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keep going! http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html
closing in on 8th!
Also, As I read through the archives here... I saw some good ideas posted from the advertising folks out there. is there a reason we can't find a person knowledgable in that area and run a low end Kickstarter to get our name out there in more locations? Seems like if the ideas were there, wouldn't be stupidly expensive.
For example, I noticed that Materia Magic (Which we just passed yesterday, by the way) has a banner on that site, placed right at the top ten. with a neat ball floating around and everything! I dunno how much that sort of thing would cost (I can't imagine it's that much for a MUD ranking site). But if we put a little money together, I'm wagering we could find a number of avenues of exploration. Note. I'm not volunteering to run this, because honestly, I'm not an advertising type person, I don't know what would/would not be effective in a online environment.
Illimin
I love ardwolf whatever...they have 900 more votes than #2 - that's double. These dudes have chuzpa - and no fear of being revealed for the IT savvy, script running hackers that they clearly are. I hate stooping to people's level unless they're beating me or making me mad or annoying me or make me feel inadequate in anyway. Also, if they make more money. Or have a cooler girlfriend.
I also tend to stoop if a guy has a nicer car. Really that's it I think. Oh if he went to an ivy league school too. And if he's more well read. DEFINITELY if he doesn't like sci-fi. Oh dude I'll stoop really low then.
If his apartment is nicer. OMG and if he has a house he's so gonna have to deal with my stooping. Plus if he has hair. That's just not fair and we can all agree with that. If he doesn't have too much time on his hands. Ya that makes me feel stupid about typing all this up knowing some dude doesn't have time to do this.
I BET THIS DUDE DOESN'T THINK TEXT GAMES ARE COOL CUZ THEY ARE. HOLY COW I WANT TO KILL THIS DUDE. WHAT THE HELL IS THE DEAL WITH HIM
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG
I also tend to stoop if a guy has a nicer car. Really that's it I think. Oh if he went to an ivy league school too. And if he's more well read. DEFINITELY if he doesn't like sci-fi. Oh dude I'll stoop really low then.
If his apartment is nicer. OMG and if he has a house he's so gonna have to deal with my stooping. Plus if he has hair. That's just not fair and we can all agree with that. If he doesn't have too much time on his hands. Ya that makes me feel stupid about typing all this up knowing some dude doesn't have time to do this.
I BET THIS DUDE DOESN'T THINK TEXT GAMES ARE COOL CUZ THEY ARE. HOLY COW I WANT TO KILL THIS DUDE. WHAT THE HELL IS THE DEAL WITH HIM
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG
I don't disagree. Again, I'm not a web-advertising guru by any means. I'm suggesting funding someone who is. and when I mentioned a banner, I'm talking about the topmudsites page. every major MUD on that list has a little circle with a picture in it next to their MUD. and in between 10th and 11th place, right in the middle of the screen, is a small banner for Materia mystery or whatever. I dunno. I'm just saying I'm willing to take part in one of those get user schemes that people were detailing a year+ ago.
Illimin
Illimin
<<Solomon had said that the bang for the buck in banner advertising was disappointing!>>
Beyond his likely valid observation about their experience, they may have been disappointed if:
1. They were employing the wrong online marketing channels - i.e., pay-per-impression; a useless money-pit.
2. They used the correct marketing channels but didn't know what they were doing - e.g., didn't invest in a professional, external, marketing manager (a firm) who has done this for years and who obviously pays for them self since, duh, they are there to optimize your marketing so that you make a lot more money than they cost.
They usually charge a monthly minimum fee for their service - you can get a really experienced marketing management firm with a demonstrable track record of success for a minimum fee of $5K/month - but what they really want is to make you lots of money because they take like 15% or 30% (can't remember which) of each of your "conversions" (meaning the first month of DR). Trust me, they don't want your stupid $5,000/month minimum fee. They want to make sure you make lots of money so they can get paid big numbers.
HOW IT'S DONE - IN BROAD STROKES (e.g., excluding joint ventures and other complimentary, mostly marginal marketing tactics)
I - "Affiliate Marketing"
Here you don't pay-per-impression or pay-per-click, you pay-per-conversion. A conversion is an actual sale. And DR does not have to pay any money up front (except a fee for a service that keeps everyone honest). Other websites (called your 'affiliates') will display your ad and when you make a sale you pay them a percentage. For example, if a computer-focused website has a banner for Dell and someone clicks on it and buys a computer, that website will get between 25% and 40% of sale price of that computer.
