My first attempt to become a web publisher

[Farmer77]

http://www.warcraft-mods.com

I decided a while ago I wanted to become a web publisher. This past month and a half, I poured a good amount of time into developing my first for profit site to the best of my ability. I am somewhat of a wreck right now because I don't know what's going to happen. I just started summiting to search engines and directories yesterday and continue to do so.

Well, let me talk about the site, it's a World of warcraft addons site.
I try to make the site SEO friendly and navigational friendly. I created a few articles for the site, but the site is mostly about listing World of warcraft addon files for download. Please share your thoughts about what you think about my site. Thank you.

[Chris]

One problem is that you've put a timeline on your success. Warcraft will not be around forever, and by basing your site around it you have to acknowledge that one day your site will end. The problem with this is of course that one of the great draws of website publishing is the ongoing residual income that could, conceivably, last forever.


So many sites, with infinite lifespans, can afford to wait months/years to be successful (like this site, I don't really promote it much or push to monetize it much because it is a long term project for me), your site cannot since it only has a short period of time before it is obsolete. It isn't like you can change the site when the next big game comes, you're locked into Warcraft with your choice of domains.

[AmbulanceBlues]

Warcraft has been around for a long time. I don't know how many generations of pre-WoW warcraft games there were, but it was a few. Perhaps if you don't limit yourself to WoW, your site could capitalize on whatever new generations come out in the series. I'm sure the massive popularity of WoW will cause them to produce at least a few new related games.

Also, if you get the site set-up and optimized, perhaps your software setup could easily translate into similar sites for different game franchises. I'm hoping to truly optimize my first site so that I won't have to repeat as much work in subsequent efforts. Though, perhaps, that is the wrong tactic to use.

[Farmer77]

Thank you for the input. I think World of warcraft is going to be around for another 4-5 years or so and by then I don't know what's going to happen but I get the idea.

[Cutter]

Yeah, don't listen to Chris :D This is a perfect first web site. You are making it on something you know about and (I'm guessing) you enjoy. Nice bonus that not a lot of people know, World of Warcraft is a great niche because of high-paying gold advertisers which other games don't have.

As pointed out, Warcraft is a serious franchise that is going no where. World of Warcraft pulls in an excess of a billion dollars a year in subscription revenues and Blizzard is going to milk this things for very possibly decades to come.

One thing you may want to do is exchange links with quality Warcraft sites; or, even better if you've got the money, buy a few one-way text links.

As far as layout and SEO you look like you know what your doing. Good luck!

[Chris]

It doesn't matter how much they make, it is about user loyalty. As soon as someone comes out with a game with better graphics and or more immersive gameplay people will start to switch. No one plays the same game forever. Of course, I'm sure there will be a WoW 2, but it may not be as popular as the original.