Looking for Idea's

[DarkKingdoms]

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to get more traffic on our website. We had recentaly paid for some web advertising where if you type "rpg" in a search engine our site will pop up or you will be brought directly to the site but this still hasn't brought the attention we would like. If anyone has any ideas please let me know, we are planning on doing conventions next year but for right now small web advertising and demo's are all we can do to get the game out there.

The website is //www.darkkingdoms.com

[M. J. Young]

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to get more traffic on our website.

Yes, here's one that will help some.

Get yourselves personal web sites--you might have space with your ISP, or you can get a GeoCities or Tripod or other site free, or whoever hosts your company site might offer a discount for additional personal sites. Then each of you build something that will be of interest to your target audiences. For example, if you're looking to interest World of Darkness players, do a site about V:tM or one of the other games. I find that game fiction doesn't work very well, but resource materials and adventure ideas will build up a following over time. Similarly, if you want to pick up sci-fi fans, do something about a major sci-fi franchise.

On your site, include a prominent text link briefly inviting people to check out the new game.

Promote your personal sites wherever it's appropriate and permitted--groups to which you belong, forums in which you participate, that kind of thing. If you've done the personal sites well, they'll start to grow in traffic, and they'll feed people to your main site.

In addition, since your personal sites are independent web sites, as they grow in popularity they'll be counted as significant links to your company site. This will result in higher search engine ranking, and possibly a broader appearance (that is, you might show up higher in areas more closely related to the personal sites).

Finally, understand that there are no quick answers to gaining traffic on a web site.

I'll particularly recommend the LE Digest as one of the best newsletters for learning about Internet commerce, promotions, and design; unfortunately I don't have the link handy, but it's one of the big ones so it shouldn't be hard to find. Audette Media publish it now (it was originally from Link Exchange, then acquired by Microsoft, and then passed to Audette, but Audette has always moderated it).

I hope this helps, and best of grace to your efforts.

--M. J. Young

[M. J. Young]

Here's another that works to some degree. Write articles for web sites. Gaming Outpost is a great site as far as getting posted; RPGNet and RolePlayingTips.com have high traffic; there are a lot of sites looking for articles, and if you can figure out what kinds of things they want and write for them, they'll publish you gladly. Even Pyramid and Valkyrie publish submissions, although not as readily as these others (although they compensate to a small degree). Include at the end of your article a brief bio identifying your connection with the game and the location of the web site. If the article is good, you'll get a traffic boost to the site, usually.

Hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

The horse has left the barn already for this issue, I'm afraid, but I highly recommend that you never, ever pay for search engine services. In my view, these people bilked you of your money and you will never see it again.

It's hard to explain, but websites aren't like infomercials. You don't want "traffic," you want participants. Participants go to your website, whether casually from some other site they respect, or seriously because they think you offer something specific they're looking for.

M.J.'s advice is all good. Mine focuses on mutualism - get links to your page established on others' pages, and put links to their on yours. Furthermore, get into RPG databases, such as our relatively limited one here at the Forge (the Resource Library) as well as many more sophisticated ones.

Best,
Ron