The question here is, how do you get websites with massive enough traffic to make you sales to agree to take you on and be your 'affiliate' marketer by putting your banners up on their popular site - or, ostensibly, be your distributor? They are thinking the following (these numbers are off, but closish if I remember); about .003% of people CLICK on a particular banner, and about .03% of THOSE people BUY the product ("convert" into a sale).
Potential affiliate websites need to believe that 1. your product is sellable; 2. once potential customers click on your banner, DR has optimized (by an affiliate marketing professional) a landing page and conversion process (each page they click through until they put their credit card information in) that will convince enough people to buy a subscription, and not abandon the conversion process by browsing away from DR halfway through; 3. that their payout is attractive enough to get them to take DR on as a partner - the DR first month price is fine in terms of making their payout attractive - taking a percentage of a $100 sale is better, but in this case they would simply demand a higher percentage of the sub price);4. that DR is not solely relying on affiliate marketing (doing what I just described) to make sales. They also want to see pay-per-click in DR's marketing strategy - they want to know you're continuing to brand, which will make their sales easier.
II - "Pay-Per-Click" (Gooogle AdWords)
This is where DR promotes the game in the margins of the Google index (search results pages). If you've noticed their may be 3 highlighted ads on the top and a number in the right margin of Gooogle - those people are paying money everytime you click on one. Again, something like .003% of people CLICK on a particular banner, and about .03% of THOSE people BUY the product ("convert" into a sale). In this case DRAGONREALMS wants to know which keywords do people use when searching Google so that THEIR ad will show up during relevant searches - they don't want their ad popping up if someone is searching for mufflers; In this case DRAGONREALMS wants to know that the actual words in THEIR ad will cause whomever glances at it to click; DRAGONREALMS wants to make sure that when they click they find themselves in a conversion process that will result in a sale. In other words, potential customers won't land on the homepage, trust me - they will click, then land in an effective step-by-step series of pages that will convince them to give their credit card and "convert" into a sale - creating a conversion process that optimizes those chances doesn't cost much AT ALL and it is vital, but it must be designed by a professional marketing manager. I'll get to that in a sec.
The only way to fail at this is budget. Trust me Dragonrealms has the budget - even if staff aren't privy to someone's personal wealth. Maintaining even the poffice space means someone has what it would take to make pay-per-click work - because the cost is not prohibitive to that person.
First simu finds a "marketing manager". This is a firm that does three things, and only three things: 1. make sure you make money using 'pay-per-click' (google AdWords); 2. masure you make money using 'affiliate marketing'; 3. make sure you make money engaging in joint ventures (they may not even do this one).
Marketing managers make you money. They pay for themselves many times over - derp. They usually have a minimum monthly fee. You can get a really effective marketing manager (remember this is a firm, not a 'guy" unless he/she comes with a crazy background at one of the firms) for $5K or $6K per month. They take 15% (if I remember) off the top of each of your sales. THEY DONT WANT YOUR STINKING $6K/MTH! They want you to make a lot of money so they make a lot of money. Don't be afraid simu!
The marketing manager will find keywords people use to search google that will want DR, they will test to see how much each click costs, they will deliver a study of how many sales you can expect in X amount of time spending X dollars on clicks with browsers searching google using X keywords that will assure us that they will want DR - even if they don't buy it. Then, before anything else happens, they look at your website and determine your conversion process sucks, and they fix it. These additional pages are like $70 per page, times like 4 pages (e.g., nothing). This is true whether they are designing and managing your 'affiliate' program or 'your pay-per-click' program. Except with 'affiliate' marketing they are contacting all the websites that you want to advertise, blah, blah, blah, make sure they're satisfied, etc.
(BTW I'm killing time so I can go home with as little stress as possible today lol.)
The the marketing manager executes. They set you up on Google AdWords, launch the text of your ads, watch the metrics, make adjustments - especially during the first 4 months - and finally you make money.
