Living from advertise

[necroside]

Hi again, I know, I know, this forum is about game programming or at least programming, but was hoping to find some help here. In my las thread I was advised to develop games, give them for free, and live from advertising.

- Is that possible?,
- Is there a way to improve ratings and visitors if you're not a web programmer guru?
- Any company that survive from advertising?

Any advice would be really appreciated

[starstutter]

I'll try to help here, but this isn't really my specialty so don't take it as gospel ;)


- Is that possible?

I would certainly say so. Places like xGen Studios and numerous other sites operate off this very thing. If it's not advertisments, it's most likley merchandise, but that's a bit more complicated obviously


- Is there a way to improve ratings and visitors if you're not a web programmer guru?

err, could you clarify a bit? Do you mean ways to make your site attractive or nice looking? If that's the case dreamweaver may not be a bad option, but as a warning it is rather expensive.


- Any company that survive from advertising?

http://afro-ninja.com/listflash.php?cat=game
http://www.xgenstudios.com/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/ (well, these guys have been doing a lot more market latley, but for a long while they only got money for ads)

This list is probably 1/8000 of the actual list... belive me, ads bring in real money if your content is good :)

[Reedbeta]

Google makes all their money from ads. ;)

[moe]

Is that possible?Yes, but I would not count on it. If you want to live from it, you need the hell of a lot visitors constantly. It is certainly the better way to put up some adds and just see what happens. If at any point you get enough money you could still quit your "normal" job.
Is there a way to improve ratings and visitors if you're not a web programmer guru? Be inovative. It's easier said than done... Well, you need a professional look and good content, since you will need a lot visitors on a constant base. The most important thing IMHO is that your site is easy to navigate. Noone likes to search for long. Use something like google analytics to figure out what people really want to see. Then give them what they want. E.g. If you see people never check for a developer blog then replace it with something else. If you see people always check for updates, then make the update page easier available etc.

As for improofing the ratings, I assume you mean to improofe the search result position on e.g. google. There is no guarantee for a good position. All you can do is optimize. For that you need some more profound knowledge but you don't need to be a guru. There is plenty of info on the web.

[necroside]

Thanks a lot for the info, I'll give it a shoot, but obviously I won't quit my job. :P