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[TeeGee]

I saw that there was a similar thread two years ago, but it was pretty empty and didn't go anywhere. So I decided to start a new one.

After posting some of MoaCube's sales stats last week, the Almighty Eres suggested we should also list our major traffic sources with some info on how we got there. I think it's a great idea. In a way, it's more useful than sales figures. Shows where and how other indies promote their stuff, which may give you some insights for your own little campaign.

Here's our top-10:


(I filtered direct visits and search engines out)

More info on each source.


I'm really interested in seeing other people's stats. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i literally haven't done any marketing for my game or site in over a year, but here are my extremely pathetic numbers:

343 visits in the last week (jul 1 - jul 7)

1. google: 84
2. direct/none: 45 (just people typing in the url in the address bar, or sharing the link on instant messenger, etc.)
3. brighthub.com: 28
4. youtube.com: 26
5. tvtropes.org: 18
6. gog.com: 17
7. reddit.com: 15
8. anewmorning.com: 8
9. forums.tigsource.com: 7
10. caltrops.com: 5

52 total traffic sources (so the majority of sites give 2 hits or 1 hit each, but there's a lot of them)

of the google results, here are the top search terms that led to my site:

immortal defense
immortal defence
pay what you want games
how to sell games
i would give up anything for you
rinkuhero
long dao
"where do i go to play immortal defense" (okay there was just 1 of these, but it's funny that someone would type that into google)

i'm surprised i'm still getting sales at those numbers: i had 9 sales last week. is 9 sales out of 343 visits good?

[TeeGee]

Ha ha, how did you got on tvtropes.org and brighthub.com? Have you checked where this traffic comes from exactly?

i had 9 sales last week. is 9 sales out of 343 visits good?

I have no idea how it usually is for pay-what-you-want games. It's such a rare model. I guess it depends on how much you got through these sales. Personally, I tend to compare revenue with traffic, not number of sold copies. Sales and discounts may cause the conversion rate to jump sky high, but that doesn't necessarily mean more money.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

it's not a sale or discount per se, it's pay what you want perpetually, as the normal price

the total sales (adding them all up) was $80, so an average of just under 9$ per copy -- so $80 for 343 visits

i wish i was getting your traffic, if it scaled i'd be making $560 a week instead of $80 a week

brighthub had a review of a bunch of tower defense games back in 2009 (a review of a lot of them in a single article), and immortal defense was one of them listed

the fans of my game edit tvtropes a lot i guess; i don't visit that site at all but i'm surprised at how extensive the immortal defense page is on tvtropes:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImmortalDefense

warning: as it says, it contains massive spoilers

some parts of it are inaccurate however. for instance, it claims that the main character never says a single thing in the game; this is incorrect, the green words that come out of the mouse cursor occasionally (such as "I demand a radio.") are being said by the main character

[TeeGee]

Oh, that's very cool. I just noticed our Cinders was mentioned on tvtropes too, though it doesn't have a full article yet.

It's good to know ID is still bringing some money. $80/week may not be too much, but I think is okay for an old game, and on name-your-price model.

[MattG]

great info teegee, paul eres has also gets props for giving meat instead of broken glass

[ANtY]

www.codedaemons.com

Not whole past month after filtering out google and direct:



Not really much marketing, just some posts on tigsource and indiedb profile.
Most traffic comes from our "Creating a game" article series.

[jotapeh]

my traffic results:


laughably bad


maybe I should release a game worth a damn, though. OK. Getting on that now!

[golgorand]

This is going to be a super-newb question, but...

How does one get such interesting information?

Is this a service your hosting site gives or do you need some kind of analytics code added to your site?

[jotapeh]

Some hosting companies provide analytics via your adminstration panel (eg. cPanel, Plesk, etc.)

Alternatively you can sign up for Google Analytics and paste some code onto your pages for that: http://www.google.com/analytics/

[TeeGee]

We're using Google Analytics. It's very simple to implement. You sign for an account and copy a short piece of code into your website's header.

[Eraser]

We're using Google Analytics. It's very simple to implement. You sign for an account and copy a short piece of code into your website's header.

Well, wherever you want to paste it. I put mine in the footer in case analytics decides to be slow; in the footer it doesn't stop the rest of the page from loading.

