Help building up a gaming commuity

[loky]

Hi there,

Although i was a member of these forums I never asked for help... i just read and learn and followed your advices. Thanks you for everything

I had a lot of projects in the past few years and i manage to make them work very well. Like 10 months ago i started a website dedicated to World of Warcraft. News, custom guides, custom tools and stuff like that.
I used a lot of things to promote my website. Signatures and forum participating, directory submission (website and feed also), social bookmarking websites (users started to submit by their own now), a lot of SEO tuning for my source, idiot-proof layout...

I guess you guys go the picture. I have done and followed most of your advices.

Now, what else i should do? I need members/guests participation and maybe some more feed subscribers. I also intend to start a contest or two... some idea of this contest would be cool too. (i already know what to offer for a prize)

Thank you all in advance.

PS: The website url is in my signature.

[Shyflower]

Looks like you're doing the things you should. The contest sounds like a good idea. Can your members add posts to social bookmarking sites like they can here?

How many members does your site have? Where is your site ranked in the SERPs at present? Do you do PPC or AdWords at all? If you can provide a little more specific information on what you have already done, you may get some better answers on what to do next.

[tiniewinie]

join to games foums with some ads on your sig to look for your site. addict gamers are always wanted to find more resources to play.

[loky]

@Shyflower: Yes, members can add every topic to a bunch of social bookmarking websites.
These are some stats: 837 Posts in 592 Topics by 144 Members. - only like 5-10 people participate and say something from time to time.
As for SERP... place me on the first or second page in google and yahoo (see: reputation calculator) would be great to have the same placement with other keywords too. Estimated PR is 3 at the moment.
You can find the Google Analytics Dashboard here:
<snip>

I'm also running some AdWords campaigns.

@tiniewinie: I already do/did that

Thanks you both for your answers.

[Shyflower]

Well then I think it just takes patience. You can go the pay to post route and that might help generate some new topics. Alternatively you can look for new topics to promote yourself. I briefly looked at your site and you have some great things going for it such as interviews with the developers etc. Have you considered tapping a new market? How about a tutorial for someone that wants to get started in online gaming telling them what they need for hardware and how to join or start a game? (If I sound dumb it's because I'm not familiar with online gaming at all!)

[loky]

Interviews are a great idea and i already spoke with Blizzard representatives and as a fan website I'll be able to take some interviews but i have no idea when :P
As for tutorials/guides... I already start writing some of those. I also made plans about reviews related to my niche.
Guides posting might be a good idea for a contest tho.

Thanks again Shyflower.

Any other ideas are welcome... keep them coming guys.

[10/10]

Hi loky,

I can talk of personal experience I've done a couple of rather "large" German game pages for games 10 years back.

If this is one of your first pages than I can only say (and I don't want to discourage you) it’s very very hard to do an busy games page and a lot of factors play a roll.

Actually I want to be honest with you and say forget a WOW page it's practicly impossible, unless you provide the community with something no other page can.

Personal Example:
10 years back I picked up a PC Gamer saw a small note in the mag that they are planning to do this game, went out and bought the domain even when I had no info about the
Game and the official page wasn’t up.
The page became very very fast very busy, but only because there was nobody else around or the other pages were English.
As soon as the game was covered by a larger Article I saw the first pages creep up from people that had a lot more experience, they were clever and looked for hosting from a large
Online Gaming page and BAAAAAM they had all the users etc.
Over night all my hardword was done and gone, I never forget how disappointed I was back than.

All I’m saying is
Yes Games pages are very good for starting an easy page (IF YOU START EARLY ENOUGH) and ensure that with very little promotion you can get a very busy page very soon, however it’s very hard to keep the
Visitors active when the game is out and there are a lot of Pages out there that always present the user with the same content.
In other words it’s a harsh environment to start.

You have a WOW page, now I have been working with Blizzard (I was employed for a over 6 years in the games industry) I know a WOW page is probably the hardest page to do beside maybe EVE online.
There are literality millions out there and you have to fight for every user.

Here is what I would do and god I really don’t want you to give up but maybe you can do that beside the wow page.

Go by the next PC gamer check out the webpages, try to find a game they talk about but were there is no webpage out there, try to cover all angles, buy a good domain name, most of then direct domains Gamename.com are usually taken, but there are tons of good ideas.
Than build up the page install the Forum (ONLY WITH TWO SUBBOARDS NOT 1000 DIFFERENT SECTIONS) than next contact the Developer and the distributional and make them notice
That you have the first fanpage, than it’s all about a little sensible spamming in game boards.
Here is a very good thing to get traffic and loyal user, when you start your relationship with the Developer (and trust me they are glad for every fanpage out there) you have to gentle advice them that this is not a one day thing for you, that you are committed to this idea of yours, write them regularly, every Games developer has a Commuity manager, write him often enough so he knows your name but don’t spam.
Next you do is to get an agreement for an interview or even better try to travel to them take images or any content that is exclusive to you is GOLD, that means all the other games pages have to link to you the users will see that you are the man to get info and they tend to check your page much more often.

