Getting more members in here

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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

OH...
One comment. I wasn't talking of Wiki and Other freeware rings yet. I am talking developers, and sites for development for example. Places where somebody tried to build up a site about freeware but failed, and would like to help out on a big one... Stuff like that.
I just read back and saw that I mentioned freeware sites... I actually meant developers. Sorry for that... I did however mean that we could post links in other forums to this site, just remember to mention the current state of the site, and that if anyone is willing to help out we have all sorts of positions open. Let them see that we have this site going for it. Mention the concepts of the page. Do some namedropping and such. Cheap advertising with a hint to development. Then people know when they visit, and they would maybe like to help out. Also we can always post again saying that the site has now developed into something nicer, and then people can see that we are developing :D
This way we also show that we mean business.
But no linkexchanging yet other than to friendly sites (Like Planet Freeplay) :D
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eMTe
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Post by eMTe »

Well, I wanted to post announcement on some Polish freeware forums, but that would actually bring us more enemies than friends. Kidnapping members of other sites seems to be not too good idea...

I think we should announce ourselves either in online computer magazines (or in their paper versions as Chroll already suggested) or generally on sites somehow related to gaming and fun (I have no idea atm what sites that could be). Where freeware fans might be lurking?

edit: sites with flash online games, first idea that comes to my mind...
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Post by moshboy »

Posting in forums is a good idea.. that was my first strategy too (and putting something in your sig in every forum is a good idea), although just make sure that you don't just join up to forums and make your first post about your site - it looks bad. I made that mistake unfortunately - was lucky I got away with it so much.
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Post by Dizi »

Lol, if you are going to use that idea the best way to advertise on other forums is to place this forums banner in your sig...maybe we could make sig banners as well as normal banners for that purpose. They would of course have to say that CWF is a freeware site rather than just have CWF on them like the normal banners have. Something really eyecatching and fun too. This way you are always advertising the site in your posts and no-one can turn around and say your only their to spam advertise...like would be if you did what moshboy did with his first posts in forums :p
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Post by eMTe »

Just watch forum policy. When I registered on Abandonia and attached my sig with OG link I was asked to remove it... That's why I think posting on other freeware forums is not the best idea. Cooperation - yes, banner exchange - yes, bringing world of freeware together - yes, but I dont think other sites want to lose people... Imagine how would you feel if someone posted here on CWF a link to his new site with job offer...
Chroelle wrote:would like to help out on a big one
I like this! :D
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Post by moshboy »

It doesn't necessarily have to be on other freeware gaming forums, although many have no problem with signatures anyways. One of the best things you can do is look for some of the bigger general gaming forums and post a couple of times a day in those (not spam ofcourse), such as PC Gamer magazine forums and some other bigger ones. This is something I haven't done enough of (comes from running a one man show unfortunately - only so much time in a day) but it's well known that if you have a subtle but eye-catching signature it will get peoples' curiousity up enough for at least a few to click on it.

Abandonia are an exception in terms of forum policies... most sites generally don't care. As long as you read up on their signature policies, regarding size, site type, etc you should be fine.
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

Well that is the great thing about this place. We can go and advertise on lots of forums in our sigs, because I think that quite a few here visits more than this one forum. :D
We can also easily find forums where you can angle it to point at your forum. As I mentioned, I found a forum that was discussing abandonware and why it wasn't freeware... Well It was long not before I had posted a link to our abandonware to freeware place, where we do more than talk about it.
Also there are lots of places you can go an visit and name-drop without it feelin like advertising. There are also a few forums that have a cool links forum, where you can post about this forum, and that way get us mentioned, but just remember to advertise us, and not write:
Come visit CWF. A place of freeware games.
Way to short and wont get any hits in a searchengine. Well it might get a hit on page 300.000 on the list of the word "freeware" and pretty much the same place for "games".
Developer forums does have places too, often, where you can go and write if you need coders, designers, graphics and so on for your website. You could always try and drop a line at such a place. We do need developers, and the more the better. Dizi so far has the new madsolsen to help her get some designissues done, and well Zyx is very alone on the coding front (when Maz is not around).
As you can see there are plenty of places to name-drop and draw attention. Let us also remember that the more links to our sites from other places, the higher the chance of being hit by google, and the higher chance of people coming here and joining up, so it doesn't always have to be a place that freeware-people hang out that you post. As long as we have a link for that particular site...
And eMTe and I are constantly talking to developers trying to get them in here to join. So far we had one come by, but I am very sure more will come. When we get the interview part done, then this will bring us members for sure.
All in all, it is just a matter of doing what we ar doing, but doing it for longer and doing it more :D
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Post by eMTe »

I just thought someone (Chroelle doesnt hav much time atm?) can start a CWF blog, not personal one :D , only 'what's new' section, and this OG thread seems to be the best place to start.
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

There are some interesting ideas in here and some of them made me think about what we have done and what we could do more.

