Am I harming my site if I don't have a guest forum for ads?

On my website, I don't have a forum for affiliates/ads. Some forums have a guest accessible forum where they can drop off an advertisement for their role playing site (usually so long as they can do the same.)

I do have a place where I show off affiliates and a text area to copy/paste our affiliates button + link.

Am I harming my website/losing chances at exposure for not allowing people to advertise for their forums/sites on a guest friendly forum? Or am I doin' it rite by just sharing an affiliate HTML code and showing off boards that are showing off my site's button too?

How do you go about affiliating/advertising?

 

In choosing not to have the open advert forum you do limit where you can advertise (99.9% of places with an adverts forum expect to be able to post an advertisement in return). And usually the best sites don't have unlimited numbers of affiliates. (IE: I wouldn't affiliate with a place where I'm lost in a sea of other affiliates. To the point where I rarely affiliate at all because most places treat Affiliation like a link trade, not what it should be.)

I usually check out a site before I advertise (I generally shoot for some similarities in rules and culture, though occasionally I'll put an ad up on a lower level place in hopes of snagging people looking for a more challenging place, or if I think the lower quality site might be on the outs and suddenly freeing up a bunch of players) and throw up an advertisement if I think the trade would benefit CoSC. I also post a return ad on anywhere that advertises on CoSC.

In the end, you need to weigh the lowered exposure by not being able to casually advertise trade against the freedom to be a little more choosy and only highlight sites as you please. I don't think this is a case of there being a blanket "Right" or "Wrong" answer. Just what's right for an individual site.

 

While you can go without a guest friendly ad section (I ran my site for 4 years without one)... not having one really does limit where and how often you can advertise for a roleplay site.
You're limited to very few directories (here, RPG-D, Distant Fantasies, Seiryuu and RPG-Ads) because most of them want to be able to post their ad on your site. Some are willing to make alternative arrangements. But those aren't necessarily good ideas. (And they may not even remember that arrangement and honour it later.)

And advertising on other RP sites is generally out of the question. If they can't advertise on your site then they don't want you advertising on their site. (And it makes sense... advertising on another rp site is a privilege, not a right. No one is owed advertising space.)

So if you want to be successful without having a guest friendly ad section then you need to work harder, advertise more creatively though other venues. (Tumblr, Twitter, facebook, Youtube, etc...) And possibly even be ready to spend some money to advertise. (Things like T-shirts, business cards, fliers, etc...)

This doesn't mean it's impossible... rather it's likely to just be more difficult. Though that has it's own advantages and disadvantages. (I mean if you go outside rping to advertise then you may end up attracting people who have never rped before. And so you may have to teach them. Which can be great or terrible depending on whether that's the sort of crowd you want.)

 

i wouldn't believe so, no.

 

All good points. I have been taking to FB, Google+ and Tumblr occasionally, but most of my members come from word-of-mouth or my signature banner currently.

I had a guest-friendly ad forum when we were on phpBB3 years ago, a little different to set up on SMF but I think I've figured it out. I will see how that goes for now. :)

 

We had a guest friendly ad forum for the first year or so, but I found that the majority of my members came from affiliates, resource sites and google. I nixed the forum and three years later, we're still getting new members. I haven't regretted the decision once. :]

 

I really think it depends on where you're getting your audience, what sort of contacts you have etc. If you're able to advertise or get personal contacts/members with similar interests, you might not necessarily need it; I myself had a lot of contacts from my old rp to recruit new members, but that was only about 20-30 people (not all of which were guaranteed to join when I opened my new site). For myself, advertising helps bring in people that I may not have met before.

but I think the better question to be asked is is it going to hurt your side to INCLUDE one? My personal thought is no. Advertisements on your site aren't going to hurt you; Sure, they're outgoing links, but that's no more risk than a big button attracting someone to leave your site... The trade-off is that you get to spread your site name to a lot more places if you have a guest-friendly area. It's also generally accepted to have a password or a guest-accessible account to prevent spammers or bots.

 

I think it will, over time. Without having a lot of central places to advertise, like AvidGamers or Acornrack used to offer, the RPG community is limited in being able to advertise as it is. I've been a member of a long-running site (10+ years) that is starting to die because we don't have much new blood. Part of the problem was not having a place to advertise and because of that they couldn't advertise elsewhere. Since they've added a forum, new members have started to show up and things seem to be looking up a little.

As unpleasant as they are, I think you lose a lot of potential exposure.

 

Potentially.

Can you survive without one? Yep!
Can you do better with one? Yep!

Advertising is a numbers game. I have joined sites that I have advertised on. But when I come to advertise and there is no place, I don't leave that site with a good feeling. Not having a place limits where you can advertise and makes advertising that much more strenuous. And of course, we all know that if someone is going to leave, not having an ads section is not going to stop them.