You will lose money for about 4 months. And that could be as much as $40K. But you break even then, meaning the pay-per-click (PPC) spending each month is offset by the sales revenue 1:1. Then, because they have optimized, you start turning a profit. And you put that back into more PPC spending. Then you make sales equaling 20% more than you are spending in month 5 or 6, then 40% more, and you keep spending this extra money on more PPC. And more and more. Eventually you;re at like $250,000 in profit per month. But you MUST have professionals doing this or you go down in flames.
If you use professionals the game can have 5,000, 7,000, 10,000+ players in DOWN hours. Don't talk to me about its a text game - marketing is math. It has been empirically demonstrated that PPC and affiliate marketing works. They are the modern backbone of internet commerce.
Usually online properties fail because of product, business model, or budget. DR has a fully adequate product, a reasonable enough business model, but the internal budget allocation may be a different story - or they just don't know what they're doing in this regard ;)
No businessman can see every wrecking ball that is swinging in their direction. Some of the wrecking balls that they don't see, or refuse to address, just cause nagging deficiencies in the business. Other wrecking balls cause existential damage. This is a slow death. But I do love the staff. It still means something to them, if not to everyone responsible for this game. Sometimes people just burnout or move onto something else.
Beyond his likely valid observation about their experience, they may have been disappointed if:
1. They were employing the wrong online marketing channels - i.e., pay-per-impression; a useless money-pit.
2. They used the correct marketing channels but didn't know what they were doing - e.g., didn't invest in a professional, external, marketing manager (a firm) who has done this for years and who obviously pays for them self since, duh, they are there to optimize your marketing so that you make a lot more money than they cost.
They usually charge a monthly minimum fee for their service - you can get a really experienced marketing management firm with a demonstrable track record of success for a minimum fee of $5K/month - but what they really want is to make you lots of money because they take like 15% or 30% (can't remember which) of each of your "conversions" (meaning the first month of DR). Trust me, they don't want your stupid $5,000/month minimum fee. They want to make sure you make lots of money so they can get paid big numbers.
HOW IT'S DONE - IN BROAD STROKES (e.g., excluding joint ventures and other complimentary, mostly marginal marketing tactics)
I - "Affiliate Marketing"
Here you don't pay-per-impression or pay-per-click, you pay-per-conversion. A conversion is an actual sale. And DR does not have to pay any money up front (except a fee for a service that keeps everyone honest). Other websites (called your 'affiliates') will display your ad and when you make a sale you pay them a percentage. For example, if a computer-focused website has a banner for Dell and someone clicks on it and buys a computer, that website will get between 25% and 40% of sale price of that computer.
The question here is, how do you get websites with massive enough traffic to make you sales to agree to take you on and be your 'affiliate' marketer by putting your banners up on their popular site - or, ostensibly, be your distributor? They are thinking the following (these numbers are off, but closish if I remember); about .003% of people CLICK on a particular banner, and about .03% of THOSE people BUY the product ("convert" into a sale).
Potential affiliate websites need to believe that 1. your product is sellable; 2. once potential customers click on your banner, DR has optimized (by an affiliate marketing professional) a landing page and conversion process (each page they click through until they put their credit card information in) that will convince enough people to buy a subscription, and not abandon the conversion process by browsing away from DR halfway through; 3. that their payout is attractive enough to get them to take DR on as a partner - the DR first month price is fine in terms of making their payout attractive - taking a percentage of a $100 sale is better, but in this case they would simply demand a higher percentage of the sub price);4. that DR is not solely relying on affiliate marketing (doing what I just described) to make sales. They also want to see pay-per-click in DR's marketing strategy - they want to know you're continuing to brand, which will make their sales easier.
II - "Pay-Per-Click" (Gooogle AdWords)
This is where DR promotes the game in the margins of the Google index (search results pages). If you've noticed their may be 3 highlighted ads on the top and a number in the right margin of Gooogle - those people are paying money everytime you click on one. Again, something like .003% of people CLICK on a particular banner, and about .03% of THOSE people BUY the product ("convert" into a sale). In this case DRAGONREALMS wants to know which keywords do people use when searching Google so that THEIR ad will show up during relevant searches - they don't want their ad popping up if someone is searching for mufflers; In this case DRAGONREALMS wants to know that the actual words in THEIR ad will cause whomever glances at it to click; DRAGONREALMS wants to make sure that when they click they find themselves in a conversion process that will result in a sale. In other words, potential customers won't land on the homepage, trust me - they will click, then land in an effective step-by-step series of pages that will convince them to give their credit card and "convert" into a sale - creating a conversion process that optimizes those chances doesn't cost much AT ALL and it is vital, but it must be designed by a professional marketing manager. I'll get to that in a sec.