You have to be aware that a Games page is very labor intensive, I had countless of people “working” for me but most are just lazy and want to see their name under their post once and than forget about it.
It takes a lot of determination and hard work to build up one of these cool games pages everybody wants to post on.

You need to update the page all the time, especially at times of release it becomes crazy and the community is buzzing, that is the time when most Gamers even jump ship and go to another page, maybe the board is better or the community seems cooler, it’s all very very hard and complicated.

I would start alone do not give into the temptation to make the first guy who posts on your board Mod, write all the articles yourself all the news, become a near mystical figure to these guys and than when things get very very busy you start recruiting.

Good luck.

[loky]

Thanks a lot for your reply 10/10.

I understand you perfectly and i know that is hard to get loyal users (that's my problem with this website) but this is not my first community/forum. back in 2003-2004...something like that... me and 2 other friends created a board which now is high enough in rankings (over 3k in alexa is you need a number).
I don't want o change whatever I'm doing here. If i would focused only on income from this website i wouldn't even start in the first place.
What you have said about taking to a community manager of a game... i already did that with Blizzard. My website was included into their Europe fansite program like 4-5 months ago. I already benefit from that.
Like i said, is a nasty work... there are a lot of WoW websites out there but i managed to add unique features and for those i have new loyal people every day (see the reputation calculator).
The problem is to make people talk, to make people add comments and stuff like that.

Again, i wont drop this idea..

Thanks a lot for your reply.
...and guys, keep the ideas coming. Everything is appreciated.

[iFroggy]

With communities, if you want to be hype into marketing them, you need to be hype into posting on them. Any marketing efforts you undertake - and their effectiveness - are directly related to the activity that you see on your community. People don't, generally, like to start the activity - they like to respond and participate in it.

So, however you can keep things going, that's what you do. Get some people together - friends, family, fellow players, whatever - and ask them to talk and participate and just keep talking amongst each other. This will help.

You may want to make sure your forums have SEO friendly URLs, as well. That can help. I don't worry too much about SEO, but there are two parts of it for me: create good content and then make sure it can be spidered. Not saying it can't be spidered, as is, but SEO friendly URLs would help.

Good luck.

Thanks,

Patrick

[loky]

Thanks for reply iFroggy.

These are some really good suggestion. Especially the one with friends speaking among each other. This might work
As for the SEO friendly URLs I'll try to make them again, even if my sitemap is generated daily and spiders can read my content anyway.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[iFroggy]

My pleasure. Good luck.

Patrick

[loky]

URLs were fixed ... gonna make my friends and in game people start speaking now :P

Thanks again iFroggy

[loky]

Thanks a lot for your replies again.
It was a mess after all with those friendly URLs. I have to find another way to do that instead of messing around with .htaccess

On the side note, I'm happy that with the new google page ranking update I went up from 3/10 to 4/10

[jonathonbyrd]

You should look into a redesign with joomla, it's great.

[footylad]

Do you have a Clan with Online Games that can attract the customers! I can show you where to get them if you wish?

Regards

Footylad

[loky]

@jonathonbyrd: I use SMF and TinyPortal because these two are just enough for me. If i'd have Joomla then i'd use 10-20&#37; of his features. Joomla is not for me.

@footylad: I'm sorry but I don't fully understand you. Don't think you are speaking about a WoW Clan/Guild... Can you explain a bit better?

Thanks for the replies. Keep them coming.

[footylad]

At Looky for PC Games you need an Online Server yes? As clans normally have a community forum and a game server for them to play on. Understand?

Footylad

[10/10]

I like the look of the page, it's somehow very fitting.

The only thing I would seriously change is the text shown for every entry on the frontpage, you need to limit that with a read more option.
More pictures to break the overall view and give people to see something else apart from text.

[loky]

@footylad: I know what clans are. I'm a member or a clan/guild also while playing WoW. But I still don't understand what are you trying to say.

@10/10: The read more option is a good idea. I'll see if I can do that with what I am currently using (SMF and TinyPortal).

Thanks for the replies. Keep the coming

[footylad]

@footylad: I know what clans are. I'm a member or a clan/guild also while playing WoW. But I still don't understand what are you trying to say.

@10/10: The read more option is a good idea. I'll see if I can do that with what I am currently using (SMF and TinyPortal).

Thanks for the replies. Keep the coming

If you want a Gaming Server i can get you one! Just let me know thats all im saying lol

Footylad

[loky]

Ok then.

Let's see where this goes

[beena]

Yes, it's a good idea to start this section to allure the visitors. May be the visual contest will do the rest.

[cpvr]

Now, what else i should do? I need members/guests participation and maybe some more feed subscribers. I also intend to start a contest or two... some idea of this contest would be cool too. (i already know what to offer for a prize)

Thank you all in advance.

Well - why don't you allow users to create their own content - such as, giving away things from your particular online games?

And also - in what ways are you going to drive more content to the site? Are you going to do post exchanges? Postloop.com is pretty good - and Theadminzone has an exchange post - where you can do this at.

But, remember, in order to build a gaming community - you need to be unique than the others, provide something unique. Why not have interviews from major players? Or what about developers? Interviews = more unique content, and online communities as a whole strive off of unique content.