any free host will dump them as soon as you give them some proof that it's your work.
The Rude People
There will be people on your site who are just plain rude. Well, the little-known fact about them is that almost all of them don't mean anything they say. The rude people who insult your website just feel bad about themselves and want to put someone down to raise themselves. That sounds like something you've probably heard all your life.. yes, they're a bully! The other thing about online bullying is that people think they're anonymous. That is incredibly far from the truth. One, if you post something, people have access to your ip address and can find about just about EVERYTHING about you like where you live, etc, and two, as soon as you post something online, it's out there FOREVER. Online posts- even when deleted- are stored in an archive that keeps everything you've ever posted. Because of your ip address linking you to all your posts or emails, job agencies have been looking in the archives to see what kind of person you are, if you're trustworthy or rude, and if you're suitable to hire. One rude comment from a day you were 'just bored' can mean the matter of being hired by that huge company you love, or not. There have even been stories in newspapers of people blogging about how they hate their boss, then getting fired when the boss finds the blog. To everyone, think before you type. And for webmasters trying to deal with rude people, just delete their post. It's not backing down or being a wimp- it's doing the mature thing and not getting started in a pointless argument.
I hope this helps you deal with every type of website visitor you ever encounter and remember to never lose your patience! Good luck, and always stay positive and kind!