The only way to fail at this is budget. Trust me Dragonrealms has the budget - even if staff aren't privy to someone's personal wealth. Maintaining even the poffice space means someone has what it would take to make pay-per-click work - because the cost is not prohibitive to that person.
First simu finds a "marketing manager". This is a firm that does three things, and only three things: 1. make sure you make money using 'pay-per-click' (google AdWords); 2. masure you make money using 'affiliate marketing'; 3. make sure you make money engaging in joint ventures (they may not even do this one).
Marketing managers make you money. They pay for themselves many times over - derp. They usually have a minimum monthly fee. You can get a really effective marketing manager (remember this is a firm, not a 'guy" unless he/she comes with a crazy background at one of the firms) for $5K or $6K per month. They take 15% (if I remember) off the top of each of your sales. THEY DONT WANT YOUR STINKING $6K/MTH! They want you to make a lot of money so they make a lot of money. Don't be afraid simu!
The marketing manager will find keywords people use to search google that will want DR, they will test to see how much each click costs, they will deliver a study of how many sales you can expect in X amount of time spending X dollars on clicks with browsers searching google using X keywords that will assure us that they will want DR - even if they don't buy it. Then, before anything else happens, they look at your website and determine your conversion process sucks, and they fix it. These additional pages are like $70 per page, times like 4 pages (e.g., nothing). This is true whether they are designing and managing your 'affiliate' program or 'your pay-per-click' program. Except with 'affiliate' marketing they are contacting all the websites that you want to advertise, blah, blah, blah, make sure they're satisfied, etc.
(BTW I'm killing time so I can go home with as little stress as possible today lol.)
The the marketing manager executes. They set you up on Google AdWords, launch the text of your ads, watch the metrics, make adjustments - especially during the first 4 months - and finally you make money.
You will lose money for about 4 months. And that could be as much as $40K. But you break even then, meaning the pay-per-click (PPC) spending each month is offset by the sales revenue 1:1. Then, because they have optimized, you start turning a profit. And you put that back into more PPC spending. Then you make sales equaling 20% more than you are spending in month 5 or 6, then 40% more, and you keep spending this extra money on more PPC. And more and more. Eventually you;re at like $250,000 in profit per month. But you MUST have professionals doing this or you go down in flames.
If you use professionals the game can have 5,000, 7,000, 10,000+ players in DOWN hours. Don't talk to me about its a text game - marketing is math. It has been empirically demonstrated that PPC and affiliate marketing works. They are the modern backbone of internet commerce.
Usually online properties fail because of product, business model, or budget. DR has a fully adequate product, a reasonable enough business model, but the internal budget allocation may be a different story - or they just don't know what they're doing in this regard ;)
No businessman can see every wrecking ball that is swinging in their direction. Some of the wrecking balls that they don't see, or refuse to address, just cause nagging deficiencies in the business. Other wrecking balls cause existential damage. This is a slow death. But I do love the staff. It still means something to them, if not to everyone responsible for this game. Sometimes people just burnout or move onto something else.
it's an interesting treatise. But can that not be applied on a smaller scale? simply getting that top hits area when text game (etc.) is searched... that can't be that hard, right?
Illimin
That aside, we're almost in 8th, and 7th should be easy! VOTE! http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html
Illimin
That aside, we're almost in 8th, and 7th should be easy! VOTE! http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html
I'd be interested to see how a targeted facebook ad of people who like MUDs but aren't already fans of Dragonrealms would work.
Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.
Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.
<<But can that not be applied on a smaller scale? simply getting that top hits area when text game (etc.) is searched... that can't be that hard, right?>>
If by 'top hits', you mean 'most traffic', and if by 'searched' you mean using Google, let me clarify a couple of things.