 

You definitely should have one unless you can make it to the front page of search engines, even then it is still good to have advertisements because they supplement things.

 

Personally I don't have an advertising section. My site is a pretty small community these days, and our pace is pretty gentle. I don't want our activity in the 'today's posts' section buried under a bunch of adverts. R2M doesn't advertise on other RP forums either, just resource sites etc, so I don't really see the point. Have had several guest stop by the C-Box and be rude about it though.

 

I have a section solely to allow people to link back. Why? I hate feeling pressured to advertise. At least by having just space to linkback I can allow for people if I do feel like advertising to link back to us without feeling "I need to post on all these sites AND do my quota of 10"

 

I think the answer to this is yes and no, it depends on the game and it depends on where you get your members from. This is the reason that research is always good, find out where your members are coming from and tailor it accordingly.

A Few Facts:

• If you are advertising on another forum chances are they will expect to advertise back, which means that not having a guest forum for advertising will remove your chances of advertising almost anywhere.
• Some places (like here) allow you to advertise for a link back on their site in the affiliates, this takes up space from affiliates where you could be getting front page exposure, but it does allow you to advertise without needing a guest free forum.
• Not a lot of people look through affiliates anymore, and if your site is lost in a sea of other affiliates you might not be noticed at all, that can be detrimental in some cases, static affiliation is usually a better option.
• Not a lot of people browse past the first page or so of advertisements unless they are looking for a place to advertise themselves, so advertising isn't necessarily a great method either.

All in all it depends on how you get your members and whether or not you're willing to put in the time and effort. You could always consider going half-way though, having a 'Link Back' forum for those who you've advertised on but not allowing guest advertising other than that, it's always an option. You should also be more creative in advertising methods, go out of the box. Not having an advertising forum really means that you need to have a good RP base when it comes to people you know and could get to join your site, but in reality if your site isn't getting out there, then who is going to know it exists?

 

Really, when RP sites advertise on each others' sites, it doesn't do the role-playing community much good because you're not bringing in anyone new. The only reason I started doing it was for the backlinks for SEO purposes. I ran my community for a decade without a place for others to advertise on it and I don't think it hurt me, because my advertising is way beyond posting on other people's boards. We've done a lot of novel stuff like writing articles for resource sites, participating in cross-site competitions, making a TVtropes page, commissioning artwork and having the artist link to us, social media campaigns, paid advertising, business cards and flyers at conventions, etc. My advice is to think outside the box and beyond the traditional posting on other people's forums. You don't actually need an advertising forum on your board and will be fine without one. If you don't want the hassle of dealing with it, don't worry about it. If you're okay with that, that's okay too.

 

Personally I think the alternate methods mentioned here - Tumblr/Social Media, word of mouth, activity across resource forums, etc, is much more effective than drop-and-run advertising. I don't think you're going to lose out all that much: those kinds of ads don't tend to get many views anyway, you have to do 100+ over a number of days to really be effective, and most of the time your return views will just be people looking to advertise their own site. Going directly for potential members allows you to create a dialogue and heighten the potential not only for them to join, but for them to stick around. It also has the added bonus of being way more fun than managing advertising sections!

 

There are so many great comments in this thread! I have been wondering what the effectiveness of advertising is to growing a site for a while now-- but I hadn't considered some of the other options aside from affiliating. There's huge value in having conversations with like-minded people, then bringing them/their friends in over (in what my experience has been) pointless advertising.

When I look at how many hits ads that have been posted on my site get, there are often just 1-2. That's it. Ultimately, I don't think you'll be missing out much!

 

Star Army, you make some really good points.

Poufkin had my question too, which is, how effective are ads on other sites really? Has anyone noticed good results or new members coming from those?

 

Some people came from ads on other sites. Having them means an opportunity more to make your site visible. The site exposition is a sum of all the media and efforts, not only one...

 

I generally feel having a advertising area does more good than harm, in the long run. I don't think it is necessarily required, but I think it carries its own weight and gets the job done. Personally, most of my members in the past have come from dropping advertisements and I'm more inclined to keep up that work once a week than not do it at all.

 

Exactly as Elena said here on this. Advertising is somewhat a hit and miss thing I have found for RP, at least that is my experience. I have been connected with several resource sites such as Fix and the D for over a year now and in that time I have gained only two permanent members from them, there were perhaps three others who didn't stay. Over the years though I have had more success on both Facebook and Twittter merely by dropping in on 'groups' that are of a like mind to the genre I needed to attract, in the first instance being Stargate. In fact I think of all my membership, perhaps around 60% has come from facebook; this despite I have quite a few affiliations on my board as well as the usual ads that go into the resource sites.

Summing up, do what you feel works best for you. Sometimes word of mouth works better than anything else.