What a great start to a thread and very well writen. I have to say to a great extent it is inspirational. I felt the same way as you 2 months ago when I started but now I have to say that some of that has changed. I really don't think adding the banner exchanges is just settling. Also directory posting is tried and true and big or small you will have to do some of that link building.
Searching a popular website in Google reveals that they have 1000's of links but until you get traffic links is not so easy to get. So directories and link dumps are not so bad to me. Also RSS directory submission.
I just want to express my simple view. I have to be honest Mibbi,arcadejunkie and hahaboy ( Anthony ) so many other guys on this and other boards have helped me. Anytime I am trying something new I just have a habit of learning from guys first. I have to say that in order to get into the Arcade industry you have to get some type of traffic. The big guys will not trade links with you and they just stick together and honestly it would not help you at the beginning even if they linked because you need to build your brand to make guys come back.
I would love for someone to point me in a way around this but it seems to me that either you have to do a lot of work or pay a lot of money to get on the A list. So I am anxious to hear your thoughts.
People make people rich ( in any industry ) so you have to get the links. Banner exchanges have helped me a lot. I hated the flashing banners and I noticecd everyone just focused on Mario, Sonic etc.. ( they don't need anymore branding ) so we focus a bit on our mascot. My analytics says that this is helping us get more bookmarks and favorites from people.
We do animations and we work with guys for myspace and orkut bulletins and we are working on youtube and other vid websites. I will also be using Ebay some in my promotions but all of this is because these websites are well ranked and I am applying the 80/20 rule.
20% of my work ( big traffic websites )
will bring me 80% of my traffic.
I am very open to Ideas but Banners have been there for years and if you don't like the designs then add in your mascot and do cool things with him along with what is working already but you need the banners to get the traffic going ( short term ). Also I initially thought banners were a turn off but visitors have almost been conditioned to expect them it seems. I get more repeat traffic with them now than ever. Even the larger websites use arcadebanners & funklicks atleast and or Moregamers. I am interested in alternatives but I think alternatives begin with improvisation on a theme.
Google SUCKS. They take their sweet time indexing your website and until your alexa ranking goes up other guys will not trade links so I think part of the magic is also just being in business for a long time. I wish I knew more ways to monetize because traffic for me is starting to pick up but until I can get 10K - 20K game plays a day I am not that worried about monetizing yet. I see that this industry requires tons of traffic unlike a Niche but again I am always open to learn new ideas and I just LOVE your spirit man! Power to the people Viva La resistance .
the problem really lies in the fact that 2% of arcades get 90% of the gamer traffic and 98% of us shuffle around the remaining 10% but the same can be said for any industry LOL. Me and my brother are
Trained musicians ( Worse there )
Trained Traders ( Worse there Guys even took some of our software design Ideas and ran with them ) .
Now we do Arcades same deal but what can you do? I would love to hear more discussion on this topic. So everyone lets put something in and see if we can take down the A list machine.
Regards:
Alfred
( fingers ache from typing LOL )
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