I - WHY GOOGLE PUTS VERY LITTLE EMPHASIS ON TRAFFIC AND OPTS TO EMPHASIZE OTHER ELEMENTS TO RANK WEBSITES ON THE 'INDEX' (search results)
(Remember I'm not an expert, but I do have direct, mile-high perspective experience, and have learned the basics from some very smart people in the industry)
Google does look at traffic; it looks at websites' 'bounce rate' (the rate at which users leave the site after viewing only one page), and time users spend on the site.
But the very definition of 'traffic' is difficult to determine. Is it better that they travel from a Google search or from another similar website or is it the browser's actual homepage (making it seem pretty important to that browser). Maybe if they travel to a website from a totally unrelated website that traffic should be considered less important (e.g., browsing from travelocity to dragonrealms). There are lots of kinds of browsing behavior and labeling and ranking traffic is more slippery (and would take more storage to record, determine trends, then act on those trends for every website's traffic on the planet). Afterall, they want to be CORRECT when they suggest websites for you to visit on their index.
FYI, Google Analytic' measurements of websites' performance is INSANELY detailed. What websites did visitors coming from? How many came from New York City, how many came from Arizona, how many came from pakistan. What are visitors' approximate ages? Did they come from an iphone? A samsung? A tablet? A desktop? How long do people stay on the website? What specifically did they click on? Do people generally click on links on the top of your website (called 'above the fold') or the bottom? Which pages did they click on and how long did they stay? And on and on and on and on. Again it's free and amazing. But still, they don't seem interested in taking all of that data, analyzing it, and ranking each minuscule element to rank that site on the Google index.
Also, there are MANY ways to cheat traffic statistics - and they are a bit more difficult for Google to discern than other elements of website performance that are cheated like 'backlinks' from other sites (cheating tactics are called 'blackhat' techniques - if Google catches you, your website is REMOVED from the Google 'index', a.k.a. search results, for a long, long, long time - that's bad. And frankly, traffic is not as good a measure of website popularity/quality as the elements that Google DOES use to rank websites in their search results.
Websites that appear first on Google search results are not there because they have the most traffic. Actually, traffic has nothing at all to do with it. Google apparently made this decision for a number of good reasons.
II - WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR WEBSITE RANKING: IN BROAD STROKES (there are other elements, these are the TWO most important one's - by far)
The issue that google faces:
Imagine two VERY similar websites. With almost exact content. And one person searches Google by typing in a keyword that is relevant to both of these sites. How can Google decide which is placed in first position on the results page, and which is placed in second position? Google has to find ways to differentiate these two websites. And traffic is the worst way to do it because it is hard to categorize traffic, and it would take more resources than other, probably more discerning techniques require.
1. Website Content
Is a website's content relevant to the keywords Google searchers are typing in? They measure this by sending bots to every single website on the planet and reading most of the immediate content of a website - starting on the website's homepage and then following homepage links deeper into the website to all internal 'next' pages. If there are links on THOSE second internal pages pointing deeper into the website to OTHER internal pages, the bots follow those links and read MORE of the website. At some point the bots lay off - unless EXTERNAL websites point to more of your internal (non-homepage) pages - then they really start reading a website with 10s to 100s of thousands of pages.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals go into websites and set them up so Google thinks they are relevant in ways a website publisher may not think of.
2. 'Backlinks' - Unquestionably the MOST powerful element in Google's automated decision making process
Google wants to know how popular you are with other websites. Google believes that if other websites are linking to your site, you aren't an unknown, anonymous, irrelevant website. After all, how many external websites does a given website point to? Not an endless sum - so Google takes that activity VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY seriously when considering what position a website appears in a Google search.
And, in this case, Google DOES rank websites that link to your website. So one 'backlink' (a link to your website from another website) is more powerful than some and less poerful than another in Google's decision-making process. That ranking has to do with the relevance of that website's content and the value of other websites that link to THEM.
