Well, as many of you know, I've been in the petz community for a good share of years. Actually, it's been over eight years since I had Diversity, so that means it's about nine or ten years that I've been into petz. Things have changed, to say the least, and there's a different feel in the community than what it used to. I don't really know how to describe it. It's like people don't have the same feeling toward their sites as they used to.

Anyways, I thought I would write about the "underground" website owners. Kind of like a back stage pass of how I run Diversity and how I gained fame, recognition and made a bunch of really great petz friends. Maybe it'll give someone an idea on how to make their website better...

Running a website is really you having one goal - you want to make a website because you're so obssessed with petz that you want to share that with others. If you ever open a site for just adoptions and you don't finding any joy in breeding, making litter pictures and posting them on your site, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. If you have downloads on your site, your goal is not to fill up your downloads page to attract visitors, it's you creating something YOU like and enjoyed making, something that you want to share because it's precious to you. Same with the adoptions, if YOU don't enjoy breeding them and seeing the mixies you can come up with, your breeding them for the wrong reasons and you'll tire and stop doing it when your site is new and no one comes along.

Everything you do, you do it for yourself. Diversity is completely what I like. I like writing tutorials (I like to share my knowledge, but I write them because I LIKE to), I love to hex new toys, clothes, breeds and petz for MYSELF (and I put them up for download incase someone would like them as well), I change my layout every three weeks (because I LOVE to make new ones)....are you getting it yet? Really good site owners don't do things for other people. They do what they love and in turn that because what people like in them. Honestly, people like my hexed toys because they're new, and most of all they love how it looks because I LIKED to make it and I poured my heart and soul into it. I take down the things that don't interest me, like the site reviews ( I didn't feel like grading people's sites anymore), the hexed litter aren't up today and haven't been for a while because I've grown tired of hexing them, and as much as I love you guys, I'm not going to hex another one until I WANT to. If I did, they would turn out crappy, I wouldn't update because I'd be in some weird site owner's depression because all my hard work and time was wasted on something I don't even like. You have to do something you're proud of and want to continue to improve.

Your website needs to have HEART and SOUL. If you poked Diversity with a pointy stick, it would bleed. I have poured way too much love into the site that whenever a visitor comes by they can FEEL how much the site means to me. They like it even more because the site owners really cares about everything on the site. All of my pages, tutorials and random pages are oozing with time and love from me.That is why Diversity has lasted eight years (this april it's eight). There is nothing that I don't like about my site. You have NO IDEA how much I love that site. I spend hours reformatting pages and working on new tutorials and downloads.

Now you're probably wondering how Diversity got so popular if I don't do anything that I don't like. Well, let me tell you this. People will naturally like a website where the site owner has spent time on the pages, content and adoptions. Honestly, are you just going to breed dalimatians because they're popular? Uh, no. I only breed petz I would actually adopt myself. There's another selfish secret of mine. Litters will sit on my page until someone comes along who likes them. There will always be someone who likes them, sometimes it just takes a while for the right people to come along, but since the litter is precious to me, I don't delete it or shove it in a folder. Breed what you like, what you would adopt and people will eventually like it as well.

I didn't INTEND to have Diversity become so popular. It just....happened. Apparently all of love for the site finally got through to people, or rather, I finally figured that out. Back when Diversity came to be, I tried breeding things that were popular, but really, it never worked as well as I hoped. I didn't love the site as much as I do now. It was just a hobby, not a lifestyle. As soon as I included all the things I liked, tutorials, downloads, my favorite adoptions, contests that I liked to run, people came running. It always takes time for people to discover the site, but people do most of the advertising themself if they really like their sites. I've been on forums and I'm so happy when I see posts that are like "Oh! Diversity has a whole page full of those", "I found the one at Diversity helpful", "I love Diversiy". Word of mough is more powerful than me saying "Come here, please!!!!" So make your visitors fall in love with you and your site by loving your site first.

I love my visitors, don't get me wrong. It makes me happy to know that people love my site as much as I do. It's just that when I create a new breeding file, it's for me not my visitors. It makes my visitors more important because I'm not trying to please them, I'm making myself happy and that eventually turns into them loving my site, not my self sacrificing self. Seriously, I've seen some site owners do everything to try and get visitors. They just don't understand that they're owning a site for the wrong reasons.

And from those visitors, there always come those special people. Those few people who really REALLY like your site and always visit, decide they want to make their own shrine to petz, and ask for help from you and want to become sister sites and friends. Don't turn away those people. They are the number one reason you should have a website. They love your site as much as you do and they want to make their own site so you can share in their love of the game. I've made a ton of really great friends that started out that way. Some were visitors from my website and some were me making a friendship with other site owners by being a visitor at theirs. Seriously. Once you are really great friends it's like owning two sites, kind of. You share files, adopt freely fron each others sites. It's great.

You want to become friends with other petz enthusiasts. If you're all alone in your petz loving, it's not as much fun as having close others who are just as obssessed as you. That's why I like my forums.

So, in owning a petz website, you should a) love your website b) do everything for yourself c) let others advertise your site, you just love your site d) have petzy friends.