- The wiki thing is still a bit far for me.
- We do exchange banners with big sites now, and that seems to be going well.
- I dont know how Google friendly our site is.
- We moved up the ladder when searching Google for freeware games.
- We definently need to keep namedropping our site everywhere we can.
- I think we are on the path to great things! This site has moved so much in the last couple of months that I am confident that we are going places even greater than where we are now.
- We still lack that design that might keep people here. And we should still look for interested people.

I will try to look at the businessplan once more and see if there is something that needs an update or that we forgot.
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Post by ipsemet »

I am new here, but I figure that's of little consequence when you come right down to it. The fact that I'm new here doesn't alter anything I'm going to suggest (though it may alter how much attention some of you pay to it =) ).

1a) The main page is most assuredly not the best it could be. The first impression given by the site is that it's more for reading opinions about games, or giving opinions about games, as opposed to anything else. This will give anyone searching for site to -get- games from the impression that they have stumbled upon a site that cannot help them accomplish that and will almost immediately leave. While it is important to have members that will come to a site and contribute, it is necessary to realize that simply by coming to the site and using it, even if not posting in forums or etc, they are contributing. Their first visit might be simply to download a game and then leave, but this increases the chances that they will return. If they run away from the site from the get go, you lose a potential member.
1b) Potential ways of correcting the problem in 1a include downsizing certain things which, while fun to have, are not necessarily condusive towards attaining new members. When first arriving on the page, the GameVsGame Voting section is so dominant to the page that it's disgusting. Move the voting section to a less dominant position, replacing this area, perhaps, with a non-graphical header along the lines of "CWF - Your source for Freeware Games", or the like. Not only will this help with Google searches for the site, but it will also help in alleviating problem 1a.
1c) Another potential way of helping alleviate the problem is to modify the existing "toolbar". The best of freeware sites have some method of navigation that is dominant and allows for the direct access to that which most people will come here for -- the games themselves. Underdogs have this. GameHippo had this. It works. It cuts through the crap that most people won't be willing to deal with at first and allows them to get right at the heart of the matter.

2a) While dropping links to the site around the net helps, along with banner swapping and etc, there is more that can be done to help. First off, restructure the webpage directory system, or at least, modify it. It doesn't matter how many pages you have if they're all hidden using .php?blahblah. For accessing games, use some philosophy like, http://www.curlysworldoffreeware.com/ga ... snoth.html or the like. By having the page name as the keyword, as well, you tend to increase the chances of your page being found. (A search engine will choose Freeware-Game.html with the page title "Freeware-Game" and meta keywords "Freeware" and "Game" over the exact same page renamed Bob.html).
2b) By adding certain pages, such as pages that might be linked to the toolbar suggested in 1c, which contain direct links to all the games on the site, you help to ensure that the spider will crawl through all of your games, helping to increase the chances that visitors will come to your site. But, the number of pages that the spider has to crawl through decreases the chances that the spider will place any relevance on the page (having to crawl through 20 links to get to a page containing the word "freeware" will be less relevant than a page that required crawling through 10 links to get to "freeware".)
2c) Balance this with the human aspect of things. Provide a combination of organization sets that appeal to both spiders and users. A user will find sectioning things based on certain, logical fashions much more useful (say, a page for RPG's, further subdivided into links towards RPG's A-C, D-G, etc etc) than a spider would (which would prefer having to crawl through less pages).

I had quite a number of other ideas, but I'm afraid that I lost track of them whilst writing up those. Yet another proof that the more things you have to crawl through, the more things fall apart. =)
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Post by eMTe »

I wouldnt agree that main page leaves wrong impression of what cwf is, but it is indeed messy and overloaded with stuff. As for your other concerns I and probably we all agree (to some extent), but everything has been discussed elsewhere many times - awareness is not a problem, lack of time and hands is. Moreover, we never had head designer and the one who appeared to become one had to leave longtime ago.

