In this article I want to discuss a method
of getting targeted traffic to your website. This method is relatively unknown as far as I know. The traffic source that I am going to discuss is coming from guild members in online games. I am going to describe the benefits of creating such guilds
World of Warcraft
For those of you who do not know what a guild or World of Warcraft (WoW) is, here is a brief explanation.
WoW is a big multi player PC game. When you join the game you can create a character and enter a huge fantasy world where you can do quests, fight monsters and interact and game together with other players. As a player you can join a group of gamers or start building up your own group. Such organized groups are called guilds.
These guilds, especially if they grow bigger in members, need a solid organization. Managing the guild can be done in the game but when you want to become big and successful then you also need a website and or forum. This will give the guild a more professional look and provides you with more opportunities to manage it properly.
When it comes to making money then this is the point that I find really interesting. Once the guild and website are set up and running your going to receive a lot of returning targeted traffic to your website, coming from members in the guild or people who would like to join. I have seen guilds with more then 900 members. That is a huge amount of people and they probably have a lot to talk about and to organize. That means they will visit the forum and/or the website on a regular basis.
Building a community
Don’t get me wrong by no means it is easy to get a big guild with so many members, or even to manage it but is has its advantages compared to just starting a website / blog. In the game you can simply look at who is online, check if they are in a guild and if not you can ask them to join your guild (don’t spam it just ask them once). You can do this all day long if you want and if your dedicated then it is guaranteed that you attract a lot of people to you community in no time. For example my guild is about 3 weeks old. At the moment I have 40 active members. My blog is 6 months old and I can not even speak about a community yet, despite all my hard efforts to start one.
I am not saying that it is impossible to get quick traffic to your blog but with forming the guild and a related website I achieve quicker results when it comes to building an online community. You bond much quicker because you have adventures and fun together and when you approach players in the game then you know for sure that they are in the same interest group as you.
When the guild is growing you have to start offering guild members benefits in order for them to feel happy in the guild. For example you can start organizing in-game events. So then the next step is to direct them to you website to find out more information about those events and other guild related topics.
Another thing that makes it a lot more easy is the fact that you can make people happy with in-game rewards. The game has a system where you can gather items and in-game gold. These items can be collected by players when doing quests and killing monsters. People want those items and gold. Instead of having to buy stuff that you can give away on your website to attract people you can now make them happy with items from the game. You can also use items and gold as a reward for people that help you.
Keep it legal
There are other ways of making money with World of Warcraft. This is the result of the in game currency and because it takes a lot of time to build up your character. There are company’s, mainly in China, that make money by letting employees game all day gathering gold or building up characters. So called gold farming or power level company’s. They sell the gold or the characters to lazy gamers that want instant heroism. Blizzard (the creator of WoW) does not allow this and you can get your account banned if you get involved in those activities.
The beauty of the system I just explained is that you don’t make money with the game directly but with you website. You don’t have to worry of doing bad stuff that gives you problems later on. Keep it that way.
Respect for the game and its players
To avoid misunderstanding I want to make clear that by no means I want to try and make money by using people or by misusing the game. I absolutely love World of Warcraft as a game. It provides the opportunity to live in a fantasy world. Which I find amazing. The world in the game is huge. You can walk around for days and days and see beautiful landscapes, amazing monsters and have so much crazy adventures.
However over the years the game is criticized a lot. Many people forget the real beauty of the things I just described and they play mainly to gather items and gold. Those people often give the game a bad name and create a bad gaming experience for others.
I don’t want to be that kind of person. I created my guild website to earn some money with what I love doing so much. But I created the guild because I wanted to do something with a real meaning in the game. I support players so that they achieve a better game experience. I can influence them in a good way and show them the beautiful parts of the game. I respect my guild members and do everything I can to help them. At the same time I learn so much about organizing, leadership and management.
That was it for now. I will keep writing about my guild adventures. Articles about how to actually make money with a website will follow as well. In the meantime I would like to ask my dear readers some questions: to which (online) community do you belong and what do you think the benefits are of being a member of that community? Leave your interesting responses in the comment section below.
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