** for a more detailed discussion discussion on what backlinks are and how THEY are ranked: http://bit.ly/1e3zwU0 - My post (READ: book) is at the bottom
TO YOUR QUESTION: Is it "not too hard" for DR get on top of the search results
1. Depends on the popularity of the keywords. The keyword "shoes" is very popular, so you are competing with a trillion websites selling shoes. "Text Games" is a great keyword combination to compete for, for likely success (im guessing, but sounds true) - but how many people are actually LOOKING for a text game? I stumbled upon it and was like, "Oh snap! This looks kewl! ::eat cheeze doodles, drink soda:: Didn't even expect to find a AD&D-like text game! ::smoke something , eat ice cream:: What a gem! I'm checkin this out! ::first finish cold pizza, smoke something::"
If DR wants LOTS of potential customers to discover DR through Google, which contrary to likely internal contrarians, they can, DR has to compete with keywords that ENOUGH people type into Google. Doesn't have to be "games" (very competitive), but a professional MARKETING MANAGER or SEO PROFESSIONAL will surface the optimal keyword combinations.
Anyway, I really need to do some work. I just like sharing what little i know about the world. You now know one of the three things I know. The second thing I know is WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!
And the third is USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
<<I'd be interested to see how a targeted facebook ad of people who like MUDs but aren't already fans of Dragonrealms would work.>>
If has a pay-per-action option, meaning that they don't charge you every time they show the ad, they charge you when someone clicks on it. In that regard it's very cheap - but people aren't actively looking for a game when your ad appears like on a google search. IMHO, they click on it with even less intent on buying. I personally do believe it is very useful if you want to increase comments on a blog, etc. Just to brand, get more attention, etc.
If by 'top hits', you mean 'most traffic', and if by 'searched' you mean using Google, let me clarify a couple of things.
I - WHY GOOGLE PUTS VERY LITTLE EMPHASIS ON TRAFFIC AND OPTS TO EMPHASIZE OTHER ELEMENTS TO RANK WEBSITES ON THE 'INDEX' (search results)
(Remember I'm not an expert, but I do have direct, mile-high perspective experience, and have learned the basics from some very smart people in the industry)
Google does look at traffic; it looks at websites' 'bounce rate' (the rate at which users leave the site after viewing only one page), and time users spend on the site.
But the very definition of 'traffic' is difficult to determine. Is it better that they travel from a Google search or from another similar website or is it the browser's actual homepage (making it seem pretty important to that browser). Maybe if they travel to a website from a totally unrelated website that traffic should be considered less important (e.g., browsing from travelocity to dragonrealms). There are lots of kinds of browsing behavior and labeling and ranking traffic is more slippery (and would take more storage to record, determine trends, then act on those trends for every website's traffic on the planet). Afterall, they want to be CORRECT when they suggest websites for you to visit on their index.
FYI, Google Analytic' measurements of websites' performance is INSANELY detailed. What websites did visitors coming from? How many came from New York City, how many came from Arizona, how many came from pakistan. What are visitors' approximate ages? Did they come from an iphone? A samsung? A tablet? A desktop? How long do people stay on the website? What specifically did they click on? Do people generally click on links on the top of your website (called 'above the fold') or the bottom? Which pages did they click on and how long did they stay? And on and on and on and on. Again it's free and amazing. But still, they don't seem interested in taking all of that data, analyzing it, and ranking each minuscule element to rank that site on the Google index.
Also, there are MANY ways to cheat traffic statistics - and they are a bit more difficult for Google to discern than other elements of website performance that are cheated like 'backlinks' from other sites (cheating tactics are called 'blackhat' techniques - if Google catches you, your website is REMOVED from the Google 'index', a.k.a. search results, for a long, long, long time - that's bad. And frankly, traffic is not as good a measure of website popularity/quality as the elements that Google DOES use to rank websites in their search results.
Websites that appear first on Google search results are not there because they have the most traffic. Actually, traffic has nothing at all to do with it. Google apparently made this decision for a number of good reasons.
II - WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR WEBSITE RANKING: IN BROAD STROKES (there are other elements, these are the TWO most important one's - by far)
The issue that google faces:
Imagine two VERY similar websites. With almost exact content. And one person searches Google by typing in a keyword that is relevant to both of these sites. How can Google decide which is placed in first position on the results page, and which is placed in second position? Google has to find ways to differentiate these two websites. And traffic is the worst way to do it because it is hard to categorize traffic, and it would take more resources than other, probably more discerning techniques require.
