Promoting the Forum [open for suggestions]

[Winter Sunflower]

So, it's really fun to roleplay with people. It's even more fun when people respond quickly, right? It's most fun when there are many people to talk to and socialize with. That's why we like members and we would love to have more. However, we're not really attracting many people... One reason may be because if you just happen to look up on Google for Warrior Cat roleplaying sites, we're not on the first page. Maybe it is because our forum look doesn't have a unique enough look (the job of a coder, by the way).

If anybody has any ideas for promoting our forum, I would love to here them~

Ciao!

[Silver]

Well, beyond the obvious advertisements on other sites and telling friends, I think a good idea would be to submit the site on as many “Top X” places as we can. I know from some previous experiences with other sites I am/was active on, that an rp site can get even past half their number of active members by top sites like those after all, and the higher the site is on the top, more active rpers will be interested to check it, we just need to vote daily to make it rise in rank.

[Winter Sunflower]

Jun 8, 2016 23:14:03 GMT -5 Silver said:

Well, beyond the obvious advertisements on other sites and telling friends, I think a good idea would be to submit the site on as many “Top X” places as we can. I know from some previous experiences with other sites I am/was active on, that an rp site can get even past half their number of active members by top sites like those after all, and the higher the site is on the top, more active rpers will be interested to check it, we just need to vote daily to make it rise in rank.

And maybe we should make a banner? Anybody have an artistic hand? I guess I could do it, but it would probably turn out really crappy, since I'd be way too lazy to actually but any effort in it, lol.

We also need to create an incentive for people to advertise. Otherwise, nobody ever will.

[Dewberry]

First of all, some people have sensitve eyes to bright colors (i know someone that does) so changing the colors to be more greyish might help, for WC webs i love to use light-grey green and grayish blue-green
Second, you can use a picture for the banner and add some text
Third, Guests may see how complicated the Applications when they see members make really long ones. The amount of things that are required can be overwhelming like how you have a skill paragraph & skill list, 3 things for appearance,a trait paragraph & and trait list, and lastly 2 things for history
Fourth(Yes, i find a lot of things hard for others or confusing here), speaking of history, later on when the requirement is where you start as a kit, it should have NO history because it is just a newborn baby kitten, it's hard to make history with a kitten
Fifth, i find the whole eight different application centers are confusing and all over, why not make it so that in cat creation you must put clan (for high rank must include WHAT rank, duh)and have 1 normal application thing, and 1 High-Rank application
Sixth, this website has a maze for a background, if you need any help with designing the site i could help!

[Silver]

I can try to make a banner or two, but I’m not exactly great at it. I’m kinda ok at drawing, but with school it would take me forever to do anything.

Hmmm…maybe we could give prizes for the most referrals, something unusual and that could be really hard to get otherwise…the ideas I have are an extra cat slot, an unusual mutation (like two tails or something like that), a special ability for one of their cats (Like communicating freely with StarClan) or an important role on a future plot.

[Dewberry]

Seventh (YES, i just thought about it last night), we need more active sitewide plots atleast as many so that all the active people can have atleast one plotted cat

[Winter Sunflower]

Jun 8, 2016 23:53:28 GMT -5 Dewberry said:

First of all, some people have sensitve eyes to bright colors (i know someone that does) so changing the colors to be more greyish might help, for WC webs i love to use light-grey green and grayish blue-green
Second, you can use a picture for the banner and add some text
Third, Guests may see how complicated the Applications when they see members make really long ones. The amount of things that are required can be overwhelming like how you have a skill paragraph & skill list, 3 things for appearance,a trait paragraph & and trait list, and lastly 2 things for history
Fourth(Yes, i find a lot of things hard for others or confusing here), speaking of history, later on when the requirement is where you start as a kit, it should have NO history because it is just a newborn baby kitten, it's hard to make history with a kitten
Fifth, i find the whole eight different application centers are confusing and all over, why not make it so that in cat creation you must put clan (for high rank must include WHAT rank, duh)and have 1 normal application thing, and 1 High-Rank application
Sixth, this website has a maze for a background, if you need any help with designing the site i could help!

I agree. It would be helpful if all the applications were in one place. It would make things so much easier for everyone. Plus I think we need to add a few places to the camps.
You're right with the whole kitten thing but I think more people would come if there wasn't that whole "starting with a kit."
Concerning the application, most of them are nowhere as long as I've seen applications be. Heck, I even wrote a six page application once (even though it wasn't required of me to write so much, lol). I quite remember looking at applications on AWRP and despairing at their length.

[Sunny]

Jun 8, 2016 23:53:28 GMT -5 Dewberry said:

First of all, some people have sensitve eyes to bright colors (i know someone that does) so changing the colors to be more greyish might help, for WC webs i love to use light-grey green and grayish blue-green
Second, you can use a picture for the banner and add some text
Third, Guests may see how complicated the Applications when they see members make really long ones. The amount of things that are required can be overwhelming like how you have a skill paragraph & skill list, 3 things for appearance,a trait paragraph & and trait list, and lastly 2 things for history
Fourth(Yes, i find a lot of things hard for others or confusing here), speaking of history, later on when the requirement is where you start as a kit, it should have NO history because it is just a newborn baby kitten, it's hard to make history with a kitten
Fifth, i find the whole eight different application centers are confusing and all over, why not make it so that in cat creation you must put clan (for high rank must include WHAT rank, duh)and have 1 normal application thing, and 1 High-Rank application
Sixth, this website has a maze for a background, if you need any help with designing the site i could help!

