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Part 8: Creating a Web Site
Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide
Part 9: Attracting Visitors to Your Site

So you've got your new web site and comic online? Great! But that doesn't do a whole lot of good if there's no one to read it. You need to find a way to get people to visit your site. There's many ways to attract visitors and the more methods you use, the more people you'll attract. Of course, not all of those methods are easy or free. Let's take a look at some of the more common ways to help build your audience.

Word of Mouth
The simplest thing to do is to let your fans advertise your comic for you. If people like your comic, they'll hopefully tell their friends, post about it on their own web sites, blogs, or Facebook pages, and the like. These new people will in turn tell more people and you'll slowly but steadily build up a following. Of course, this approach requires an initial batch of readers to spread the word and there's no guarantee they'll tell many people (or anyone, for that matter) or that most of the people they tell will decide to check out your comic. While there are some comics that have gotten pretty popular primarily through word of mouth, it's best not to rely on it, especially when you're just starting out and have few, if any, readers.

Self Promotion
Unless you've got a budget to devote to advertising, it's best to put a bit of time and effort into promoting your comic. Naturally, you should start out by telling your friends, relatives, and anyone you know who you think will enjoy your comic. But that's just a start. If you have a Facebook page, blog, or other web site, make a post with a link to, and some information about, your comic. If you're a member of any web forums, you can post or make a thread about your comic there as well. However, keep in mind that joining a forum just to promote your own site is considered very poor manners and will likely annoy people rather than draw them in. So if you want to self promote on someone else's site or forums, only do so if you're an established member of the community and there aren't any rules against doing so.

After you've finished with that, you may want to add your comic to some comic lists such as Top Web Comics and The Web Comic List. Though these lists have become a lot more crowded than they were in the days when I started Pebble Version, so unless you have a very large audience to help push your comic up in the rankings, don't expect to get a ton of exposure. Still, every little bit helps, especially when you're just starting out.

One more thing you can try is link exchanges, which is where you link to someone else's comic and they link to yours in return. Try visiting some comics that you like and/or have similar themes as yours and see if they have link exchange sections. If so, e-mail the creator and ask him or her if they'd be willing to do a link exchange with you. Make sure that your message includes a link to your comic and a image or banner graphic they can use for the link exchange. Above all, be polite. The other person has no obligation to link to your comic, even if you link to theirs, and a bossy attitude is unlikely to get you anywhere. If they still refuse, politely accept their reasons and move on, don't get angry or flame them; that that won't win you any fans. Finally, keep in mind that lots of comics, especially the really popular ones, do not do link exchanges (often for very good reasons). If a comic doesn't have a link exchange section, don't pester the creator with requests to add one, just move on.

Advertising
If you've got some money to burn, the best way hands down to get new visitors to your site is to advertise. Smart advertising can quickly expose your comic to a large number of potential readers. Start by going to some popular web comics or other sites that are likely to attract the kind of people who you think would enjoy your comic. If they have banner ads, try and figure out what service they use (some handle everything themselves, while others get their ads from a service like Project Wonderful). If you can tell which ad service they use, go to its site and see what it would cost to advertise your comic. If you can't figure it out, or they have their own ad system, send them a polite e-mail saying that you'd like to advertise on their site and ask for details. Advertising on a single web site can run anywhere from several cents to hundreds of dollars a day, with the more popular sites generally being the most expensive.

Conclusion:
While some people get lucky and see their comics take off almost over night (especially if they have a good advertising budget), in most cases it can take a while to build up a strong starting audience. Of course, all of these tips will only help you get people to visit your site once. It's your comic itself that will determine whether or not they come back again. But once you have your comic, web site, and readers, you're done, right? Not quite... When you're ready to start on the last step, check out Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide Part 10: Fans and Community.

Part 8: Creating a Web Site
Pokemon and all related images and trademarks are copyrighted by Nintendo, one of my favorite games companies who would certainly never waste their time by trying to sue me. Especially since I'm protected under the Fair Use Rule of the United States Copyright Act of 1976. Aside from that the actual site content is copyrighted by me, Josiah Lebowitz 2003.