While video games have come a long way from the primitive arcade predecessors that the scene originally consisted of back in the 80’s and 90s, there are still plenty of people who enjoy playing arcade-style games online. If you’re in the process of building an arcade gaming site, you’ve probably noticed that there’s no shortage of competition, and as a result, your site will have to stand out if you want it to occupy a decent share of this continually popular niche. With that said, here are five tips to heed when designing an arcade gaming site to facilitate a better user experience and more traffic:
1. Include an Embed Code on Every Game Page
Placing embedded codes below each game is a great way to help your web presence proliferate by having other sites embed games that are hosted on your site. An example of this can be seen on the Paws to Beauty 3 game page on Big Samo. Although only a percentage of players on other sites will ever notice that the game is embedded from your site, just making the codes available as resources for other developers is bound to increase your brand awareness, page visit times, and other metrics that can have a traffic-boosting effect.
2. Make Navigation Easy and Self-Explanatory
Ideally, you’ll want to follow suit along with the other popular gaming sites and have all of your games organized into their appropriate categories with responsive, multi-tiered menus. You may even want to go a step further and create subcategories to make your game catalog more browsable, especially if you have a hundred or thousands of different titles to choose from.
3. Feature Your Best Games in a Home Page Sideshow
As the developer and/or owner of an arcade gaming site, it’s always best to become familiar with which games are the most popular and fun, as those are the ones you want to feature on your homepage. After all, you don’t want first-time visitors to get the impression that your site is loaded with a bunch of lame games.
4. Don’t Overdo the Ad Placement
Although site monetization is important, you don’t want ad placement to get in the way of user experience. Furthermore, an excessive amount of poorly placed ads can give the site an amateur look that may cause visitors to look elsewhere for a more established online arcade.
5. Publish Custom Game Descriptions and Guides
Finally, a great way to set your site apart from the competition and generate more traffic is to publish custom game descriptions, guides, walkthroughs, tutorials, hints, and cheats related to your most popular titles. Posting unique content on a regular basis is always part of any well-rounded site marketing campaign.
Building Momentum Early On
In closing, the best site design in the world won’t mean much if there aren’t any visitors to appreciate it. Thus, after you’ve finishing tackling all of the steps above, you’ll inevitably need to put some effort into the marketing and promotion side of things to begin seeing results.