As for 2) paragraph I wont comment, because I'm the content guy here, not techy one. C, Maz or Zyx will answer you better for sure.

Wanna help btw?
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Post by ipsemet »

Sorry to give impression that I think it gives the -wrong- impression of what it is. Just trying to say that, because of the overload of things, the fact that CWF is for downloading freeware games, etc, is lost in, what will appear to the new user as, chaos.

As for helping, sure. I always have free time, and am usually spending it on something less than productive. Might as well do something productive with it.
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

Feel free to help us. We have some people who care about the content (for example eMTe, Pager, myself), but people who care about the design and the technical site are more than welcome. Please contact Maz or Chroelle, they will tell you which help we need most...

P.S.: Welcome to the forum!
Last edited by Pater Alf on Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:14, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by ipsemet »

I love content, but design and technical side of it is definitely important when aiming to get new members, as I'm sure we all can agree on. ^_^
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Post by Scythe »

I would certainly be interested in seeing a different take on it, but I'm not sure I agree that the front page is that misleading. Visually not terribly appealing, but I don't think anybody with an attention span will miss the fact that games are found here (and if they don't have one, they're not going to stick around anyway). Seeing as it's made by and for the active members, it's made by and for the select few and their activities. I know I've made suggestions for change before, but am neither designer nor techy person, and those have traditionally been busy people.

Welcome, and I do hope you will become attached to the site and fight for your views. Some resistance when rousing the old, sleeping bears is to be expected. ;)
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Post by Pater Alf »

Scythe wrote:...I'm not sure I agree that the front page is that misleading. Visually not terribly appealing, but I don't think anybody with an attention span will miss the fact that games are found here...
At least it could be a bit more clear. When I use Subsilver style there's a big "Download" link in the upper right corner. In the standard style (the one Spanek created), which users will see when they come here for the first time, it's not there...
Last edited by Pater Alf on Sun Oct 12, 2008 21:50, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Zyx »

Good comments, but quickly to point 2a). It's a common myth that Google and friends suck at indexing ?get=parameters and they have even pointed out that so called "Search Engine Friendly" pages can sometimes be anything but.

True, the URLs could be nicer and the strcuture could be better. But from spider point of view, they're irrelevant. What you're totally correct about is that it is a pain for users. And that's totally relevant for us.

The way we should make things easier for search engines would be to generate a Sitemap, but like all things here, they require significant amount of time and effort, something that we're seriously lacking here.

I'm really glad we have people who are focused on content, because that I think is our top priority. That said, we should shift our focus to design and technical things, as a measure to get more members and more member interaction (forum posts, reviews, etc.). 1a) is something we're really, really lacking at this point.

I think it's good that someone points out these things because most of the core group here has already become a bit blind to the sometimes unappealing user experience we have here... =)
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Post by SFault »

I agree that there is way too much stuff on the main page. I'm not exactly sure what the main point(s) of this site is, but I recall it was something about quality games. Is suggest to cut lot of the 'crap' out of main page and replace it with some simple description about the purpose and alignment of the site with instructions where to find this and that. Also the register link could be there very visible (The join us link is quite hidden and also little misleading). After signing in the main page might give lots and lots of more information. That could be like a reward for registering.

The best way to design something is to decide to whom the stuff is and what that person would like to see/have. After that implement everything according to those needs.
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Post by ipsemet »

Pater Alf) Exactly!

Zyx) I will admit that my only experience with spiders is from writing one myself a couple years back, ergo, my view that it's more annoying to deal with .php? links is based on my own laziness and shoddy programming at the time, I'm sure. =)

SFault) I agree with the idea of having the main page contain more information once you're signed in. Great plan, actually.
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Post by Chroelle »

WELCOME!!!!!
First and foremost.

Helping out sounds great. My biggest question is with what? Designing, coding or feedback. Saying "all 3" opens the free-bar tab option in the virtual bar!

We could definently need a designer that could do something for the sites look, as Maz has said before he can make things work, but cant design, so I am pretty sure he agrees. Of course I am extremely attached to the way the site looks, but I am even more attached to the way the community works, so if you have any ideas that can lift this site up, then please feel free to say it.
What part of the work on the site would you like to be involved with?
Sorry for the hasty (crappy) answer but I am unfortunately in a hurry right now. If you want to know more feel free to write me a PM. I think Maz will be out of the loop for the next two weeks. Hunting, working and all.
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