Recruiting

[Tom]

Haha, yes, the Facebook page needs some attention. For the amount of members we have, I'm surprised at how low the number of Likes is for the Facebook page. The more publicity we can gain for The Elder Stats, the better.

[Adriel90]

Hey guys and galls,
I just started using this site and I think it's really cool but could be improved slightly. As for recruiting, is it possible to make an ad via facebook and target to to gamers? Also, I have sent this link to a few of my friends and they seem interested as well. One thing I would include is a Skill Perk Tree for the character profiles (Skyrim), that way viewers can see what perks you do and don't have, having the level number for the skill isn't enough and it's deceiving. I like the layout of the website, it's clean and easy to use and the colors are great.
Thanks,
Adriel90

[Tom]

Thanks for the feedback, Adriel90. I'll respond to a few of your points below.

As for recruiting, is it possible to make an ad via facebook and target to to gamers?

I have considered this a few times in the past, but the problem is that the site makes very little revenue from the Google advertisements that are placed in the footer of each page, and therefore we don't make enough money from The Elder Stats to come close to covering the costs of even a small-scale advertising campaign on Facebook. Also, I am skeptical as to how effective such an ad campaign would be for this site; however, I think it may be worth a shot, if I decide to make another investment in The Elder Stats in hopes that activity will be boosted.

I see a lot of people signing-up and using the website to create characters and occasionally commenting on other characters, but the forums here are almost never used. I feel that having a more active forum community would promote greater interest and loyalty to the site for our existing members, which would keep activity high whilst simultaneously driving in a larger flow of new members who would be more likely to become active on the site. The problem is, I do not have a good strategy for getting members to become active on our forums. I would be very welcoming to any ideas that you may have for this.

Also, I have sent this link to a few of my friends and they seem interested as well.

Thanks! Spreading the site by word of mouth seems to be a very effective way to bring in new active members to the site. The more people you tell, the more people we usually have signing-up, which translates to a greater likelihood for more frequent updates to The Elder Stats site. The more activity we see from our members, the more encouraged we are to continue improving the site for them.

One thing I would include is a Skill Perk Tree for the character profiles (Skyrim), that way viewers can see what perks you do and don't have, having the level number for the skill isn't enough and it's deceiving.

This idea has been expressed a couple of times in the past, and we think that it's a great idea. We are intending to add this feature to Skyrim character profiles relatively soon, but we want to ensure that we do it in the best manner possible (both in terms of design and functionality for our users). But I do agree that this would be a nice addition to the site that would be welcomed by many.

I like the layout of the website, it's clean and easy to use and the colors are great.

Glad to hear it, as this was one of our primary goals with the revamp and redesign of the site this past summer. We wanted to go for a more simplistic and minimalist feel for the site, while remaining true to the color scheme of the traditional Elder Scrolls games.

[lavenderkhajiit]

I'll see what I can do, but some ideas would help. Don't know if UESP has already pitched in or not...

*update* I have no money and thus no way of doing this professionally, but i will see what i can do to promote this site and it's Forum on Facebook

[Tom]

I'll see what I can do, but some ideas would help. Don't know if UESP has already pitched in or not...

We're not affiliated in any with the UESP, and when we contacted them over a year ago to look into a partnership of some sort between our two websites, they politely implied that they had no interest in such a partnership (which, personally, I can understand seeing as their site's community is many orders of magnitude larger than ours). It seems to me that any sort of help from the UESP is unlikely, nor should it really be expected. Personally, I believe our two sites complement each other well, seeing as they are not in direct competition with each other in terms of their respective offerings to users.

Getting back to recruitment, as for ideas, the best idea we had for "marketing" The Elder Stats was providing our auto-updating Stat Cards to our members for each character they have on our site, allowing them to share some quick info for their characters in their signatures on other Elder Scrolls-related forums. Those Stat Cards then link back to their character's profile on our site, and then people who see it may want to create their own, and thus they sign-up for The Elder Stats. This method has no doubt procured the most traffic for us, however we need something more than this now to make our site as active as it should be.

As an example of things that have won us some extra traffic in the past, we recently noticed that the site experienced an exponential increase in page views over a two-day period following someone's posting of a link to their character's Elder Stats profile on Reddit. I think this goes to show that The Elder Stats still hasn't been spread around the web very well yet, and that as more fans discover the site for the first time, they seem interested in joining and using it for their characters. Positive exposure of the site is really the best way to spread the word about it, and I believe that simply linking to your character's Elder Stats profile on places (like forums) around the web is an excellent way to pique the interest of other Elder Scrolls fans as to what our site has to offer to the fans. We obviously don't want to seem like we're trying to spam anyone, but I personally believe that most fans who haven't seen this site yet would be interested in using it for their own characters if they were to discover it while browsing a forum or website one day.

As for advertising, we'd be more than happy to purchase ads for The Elder Stats if we had the funds to adequately do so. Facebook ads are cheap and more effective in comparison to other venues, but we barely make any money from operating The Elder Stats, and therefore we have virtually no money other than personal funds to work with. I would personally be willing to put more of my own personal money into advertising the site, but I already put quite a bit of it into the operation and maintenance of the site, so I can't quite justify spending any more unless the site shows sincere promise of making good returns on such personal investments.

Well, I appreciate your help and interest in promoting the site! It is much appreciated and hopefully it works for us.

[lavenderkhajiit]

That's funny, as it was from UESP, in a topic from the forum there, that i came about this place...

I will still keep on top of posting links to this site from other sites, and i will try and keep you updated as much as possible!

Thank you for not bringing this site down due to lack of interest so far. Great sites take time to nurture ^^

[Tom]

Thanks for your help! And yes, the UESP is the primary source of referral traffic to our site, mostly through links and Stat Cards posted in users' signatures on the UESP forums. Although we get the majority of our traffic from the UESP's forums users, we have no official affiliation with or endorsement from the website itself. But who knows what the future may bring.

Thank you for not bringing this site down due to lack of interest so far. Great sites take time to nurture ^^

It is hard at times to justify pouring more time, effort and money into The Elder Stats when it seems so dead most of the time, but I'm hoping that some day soon we'll see the increase in activity that the site deserves. The site has actually been around since February of 2009, but it was completely revamped and finally started working for Skyrim characters back in late August of 2012 — not very long ago. Still, I was hoping that by now, over four months later, the site would be more active than it is today. I understand that the Forums will take some more time to see greater activity, but I think the site should be further along by now. So, in terms of the site's maturity, it's nearly four years old (can't believe it, actually!), but it has only been modernized and ready for Skyrim characters for about four months. So, I suppose the site can be defined as both old and young in terms of its maturity.