[Oddball]

Stats for http://www.hackslashloot.com

	July 1st - July 7th
1.	stumbleupon.com	42
2.	indiegames.com	25
3.	mysteriouscastle.com	25
4.	forums.tigsource.com	13
5.	blitzbasic.com	7
6.	tuxplay.pl	6
7.	forums.somethingawful.com	5
8.	gooeyblob.com	5
9.	legendsofyore.com	5
10.	rgcd.co.uk	5

	May - June
1.	indiegames.com	1,495
2.	stumbleupon.com	1,274
3.	reddit.com	948
4.	forums.somethingawful.com	261
5.	bay12forums.com	228
6.	2g1g.thepodkast.com	173
7.	forums.tigsource.com	161
8.	lgdb.org	157
9.	twitter.com	126
10.	linux.org.ru	116

72% are new visitors
28% are returning visits

[mcc]

I don't even have this information. I just have tons of old apache logs, some of which I may have lost or got eaten by a rotator or configuration error something. :sad:

I really need to set something up that will regularly munch my apache logs and spit out nice formatted data.

[J. Kyle Pittman]

jetelecharge.com
tigsource.com
descargarjuegosparapc.net
pixelprospector.com
hry-ke-stazeni.eu
portalprogramas.com
baixaki.com.br
freepcgamers.com

v v

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I have three key websites, which may be an issue in itself. My blog, my personal homepage and the Greedy Bankers website.

First off, www.greedy-bankers.com

Total visits in the past month: 223



The biggest draw has been indiegames.com. The game was featured there earlier in the month, which has drawn a lot of interest. I've had 54 visits as a result of this post. When the indiegames twitter feed linked to it back in May, I got 200 hits in one day. That said, the same post drew a lot of viewers to my personal site, looking for the Windows version.

The most visited page was the home page, wit the screenshots, artwork and reviews pages getting about a dozen hits each.

In the past month about a dozen people visited the French version of the site (www.greedy-bankers.com/fr) but I haven't really been pushing it in French media much, and the translated page isn't very clearly linked. Marketing the game in foreign languages was a strategy I had a prod at but never really worked out.

Next, www.alistairaitcheson.com

Total visits this month: 269



The biggest draw was indiegames.com again, following a post on their page. 80 people came to my personal site looking for the Windows version, as opposed to 50 looking for the iPhone version. Other than that, this has been my least-vsited site. Most people come to it following the links I put in signatures and things on sites like this. Recently I've put links to my blog articles on my front page, which has drawn a lot of readers straight to my blog, and probably to more interesting information!

Finally, my developer blog

Total visits this month: 504



The top hit was from google. The two key searches are against all expectations (the name of a podcast I was interviewed in, which was later featured on indiegames.com) and animations game (which links to an article on drawing game animations I wrote). These are a little misleading as only ~5% of these google links are new users.

There's been a lot of users coming in via my personal homepage recently, as I've started linking to my latest blog articles on my personal homepage.

Final analysis

I hope that helps! Perhaps people have some comments on what I'm doing right and wrong here.

One thing worth pointing out is that while Greedy Bankers has been reviewed by quite a few sites, it's been very hard to draw the attention of the major iOS news portals. The fact that almost twice as many indiegames.com users are looking for the Windows prototype rather than going to the main product page shows I'm probably not getting the attention of the audience my game really needs.

[ANtY]

Good to know that ur getting some traffic from that article (and also from it's pl version on pigames.pl). :p
But they'r not the best audience for u prolly 

Maybe u should make new version of ur game for PC/MAC/LIN and release it as a casual game? Maybe publish it on portals like BFG or sth like that.

[TeeGee]

Thanks for posting those, Alistair. Very interesting. I'm shocked how little traffic you got from indiegames.com. It seems that it's really hard to promote an iOS game through the same venues as PC titles.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

Happy to share Also, thanks ANtY for the traffic from your sites! To be honest, any audience is good - even if they're not iOS gamers themselves they might be happy to spread the word. And I like to get the game in the sights of as many journalists as possible, as that is a great feed for word-of-mouth and might help spawn interest in more iOS-centric communities further down the line. Some of the writers for indiegames.com also write for Pocket Gamer, after all!

I don't think making a new version of the game is really the strategy I'm looking for, as making a whole new version of Greedy Bankers will take a lot of work. The iOS market is already largely casual anyway, and I reckon if I aimed for a casual market on PC I'd be likely to run into the same difficulties.

My hope is that the upcoming iPad version will pick up a bit better because it's fresher and more distinctive (mostly due to being multiplayer-centric), but it's too early to say whether it'll be a game-changer, so to speak!

[moi]

-2 flash portals (I released a flash game there )
-google search
-tigsource
-a dozen other flash portals.

The best SEO for your website is to write good articles with original content though.