Often indie and solo game developers want to know what they can do to start promoting their game with little to no budget. While there is no replacement for a well thought out and comprehensive marketing strategy, (with a healthy budget for user acquisition and promotions.) This article will introduce you to 5 places that are great first steps to developing an online presence for your game that will contribute to your SEO strategy (and to a lesser extent compliment your ASO.)
1. Slidedb.com / Indiedb.com
The ‘DB’ community pages is a good starting point to get some online presence. The platform is totally open and lightly moderated.
The ‘DB’ community offers a good range of options to link to your game’s store pages, social media accounts, add your press kit, articles, promotional game assets like screenshots, videos, etc. The backend is mostly uncomplicated forms and a simple to use WYSIWYG visual editor.
2. GamesPress
This one is very easy. Most gamedevs want to get the news out about their game. Most do not want to pay for a newswire subscription or distribution service. So GamesPress is a great option to distribute your PR to the gaming industry without much effort or cost. Additionally, if you release in the early morning (USA 7 am) you might be able to catch the Gamespress Newsletter to widen your reach (or have greater chances.)
Write up a decent press release (This will take the most time but there are lots of guides, resources, and examples out there for you to work from.)
https://medium.com/powerspike/the-last-how-to-write-a-game-dev-press-release-post-youll-ever-need-796aab9d7848Drop your press release into a plain text e-mail (no attachments, no html and don’t forget to remove your signature!)
Send the e-mail to: inbox [at] gamespress.com with the subject line being the title of your press release.
BAM! You’re done. Your press release will get picked up on the press release section of GamaSutra in a few hours’ time.
Just kidding, you’re not even close to being done. Keep firing out your press release through other services or outlets!
3. GiantBomb
This one is secretly a biggie and I’ll explain why. In order for your game to be listed as an option on Twitch.tv you first have to get your game listed on the GiantBomb game database.
This post https://help.twitch.tv/customer/en/portal/articles/2348988-adding-a-game-and-box-art-to-the-directory from Twitch covers most of the relevant details so I don’t need to go in much depth here.
The details and assets submitted to GiantBomb are very similar to the information you have on SlideDB / IndieDB, the backend is also similar so you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting everything filled out and submitted.
I will mention that the moderation for GiantBomb is a little more strict, they will want to know why you are requesting to list your game in their database. I suggest being upfront with wanting to be listed on Twitch, or being listed on GiantBomb is part of your overall marketing strategy.
4. Wikipedia
Certainly the big dog on this list, it’s also incredibly difficult to get your company and game listed on Wikipedia without a lot of seriously high level articles and references about your company / game. Before you even have a hope of getting approved, you’re going to need 10-15 seriously notable sources (website articles from high-level or trustworthy outlets) that reference you in a meaningful way. If you don’t have this yet, I suggest you just move on to #5
Be prepared to play the long-game here, Wikipedia is notoriously byzantine and bureaucratic in nature. There’s a LinkedIn article that also covers the process in-depth: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-create-wikipedia-page-your-company-avik-bal
I’ll break down the general process on how this all works with the caveat that some of this advice may contravene Wikipedia’s own policies.
Create a vaguely named Wikipedia account that has nothing to do with your company or game. Start learning how to contribute to the Wikipedia community by editing 10 or more pages/articles over the course of a few weeks or months. Then try creating a page totally unrelated to your company or game, (this is a good learning process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_create_a_page ) Once you’ve built up enough credibility for your Wikipedia account level, you will be able to submit articles/pages for review.
Start a new Sandbox page on your personal account. Find a similar game/company page to you that you can copy the formatting from and paste it into your sandbox so you can use the same format and just replace your information. The information you provide should be neutral in tone and NOT promotional or exaggerated at all. Keep it simple and fact-based. Also learn how to correctly use and insert citations, because this is what’s going to help get your page approved.
You’ll also be able to upload your logo and 1 (or 2, don’t push it) game screenshots into the Wikimedia Commons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Upload/Uploadtext/en-nonfree-logoIf you’re confident your page is ready, you can submit it for review. I recommend this method rather than just moving it public directly because if your page gets deleted it is very hard to recover or get it created again. This is also where you might find a sympathetic or helpful Wikipedia user to look over your page to make suggestions, corrections.
So why all the work and hassle? What’s the point other than potentially adding in some nice SEO for your company / project? The short answer is that Google REALLY loves Wikipedia. Once you’re listed there, you get propagated all over the place and can get this nifty little info box with your search result:
Let’s compare with Kefir Games, Russian developer of the hugely popular ‘Last Day on Earth: Survival’ game who has no Wikipedia page:
Even though there is big upfront investment of time and perhaps even a cost investment in getting the articles you need to pass the notoriety rules, Wikipedia is a great help to SEO and gives a seriously level of legitimacy to your game or company.
5. Wikia
So let’s say you don’t have the resources or references to get on Wikipedia, what can you do? A great alternative that is way more open and less strictly moderated is Wikia. Many games and companies or fan communities create entire knowledge bases around their games using Wikia. Here I would like to tip my hat the fan community of ZooCraft for utilizing a wikia in the best way possible for their game.
Wikia is the best community driven alternative to Wikipedia, which can be totally developed and administered by your team in cooperation with the player community. Players get the in-depth niche game information they might be looking for in a customizable multimedia platform, gamedevs get great SEO and connection with the community for very little cost, it’s win-win.
You may not get the same 'juice' that you would from a Wikipedia entry, (and it is ad-supported), but it still ranks high in search results and you can cross-reference your game’s wikia with other relevant wikias (for example we’ve included The X-Files: Deep State inside the existing X-Files wikia.)
Summing up, just like putting up posters or flyers all over town might help increase the ticket sales for your rock concert, the more opportunities for your game to come up in search results, the better chance you will get to rank in search algorithms and drive organic traffic to your game and hopefully resulting in getting some quality conversions!