Author Topic: Rolemaster blogs  (Read 11384 times)

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Offline John @ ICE

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #60 on: December 08, 2014, 08:47:33 AM »
Peter - really good stuff. I posted some comments directly into your blog as I quite enjoyed the pictures with the gaming ideas.  Often when I take walks in the countryside or visit a new city and you see an old piece of architecture, I immediately start to think of gaming and how it could be used. we should get more people sending in photos with people being inspired by the pictures on how it might be "dropped into" an encounter!

PS - I made some comments on some issue I had with posting which I hope you find useful.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #61 on: December 08, 2014, 09:10:55 AM »
I saw them thanks!

I am dealing with the captcha issue first.
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Offline egdcltd

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #62 on: December 08, 2014, 09:37:48 AM »
That is interesting about the ads.

I added the ads because someone messaged me about could you make your living just writing about rolemaster and playing. I was curious how much income it would generate and about the volumes required. I do not have enough data yet to draw any conclusions and I would expect to have to build up a much more significant following before anything like that became viable. At present the blog is making about £0.02 a week based on what I estimate to be about 80 real human beings. It is a nice idea though.

There are of course other related ways of earning - RPGNow's affiliate program and Amazon Associates. The earning potential of those can be much higher. Amazon Associates does, these days, require you to start selling pretty quickly for new accounts, or they cancel your account (why, I don't know - it's not like you're costing them anything) but you can apply again.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #63 on: December 08, 2014, 09:50:00 AM »
That is very true but I am not really doing this for the money. If I can get the blog to the point where every post gets 1000-2000 reads then it may well be worth monetising the site properly.

At the moment, coincidentally, the forums on here that I follow most closely are very quiet. The time I would normally spend on here is going into creating the blog posts. I work from home and I am effectively self employed so if I spend 5 minutes editing the blog in the middle of the day it makes no difference. I spent the morning blogging about George Osborne and the Autumn Statement and the effects on the Euro exchange rates and I will finish the day blogging about Dark Elves. I will give you one guess which is going to be the most fun. I get paid for the first I don't need paying for the second.

I just stuck a little poll at the top of the page to see if others felt the same.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #64 on: December 09, 2014, 02:36:54 PM »
Who picked the Euro option? ::)
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Offline Inez Hull

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #65 on: January 25, 2015, 10:29:17 PM »
Peter R I'm curious how much traffic you blog is continuing to get?  I've made half a dozen D&D related posts on my blog and will look at putting up some RM content next, but realise that most of my referrals are coming from Google+ (often due to spamming relevant Communities when I've updated). Unfortunately there aren't the same numbers in the G+ RM communities (as an aside there are two main RM communities, and no points for guessing they are split between RM2 and RMSS! I'm quite surprised ICE haven't set up an official RM G+ community)

Offline Colin-ICE

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #66 on: January 26, 2015, 12:03:46 AM »
Hi Inez!

ICE have an official ICE page which has RM news etc on it and when relevant things come out they are posted in the RM groups. The decision was taken to not run groups of individual games because we felt that 1. people would perhaps prefer to discuss their games and RM related things without me constantly updating them with ICE news and 2.Keeping all ICE news on the ICE page removes the need for people to flit across groups to gather all the information and it stops us having to post the same content in different groups.

If you do start blogging about RM let me know and we'll get you sorted out as an official member of the OIC. I'd also be interested in hearing how your (or anyone else's) blogs perform. As I do the ICE blog I'm always looking for insight on what people want/what works.

Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #67 on: January 26, 2015, 02:28:06 AM »
Peter R I'm curious how much traffic you blog is continuing to get?  I've made half a dozen D&D related posts on my blog and will look at putting up some RM content next, but realise that most of my referrals are coming from Google+ (often due to spamming relevant Communities when I've updated). Unfortunately there aren't the same numbers in the G+ RM communities (as an aside there are two main RM communities, and no points for guessing they are split between RM2 and RMSS! I'm quite surprised ICE haven't set up an official RM G+ community)

In the past 30 days it got 351 visitors who spend an average 4m 12s on the site. That sounds pretty much like they are reading articles in full.

I am publishing two posts a week. One is pure RM and the other is just roleplaying related but not exclusively Rolemaster.

Blogging is a long term investment in time and effort. As an example there is a well respected blog directory that will not even accept your blog for listing until you can prove you have been blogging regularly on rpgs for at least three months. The Google indexing algorithm takes a while to sort out what to rank your blog for. You need to build a body of work to lets that software propperly classify your blog and then continue to publish to so that they recognise you as an authority on that topic and worthy of ranking well. Additionally I hope at least some of the readers who visit will want to come back again in the future so a monthly body count of 351 this year I would hope would be double that this time next year through reader retention and a greater body of work within the search engines' indexes.

