Site building inspiration
 

Hi All
I'd be very interested to know where you guys get your ideas for sites from. Is it your content, the sponsor's tour, your wife, thin air, or what? Where does the initial inspiration come from?
Cheers
japamor |waves|

LOL I named A few sites after old girlfriends from my younger days and most times I can spend hours looking at sponsors to decide what and who to build with and when you run out of ideas take a few days off and go shopping or somewhere and see what pops in your head.. I took to much time off last month doing home improvements and I still reviewed and had some good listings going.. But when your in a grove your hot till you lose it or run out of content...

and whats up buddy.. |waves|

Hi japamor,
Most times I check out the sponsors tour, and if I have a pass take a look inside the members area for inspiration on how to 'direct' the advertisement that is a free site. From there I get the pics and maybe talk those up some too, and then it comes together.
Needless to say, sometimes you can as plateman says hit a roll and do a great overall ad in a short time, and other times I'll spend far too long on a site and have the general feel of it to be quite shitty lol
I don't think there's any magic formula at to what way round you should do things, sometimes you'll come across content you'll think hey, I know exactly which sponsor I can use these to promote, so it's a small case of swings and roundabouts.
Sorry for the ole fence sitting there, my own advice is to look at the tour you want to promote and create a natural lead in to that.
Jel

I do look at a lot of thing, but I've never thought to write them down. I usually go by the content that I have & what "mood" I'm in. I also take into account what the sponsor is & how it's been converting, what the next templates are in my rotation (since most of them have "themes" & using them is easier then starting over)

I'm just starting to re-use templates or general layouts for gallery pages. Thus far all of my free sites have been orginal works of art. I mess around with multiple thumb sizes a lot and the way they're layed out. I don't get inspired very often. Mostly I just sketch thumb patterns in a notebook and decide if the new design is worth the hassle and time. I've built single free sites with four different thumb sizes on a gallery page. It can become much more time-consuming than what the individual site's income potential demands. But I have lots of spare time. ;)

I look at the content and the tour i'm promoting. If I get stuck, I smoke a bowl. :)

Interesting answers guys. Thanks a lot. I tend to start with the content and then work out a colour scheme from the sponsors ads. But isn't it strange how some days it just flows and some days you've got to forget it, just do something else.
Cheers |waves|