Moa’s biggest traffic sources
Continuing on the trend from the last week, here’s some more MoaCube’s stats. This time: our biggest traffic sources, along with some notes on how we got there (thanks to Paul Eres of RPGcreations for the suggestion).
I filtered out direct visits and google searches (1st and 4th position respectively), and focused on the referrals. As you can see, we’re still pretty small, with overall traffic measured in thousands per month and hundreds per day. We were growing really fast during the first two months, but now we’ve hit the stage where each months visits are just a few percent higher than the last’s. I’m interested in how this will change after Cinders is out. I’ll be sure to blog about it, too. Now, onto notes:
1. deviantart.com
This is probably a surprise for many. Our biggest traffic source, and by far, is Gracjana’s profile on deviantart. It didn’t really require much work, too. She’s a popular artist with many followers, so anything by her picks interest. Some of her Cinders artwork was featured in Daily Top Favorites and Daily Deviations, leading to very nice traffic spikes. It’s not dead traffic too, we have some confirmed sales from this source. Seems that if you work with a good and popular artist, it’s a good idea to ask them to promote the game on their profile.
2. tigsource.com
We were only mentioned once on the front page, and it was enough for TIGS to become our 2nd best referral. Kinda depressing, knowing that if you are not making a retro-styled game, or don’t know the editors personally, your chances on being featured are very slim. I got there by pestering an online friend who writes for TIGS. I don’t think it will be possible again. We kinda sticked out as the only hi-resolution 2D game in a long time.
3. indiegames.com
We got noticed by one of indiegames editors after the TIGS feature. Since then, we’re in direct contact, got our trailer published, and it’s likely you’ll see Cinders and our future projects there.
4. twitter.com
Twitter is interesting. It’s currently our 4th best source, but it’s constantly creeping up, as my account gains followers. It’s especially effective for promoting my blog posts. They tend to be retweeted the most, getting many people to visit. It should be noted that only 35% of this are new visits, so it’s more suited for maintaining traffic than increasing it.
5. facebook.com
Facebook is very similar to twitter in that it mostly maintains traffic (only 23% new visits) and grows steadily. It seems weaker than my twitter, but I had it for much shorter, too.
6. rockpapershotgun.com
A very cool PC-centric gaming website, that doesn’t shun away from indie games. I knew one of the editors from my days at Codeminion, so it was easy to establish the contact again. To make them publish indie news, you need to at least have a video of your game.
7. forums.tigsource.com
I’m a relatively active member of TIGS forums. I have links to our website in my signature, and I have made threads about our games in DevLogs and Feedback section. It’s a passive traffic source of sort — I spend my time there anyway.
8. lemmasoft.renai.us
A visual novel centric forums I signed to when we started to promote Cinders. I was a bit afraid that people there wouldn’t like a non-anime visual novel, but the community seems to be very friendly and supportive. Got some nice feedback and several sales. Very valuable traffic.
9. forum.gmclan.org
A Polish GameMaker community. I’m relatively well-known there, so it brings some people to our website. Mostly dead traffic, unfortunately. Very few Polish gamers are interested in buying indie stuff online.
10. planet.renai.us
An RSS aggregator for lemmasoft forums. If you publish VN-related news on your website, you can request being added to its feed. It reposts my news and blog posts in whole, so exact traffic is hard to measure.
As a little extra, here’s a list of the most popular content on our website:
Nothing unexpected here. Main subpages and games are getting the most eyeballs. From more interesting stuff: Cinders wallpapers are pretty popular, and so is my blog post on our sales stats. People like stats, I guess.
I would be really interested to see a similar breakdown of traffic sources from other indies. In a way, it’s more useful than sales numbers. Shows where and how to promote your game and website, and what people like to read the most.
C’mon, don’t be shy.
davidp wrote a comment on: July 8, 2011 at 11:28 am
stats are always interesting read 😀 especially those of indie games 🙂
winterwolves wrote a comment on: July 8, 2011 at 11:57 am
What timeframe are those stats? June? a week?
TeeGee wrote a comment on: July 8, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Last few months. Must seem puny compared to yours :).
winterwolves wrote a comment on: July 8, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Well yes 😀 but that’s normal. In June my stats were:
(direct) / (none) 7,244
google / organic 5,743
funpcgame.com / referral 2,130
hanakogames.com / referral 1,341
games.renpy.org / referral 771
apple.com / referral 751
amaranthia.com / referral 734
And several others going down. As you can see most of them are affiliate sites which are essential for any indies and I’m amazed how many of them ignore affiliation!
TeeGee wrote a comment on: July 8, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Thanks. That’s some mighty useful info. Haven’t heard about funpcgame.com before. I’ll try to get in touch with them.
winterwolves wrote a comment on: July 8, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Well if you have the game up to affiliates, no need, they will pick you up automatically 🙂
Have to say that is just a generic affiliate site so the CR % is much lower than say, amaranthia or hanako.
Also total traffic of June was about 44.000 uniques.