I have decided that the opbjective behind my blog is to attract as many new roleplayers and GMs into Rolemaster and most specifically D&D players. This brings in more fresh players into our game and community. I am running RM in a traditional D&D game world and there are many things that exist in D&D and that setting that do not exist in RM. I am filling those blanks or if they have already been filled then I will point potential players to those resources.

These forums are the 'go to' place if you are already an GM and you want help or advice so there is no need for a blog to offer that. Also I want to publish my own take on things and that may not be in line with the majority of other GMs. Every game is unique. I play in Warl's game and his character creation is completely unrecognisable to the way I do it. I frequently disagree with Markc but both of us have almost identical ideas on the skills of the general population in the game world. My blog reflects my take on RM at this time.
Rolemasterblog http://www.rolemasterblog.com
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Spectre771 A couple of weeks ago, I disemboweled one of my PCs with a...

Offline Inez Hull

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #68 on: January 26, 2015, 10:19:06 PM »
I have decided that the opbjective behind my blog is to attract as many new roleplayers and GMs into Rolemaster and most specifically D&D players. This brings in more fresh players into our game and community.

This is very much the idea I have as well, hence my starting with D&D related topics to try and get some modicum of a following before moving into RM stuff.

Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #69 on: January 27, 2015, 02:08:04 AM »
I have decided that the opbjective behind my blog is to attract as many new roleplayers and GMs into Rolemaster and most specifically D&D players. This brings in more fresh players into our game and community.

This is very much the idea I have as well, hence my starting with D&D related topics to try and get some modicum of a following before moving into RM stuff.

Let me know the url of your blog and I will comment and share your posts.
Rolemasterblog http://www.rolemasterblog.com
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Spectre771 A couple of weeks ago, I disemboweled one of my PCs with a...

Offline Inez Hull

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #70 on: January 27, 2015, 03:11:40 AM »
Cheers Peter. The url is http://deathanddismemberment.blogspot.com.au/  It may be worth waiting before there's RM content up before linking though.

Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #71 on: January 27, 2015, 04:50:35 AM »
Cool, It always helps to have someone commenting on your posts, it shows readers that other people are reading your blog and encourages others to also comment.
Rolemasterblog http://www.rolemasterblog.com
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Offline Colin-ICE

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #72 on: January 27, 2015, 12:16:36 PM »
Hi Inez,

When you do start posting about Rolemaster let me know. We award Order of the Iron Crown points for bloggers that promote ICE games so we'll get you all signed up. You can then use these points for discounts on ICE games and exclusive merchandise.

Offline egdcltd

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #73 on: February 09, 2015, 11:15:43 AM »
Hi Inez,

When you do start posting about Rolemaster let me know. We award Order of the Iron Crown points for bloggers that promote ICE games so we'll get you all signed up. You can then use these points for discounts on ICE games and exclusive merchandise.

Has the email for the OIC changed? Or should we PM stuff to you now instead?
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Offline Colin-ICE

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #74 on: February 09, 2015, 12:11:28 PM »
Both is fine.

The OIC E-mail remains the same or you can PM me direct. Whichever works for you.

Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #75 on: March 10, 2015, 02:14:33 PM »
I just thought I would do a quick update on how the blog is going. Traffic is steady and over 20% of all visitors are from organic searches. I am steadily climbing the rankings for rolemaster related keyword searches.

I have applied now to join the RPG Blog network and I am waiting to hear from them. That could take up to 6 weeks and you cannot apply until you have been blogging regularly for 3 months. There are no other rolemaster blogs in the network or at least searching the network for rolemaster returns no results. If it is accepted and  cannot see why it shouldn't be then that will be another road that leads to rolemaster.

I think that the most use to the community for the blog is to draw in d&d players into the game. There are millions of d&d players so at least some of them must be seducable! New blood is rarely a bad thing. I am going to start posting more cross over content that is relevant to the d&d community as well as us more enlightened roleplayers. ;)
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Offline Inez Hull

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Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #76 on: May 25, 2016, 08:18:57 AM »
So it only took 18 months but I've actually made a couple of Rolemaster related posts - they are more aimed at folks in the old school D&D scene who may have enjoyed Rolemaster in the past.

http://deathanddismemberment.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/old-schoolifying-rolemaster.html?m=1