Really great ideas, Dewberry ! Maybe a lighter dark brown would be nice. I personally like the eight different application centers because it makes it pretty neat and blunt. It also makes it easier for staff to check because we can divide up the app checking. I, personally, also think that they could be more downright and self-explanatory for members that are new at the whole roleplaying thing, because they can easily find specifically where to put their apps in. I do understand your point of view. I'll consider that. I might make a poll for people to vote on it. The results don't necessarily decide my decision, I just want to have an overall idea of how people think of it. And yes, I was already planning on taking out the history part for creating a kit.

But what do you mean by "this website has a maze for a background"? Either way, we would love for you to help! I'll PM you about it. But please don't actually change or delete stuff, just add stuff (if you want to change the colors for the site just make a new background and if everyone likes it then we'll replace the current version). And I do agree with your seventh idea. I was actually just trying to think of a sitewide plot! Probably some type of major battle with Clans and StarClan versus the Dark Forest.

Overall, I think this site is doing pretty well. I mean, think about it. It's not AMAZING, but 5 members have joined since I've started to make it active again, which wasn't a long time ago. I do agree, though. We need to attract more attention and direct more traffic here. Silver, your ideas are really awesome! Any ideas for Top X websites?

[Silver]

Well, here is one of the strongest top sites around (This is how I found WCC), but that also means that we’ll compete with really strong sites, so we’ll need to vote daily to make it rise past the “Meh” sites and get noticed by potential members:
rockearswarrior.gotop100.com/

This one is good too, but less checked and consequently rising in rank isn’t as hard…it doesn’t means it will be easy though, and less members may found us through here, but it’s worth giving it a try:
warriorcats.gotop100.com/

This site is strong, just like the first one, just with more categories as well and stuff:
www.top-site-list.com/swg

[Winter Sunflower]

Jun 9, 2016 20:41:29 GMT -5 Silver said:

Well, here is one of the strongest top sites around (This is how I found WCC), but that also means that we’ll compete with really strong sites, so we’ll need to vote daily to make it rise past the “Meh” sites and get noticed by potential members:
rockearswarrior.gotop100.com/

This one is good too, but less checked and consequently rising in rank isn’t as hard…it doesn’t means it will be easy though, and less members may found us through here, but it’s worth giving it a try:
warriorcats.gotop100.com/

This site is strong, just like the first one, just with more categories as well and stuff:
www.top-site-list.com/swg

How will we get people to vote?

UPDATE: Okay so I got off my lazy butt and put together this banner for us. Looks slightly dark and probably isn't one of the best banners but... I do plan on making a better one later.

SPOILER: Click to show

... I think I should have made a border...

[Sunny]

Looks great!

[Silver]

Well, usually there is a small button-like link that you have to add to the site so people can click it, it will take them to the page with the option to vote for the site that led them there.

[Winter Sunflower]

Jun 10, 2016 18:38:58 GMT -5 Silver said:

Well, usually there is a small button-like link that you have to add to the site so people can click it, it will take them to the page with the option to vote for the site that led them there.

No, I mean like, what kind of motivations will we use. Because trust me, some people are extremely lazy (*coughcough*me*ahem*)

[Sunny]

Maybe prizes? Like an extra cat slot for every 20 votes they make?

[Winter Sunflower]

Jun 11, 2016 9:59:46 GMT -5 Sunny said:

Maybe prizes? Like an extra cat slot for every 20 votes they make?

How are we going to keep track of the votes made?

[Sunny]

Good question.. I don't know. Any ideas, anyone?

[Silver]

Hmmm…In many forums, proboards included, a stat in everyone’s profiles that they can’t modify can be included (I’m not sure if it’s automatic or admin-handed though) where the user can earn currency points. In the old site where I came from (The name was “A Dream Between The Stars: A Warrior Cats RP Forum” Anyone knew that place? It would be cool to find my old rp buddies, I won’t lie) those points were earned and later spent in a small shop that allowed you to have all kinds of cool stuff for your cats, a list that, if I can remember everything or at least most of it, I’m willing to post here as prizes.

What I mean by all that is that each time someone voted their points could go up (If automatic it would be that way, if admin-held they would need to post in a special thread that they did so and admins would need to check it to make sure they aren’t lying) and then they could “Purchase” things with vote points.

[Winter Sunflower]

Jun 11, 2016 15:17:08 GMT -5 Silver said:

Hmmm…In many forums, proboards included, a stat in everyone’s profiles that they can’t modify can be included (I’m not sure if it’s automatic or admin-handed though) where the user can earn currency points. In the old site where I came from (The name was “A Dream Between The Stars: A Warrior Cats RP Forum” Anyone knew that place? It would be cool to find my old rp buddies, I won’t lie) those points were earned and later spent in a small shop that allowed you to have all kinds of cool stuff for your cats, a list that, if I can remember everything or at least most of it, I’m willing to post here as prizes.

What I mean by all that is that each time someone voted their points could go up (If automatic it would be that way, if admin-held they would need to post in a special thread that they did so and admins would need to check it to make sure they aren’t lying) and then they could “Purchase” things with vote points.

I know what you are talking about. It is the monetary system plugin.

[Silver]

That XD (Sorry, I had no idea of its name)

Maybe they can get one point per vote that way to buy goodies like I said upside (The extra cat would be one of the goodies). Do you think it’s a good idea or it would be a bit too complicated???

[Sunny]

No I think it's a good idea. I actually turned that plugin idea down a while ago, but now it's appealing to me. Because it said "monetary" I thought it involved actual money, so I declined. *embarrassedly tugging on my shirt* Now it seems like a super-cool idea. I love it.