Archive Binge and Other Ways to Attract Readers

[Moochava]

Looks like we have a shiny new board here, and I'd might as well get it started by talking about how to get your webcomic out there to interested eyeballs.

Other than posting on webcomic boards (like this one), how do you like to spread the word? StumbleUpon? Project Wonderful? Shaving your URL into stray cats?

I'm currently getting decent traffic from Archive Binge for my first comic, Broken Space. Basically, Archive Binge is an RSS feed that can send you batches of webcomics every day, automating the process of, well, archive binging. Yeah, it seems a little lazy, but I've used it to read comics that were too daunting to dive into normally, like Goats (since 1997).

What's your favorite source of new traffic?

[Rob]

I use project wonderful. I also I try and do guest comics for larger comics and make friends with larger comic creators to get them to mention me.

At least I did. Once I lost my artist I went into a holding patter on the networking aspect of it. I don't want to waste anyone's time with the crap I'm putting out now. 

[Rob]

Also I hope you don't mind but I'm going to move this thread into the "promotion" section as it seems to fit there fairly well. 

[Garrett Williams]

I'm mostly using Project Wonderful(most of my dollars spent are what I've earned on my own ad boxes).

I'm also getting into using TopWebComics.com much more. Several months ago, I replaced my PW "Your Ad Here" box with a link to vote for my comic on TopWebComics, because if nobody's advertising on my site, that means I need more traffic. I've gotten the occasional visit each week from them, and after seeing the Bear Nuts comic using vote incentives heavily(and pushing the comic high in rankings), I declared that I'd start doing the same now that I actually have some good behind-the-scenes pictures to offer up. I decided to change the vote incentive less frequently than BN, though, so people have plenty of opportunity to vote and see the exclusive picture before it's replaced. My second weekly vote incentive goes up in a few hours.

ALSO, since my comic is what some would call "furry", I cross post to furaffinity.net, where I get a LOT more feedback than from my own site. If your comic features animals as main characters, I highly recommend sharing on that site.

Oh, and back when I had a band, we got a few visits due to a bandmember writing the url on bathroom stalls.

[Rob]

e got a few visits due to a bandmember writing the url on bathroom stalls

Now THAT's guerrilla marketing. 

LOL

I love Bearnuts. She cracks me up. I knew her through the old Webcomics.com site. I sent her an invite, I hope she stops by and joins us. Good tip on the Topwebcomics.com thing. I've seen a lot of voting stuff on comic sites and I always kind of sneered at it. To know that it's actually driving some traffic means I may need to reevaluate that. And the tip of sticking it there are your default ad when no one is buying your PW space is great.

Thanks.

[Garrett Williams]

And, the default ad can be used to ask people to Digg your comic or use any other social networking site! Lots of possibilities.
Personally, I have no problems getting people to pay too much for my ad space thanks to badly-targeted campaigns, so the Your Ad Here box isn't all that useful. Seriously, I get fewer than 100 hits a day normally and people are normally paying 3 cents a day(often getting to 10 cents), which is what I'd bid on a site with 3000 visitors a day. When I was on vacation, someone paid 50 cents for half a day. That's insane, and welcomed.

[Alectric]

Ha, I've been getting less than 50 readers a day and my skyscraper ad kept going above 10 cents.  I don't think those people were paying much attention.  Of course now I'm down to less than 30 a day and the advertisers seem to be catching on.

I've made two guest comics for Sister Claire (though the first was when I had literally just started my webcomic so it didn't amount to much).  I was incredibly lucky because the author of this superb (and popular) webcomic was actually making an open call for guest comics...twice!  It was because of her tendonitis, though, so it's kind of bittersweet.  And it did bring a decent chunk of traffic to my site, but after a few days it was gone.  I think maybe, like, five people stayed.  The same thing with my Project Wonderful advertising too!  I don't know why I can't keep my readers.

I guess I need to focus more on improving my webcomic rather than getting the word out, but I wish I knew just what it was that I need to improve.  Do I need to update more often?  Do I simply need to wait until I have a bigger archive?  I've already pretty much maxed out my art and writing skills, so hopefully those particular aspects are sufficient...

[Rob]

There are places to submit your site and comic for critique here. I see you are in the queue for a site review from Corvis and I'm sure that will help. These things take time. As long as you keep trying you'll get there.

Retaining the audience you gain from something like a promotion or a guest comic is a huge deal. It can also be really tough. It might be a good idea for an article. I'll have to do some investigatin'.

[JGray]

Things I've done to attract more readers and thoughts on them

1. Advertise: Lately, I've tended towards one day ads on comics with similar themes. I usually try to get my ad up on that comic's update day. That way, I catch more of their readers. This has done well by me. Sometimes advertising on smaller comics is better than bigger. One or two readers is better than three hundred casual browsers who never come back.

2. Guest comics: We did a guest comic for Flipside and it brought in a nice amount of traffic. In fact, it continues to send people our way on occasion.

3. Beg other comics for spotlights: Ursula Vernon over at Digger mentioned Mysteries of the Arcana briefly in her comic's blog. We're still getting the occasional hit from over there. Likewise, Shadowgirls and Rival Angels both did a small write up of MotA and that sent some good traffic our way.

4. Groups: Mysteries of the Arcana is a member of 910 CMX, the Webcomic Planet Collective, and TeenBit. By far, the various teenbit comics are, together, our biggest referrer. We're not getting a lot from WCPC right now because we don't have a link exchange box up but when it was up, that brought in some good traffic. 910 CMX brings in a smaller but respectable number of visitors.

5. Lists: We've joined most of the lists out there. thewebcomiclist.com, Belfry, choice, etc. We get some nice traffic from thewebcomiclist.com and Belfry, usually a few hits a day at least. Not huge but nice.

6. Twitter: This might surprise you. Because of the habit people have of friending anyone who falls into a certain category I think I've picked up a few fellow webcomickers as readers. They friend me because I do a webcomic, see a twitter I send out noting the comic is updated, and check it out.

7. Topwebcomics.com: I can say without a doubt that being on the front page of topwebcomics.com gets you a lot more hits than being on the second or third or further back page. Topwebcomics.com is one of our biggest referrers. We keep within the top 100 by having daily vote incentives. Its easier than you might think, too. For a while, I ran screen shots of my comic's characters done up in Sim3 with clever captions. Right now, I'm doing a stick figure parody comic. If you're the sort of person who keeps a buffer, why not do daily previews of your next comic? Show a frame a day.

8. Links: Similar to spotlights, links from other comics continue to bring in a nice flow of traffic. Bigger comics tend to bring in more traffic, of course, but almost every comic that links to MotA sends us a few readers each week.

9. Word of mouth: Or, more, word of blog. A lot of people out there list their favorite webcomics on their blogs' front page, or set it up so that the RSS feed from their favorite comics show up in their blog. You could ask your readers to do this, but I suspect it happens more organically.

10. Be punctual: Seriously. Show you're reliable. Show that your comic will meet deadlines and is worth investing in. That, along with a good comic, will keep the readers and draw new ones in.