Missteps with Advertising
Resist the temptation to completely ad-spaz your company website. This obviously has some very important exceptions, but the most important thing to keep in mind, is what exact purpose does your company website serve?
I get depressed when I visit indie dev company websites and I see them plastered with advertising. It instantly screams desperation to me, which almost immediately turns me off whatever game I was here to look at in the first place. Ask yourself what purpose does your company website serve?
Are you selling games to consumers?
OR
Are you selling your visitors to your advertising partners?
Obviously it is not impossible to do both (as every major portal will show you), but unlike most portals, you are selling something else, and that is your company image. Portals don’t need to care as much about this as we indie developers do. Being indie is a part of what makes us special, and if we pretend to be like a big fancy portal (which we will no doubt fail at because we barely have enough time to make games, let alone compete with companies that are massive compared to us), we end up with a lose-lose.
So, you’ve decided to embrace your indie spirit, and you’re not going to pretend to be a big fancy portal, which means you’re selling your indie image along with your games. The little business man in your head kicks in and starts screaming:
MONETIZE MONETIZE MONETIZE.
He’s telling you to monetize every visitor, every visit, every hit, every EYEBALL.
The problem with this approach is that the quickest buck rarely turns the biggest buck in the long term. By trying so hard to monetize at every opportunity, you’re going to end up turning off a lot of people. The reality is that while some people can make a living off one hit game, most indie developers are going to spend years building up a portfolio and reputation which they can leverage to make a living off games. That desire to instantly monetize every possible facet of your website is going to damage you big time in the long term.
Think about what your company website is trying to do. If you are trying to pull eyeballs, and a part of your business plan is to monetize those eyeballs with advertising, consider creating a separate site that is distinct from your company website. Your company website can focus on maintaining your indie image, where as the game website can pimp your games and monetize your ad space with impunity.
No matter how you tackle the topic, just do your best to stay on top of your priorities and make sure you don’t go overboard on the advertising. Just remember that every eyeball that is looking at an ad is no longer an eyeball that is looking at your game.
Psturgeon
Can’t say i agree with this post. 90% or more of teh sites I surf serve ads as well. Respected ones, like news sites, and blogs. Even google’s search results. i think the problem is not with trying to monetise your traffic, but with doing it poorly. Its a graphic design issue, rather than a poor business plan. Turning away a revenue stream, that does not directly interfere with website conversions is seldom a good idea. You should just do it tastefully.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:16 amurbansquall
I think it is a lot more complicated than simply a graphic design issue. Of course my post just covers a high level overview of some of the pitfalls and some of the work-arounds we can leverage. More than anything, though, it is supposed to make people be conscious of when and how they employ advertising, because it can easily do more damage than help out the main cause, which is to make good games that lots of people get to enjoy, right?
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:25 amSquize
I’ve got to buck the ( Albeit small ) trend, and agree with the post
It will be a cold day in hell, or a fantastic cpm, before we run ads on either the site or the blog. We are busy setting up a “micro-portal” of our past work, which may one day carry ads, but to be honest it does just cheapen things. If we were getting big boy ad rates then fair enough, but for adsense style ads, we’d rather not have crap all over our site and whore ourselves for $5 a week.
Funnily enough though, nitrome seem to be able to carry it off, maybe it’s cause their output is always for game portals so you’re used to it, or maybe it’s the site design ?
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:51 amurbansquall
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main/nitrome.com
I think you’d be hard-pressed to call nitrome.com the company website. That’s a portal, through and through. The only thing remotely company-ish about it is the “blog” link, which, if you click, is little more than a “latest releases” link.
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 amSquize
Yep, but it’s their only “home” on the web. They don’t get any more corporate than that. It’s not as if there’s some hidden dry b2b site within that one.
That’s what I mean, there’s is the only one that works imho, and because it’s been designed that way from the ground up. It’s big and bright and fun and you know what, I don’t mind the adverts here there and everywhere because they fit with the pixel overload
They advertise themselves almost as a portal, as that’s where all their games go. It’s a familiar setting so it works.
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:28 am