1. Website Content
Is a website's content relevant to the keywords Google searchers are typing in? They measure this by sending bots to every single website on the planet and reading most of the immediate content of a website - starting on the website's homepage and then following homepage links deeper into the website to all internal 'next' pages. If there are links on THOSE second internal pages pointing deeper into the website to OTHER internal pages, the bots follow those links and read MORE of the website. At some point the bots lay off - unless EXTERNAL websites point to more of your internal (non-homepage) pages - then they really start reading a website with 10s to 100s of thousands of pages.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals go into websites and set them up so Google thinks they are relevant in ways a website publisher may not think of.
2. 'Backlinks' - Unquestionably the MOST powerful element in Google's automated decision making process
Google wants to know how popular you are with other websites. Google believes that if other websites are linking to your site, you aren't an unknown, anonymous, irrelevant website. After all, how many external websites does a given website point to? Not an endless sum - so Google takes that activity VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY seriously when considering what position a website appears in a Google search.
And, in this case, Google DOES rank websites that link to your website. So one 'backlink' (a link to your website from another website) is more powerful than some and less poerful than another in Google's decision-making process. That ranking has to do with the relevance of that website's content and the value of other websites that link to THEM.
** for a more detailed discussion discussion on what backlinks are and how THEY are ranked: http://bit.ly/1e3zwU0 - My post (READ: book) is at the bottom
TO YOUR QUESTION: Is it "not too hard" for DR get on top of the search results
1. Depends on the popularity of the keywords. The keyword "shoes" is very popular, so you are competing with a trillion websites selling shoes. "Text Games" is a great keyword combination to compete for, for likely success (im guessing, but sounds true) - but how many people are actually LOOKING for a text game? I stumbled upon it and was like, "Oh snap! This looks kewl! ::eat cheeze doodles, drink soda:: Didn't even expect to find a AD&D-like text game! ::smoke something , eat ice cream:: What a gem! I'm checkin this out! ::first finish cold pizza, smoke something::"
If DR wants LOTS of potential customers to discover DR through Google, which contrary to likely internal contrarians, they can, DR has to compete with keywords that ENOUGH people type into Google. Doesn't have to be "games" (very competitive), but a professional MARKETING MANAGER or SEO PROFESSIONAL will surface the optimal keyword combinations.
Anyway, I really need to do some work. I just like sharing what little i know about the world. You now know one of the three things I know. The second thing I know is WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!
And the third is USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
<<I'd be interested to see how a targeted facebook ad of people who like MUDs but aren't already fans of Dragonrealms would work.>>
If has a pay-per-action option, meaning that they don't charge you every time they show the ad, they charge you when someone clicks on it. In that regard it's very cheap - but people aren't actively looking for a game when your ad appears like on a google search. IMHO, they click on it with even less intent on buying. I personally do believe it is very useful if you want to increase comments on a blog, etc. Just to brand, get more attention, etc.
So, you seem to know quite a bit (significantly more than I would personally care to, to be honest) about this topic. So I guess the question is, without raising 40k, which is out of our crowd funding capabilities, what would be the optimal methodology to increased subscriptions to a niche text based game. And, considering your advanced knowledge of it, what reasonable number could be raised to accomplish that goal?
Illimin
Also, vote! We're almost in seventh!
Illimin
Also, vote! We're almost in seventh!
okay fine.
They need to hire someone that can answer that. A PPC manager to start. I can even recommend one. They hire Solomon to manage and develop the game. They hire someone else to sell it through channels that are effective.
That firm will do a competitive analysis of other text games, of how WoW spends its money and how effective they are, they will do what they do. Then they will deliver a package that lays it all out.
In fact, they may do that just to get simu to hire them (free). Simu can ask 5 different firms to deliver that kind of analysis to them. There is a way. And the way is not for you to take money out of your pocket and pay for it for them as noble as that sounds - and as personally interested in increasing your own gaming experience as that sounds. Its not realistic.
They need to hire someone that can answer that. A PPC manager to start. I can even recommend one. They hire Solomon to manage and develop the game. They hire someone else to sell it through channels that are effective.
That firm will do a competitive analysis of other text games, of how WoW spends its money and how effective they are, they will do what they do. Then they will deliver a package that lays it all out.
In fact, they may do that just to get simu to hire them (free). Simu can ask 5 different firms to deliver that kind of analysis to them. There is a way. And the way is not for you to take money out of your pocket and pay for it for them as noble as that sounds - and as personally interested in increasing your own gaming experience as that sounds. Its not realistic.
