Advertising on Top List Sites. Which ones work?
Updated – April,14 2010
Since I started posting reMIND online I’ve been scouring the internet to find ways to promote my site. One of the ways I’ve seen are “Top List Sites” or “Webcomic Directories” where hundreds or thousands of webcomic creators come to list their online comics in hopes they can get more followers. These are websites designed to organize lists of webcomics by popularity. Each site decodes popularity based on a different algorithm of their own. For some it’s a combination of your hits, page views, etc. Others are based solely on voting while others are a complete mystery to me. I joined a bunch of these when I first started but most of these top-list’s seem to be gimcrack sites. It makes me question if it’s even worth it to list my comic there.
Before I go into details I want to mention the “Pareto’s Law” or more popularly called the “80/20 Principle“. I’ve read about this rule in many motivation books and it goes something like this:
80% of outputs result from 20% of the inputs.
or..
80% of my time at work produces 20% of my finished work.
or in this case…
80% of all websites are 20% effective.
Some push it even further…
90% of all websites are 10% effective.
You can even flip it like this…
10% of all websites are 90% effective.
If you look into this rule more you will see that it can be applied to almost everything in life. If you can figure out what 10% of your life is 90% effective and just focus on that 10%, you can save lots of wasted time. With all this said. I think it’s a complete waste of time to add your webcomic to every list out there especially if it’s in this 90% that is 10% effective or less. So lets move forward.
As I mentioned, most of these sites have the ability to advertise on their homepage in which I have tried 4 so far and have no reason to try any others yet. So here is…
The 80/20 Principle applied to Top List Sites.
I structured it this way because once you get past the top four on the list it’s just a complete waste of time to try to figure out which one is better.
- Top Web Comics - (90% effective – with ads)
Top Web Comics seems pretty relevant to todays online communities for one. I joined and listed reMIND about 3 months ago and was ranked around #1500 on their list finding it hard to move up because the top comics were getting thousands of votes a week. I tried to remember to log on each day to vote for reMIND, I know I’m cheating, but it hardly moved me up the ranks anyway. I let it go for a while but one day noticed the ads on the top of the page were prime placement so I looked into it more. Turns out you can buy an ad there for as little as $10. (which is a discount for webcomics!) I bought an ad for $35 (300,000 impressions) and waited about a month for it to make it’s way up the queue. So far this ad has brought in an average of 100+ unique viewers a day since it started displaying. It looks like my ad will run for about 3 weeks. From what I can tell I am averaging about 100,000 impressions a week on their site. This could mean over 2100 highly targeted unique viewers by the time my ad expires. Not to mention lots of new subscribers.
But the biggest advantage to advertising at TopWebComics is people start voting for your comic (if they like it). Since my advertisement started, I’ve moved from around #1300 on the list to #320 (as I write this) in just about a week. Because I’m moving up the list, I’m now getting more people to recognize my site. When people goto the site to vote for other comics they might see my ad at the top and decide to vote for me too. So your not just paying for a little advertising, your also putting yourself on the map so people can find you to vote for you which will continue to drive traffic to your site long after the ad expires.
- The Belfry WebComic Index – (85% effective)
[Edit] When I first wrote this article I blow this one off thinking it was useless. The nest month I had some traffic from the site so I went there to check it out. What I found was a pleasant surprise. Someone had listed my comic and it was being displayed on the front page as a new comic. Being on this list alone was sending an average of 60 unique visitors to my site. Wow. Then I got another surprise when so many people subscribed to my comic there that I was added to the Most-New Subscriptions list. This shot more people to my site for a few weeks.
I started advertising on the Belfry lately and it’s been a wonderful return on investment, as far as getting new people to notice my graphic novel. So my end conclusion is that the Belfry is the second best Top List site I’ve found so far. Go there and sign up and list your comic if it’s not there yet!
- The Webcomic LIst - (80% effective – with ads)
This site is kinda clunky, but hey, they all are. The Webcomic List is sometimes very slow to load a page and I find it frustrating to navigate. The stats don’t really work on my comic too because it’s a blog but I don’t really need stats. I use Google Analytics. Overall, since I’ve listed my comic here I get about 4 unique viewers a day who somehow find me in the infinite list of burnt out comics. I think they add your page views to their algorithm and since 80% of the comics don’t get updated anymore, you automatically move up the list. As of writing this I’m ranked at 1,839 out of 15,310. That’s allot of comics to dig through!
One thing I’d suggest is to buy a spot in the featured list for $15 a month. This was my first advertising attempt being cheap enough for me to risk. They have other banner advertising but it seems really expensive at about $100 for 150,000 impressions. I’ll let you know when I tap into my Home Equity Line of Credit for this.
When I bought the $15 featured spot, I was sent about 5 to 16 unique visitors a day from the ad. Not bad for about 50 cents a day. Of corse it’s important to make a catchy button to attract people or your precious 15 duckets will float down the toilet. So in other words, this site is pretty good and seems up to date. I’m not sure if I will keep advertising there though. All together it has brought in a little over 300 unique viewers in about 3 months, mostly when I was featured.
- WebcomicZ.com - (10% effective – with ads)
I bought a featured ad on this site too for 3 months because it was only $5 a month. I’ve had a total of 37 unique visitors since I joined. Advertising the WHOLE time. What? Is that possible? But I’m ranked # 210 on their list (as of this writing). It seems like this list is pretty rarely traveled. It seems like a well managed site though but it definitely falls into the 80 to 90% ineffective catagory. Unless this changes in the future, I wont be spending my time there anymore.
Below are more Top List Sites that I found but don’t see the point in listing my comic with yet. If you know anything about any of these then feel free to leave a message in the comments below.
- ComicRank.com
- WebComics Super 100 List
- 100.taversia.net
- TopOnlineComics.com
- Mac’s Comic Lis
- Comixpedia.org
- OnlineComics.net (I don’t recommend this site. Slow and unkept by admin)
- Piperka.net
- ComicHovel.com (I’ve heard complaints of this site spamming you so be warned)
I found your site through Top Webcomics and I usually advertise myself through them about every 6 weeks or so. Of course, your comic and awesome blog is why I subscribed to your RSS feed.
I've read about the 80/20 rule before so I appreciate all the work you did in writing this blog post. I think I'm going to check out TWCL.
Yeah, TWCL is okay. It has worked a little for new traffic. It's just a fraction of what TWC can do for you though.
The 80/20 rule is a real game changer when it comes to applying it to life and work. Its great to hear other webcomic creators are thinking about these same things. You seem to be doing pretty good a pulling in voters and readers too. Do you have any other tips you can share, where you might advertise and stuff. I still feel like I'm just scratching the surface with all this stuff.
Me being in the top 20-40 is kind of new for me and I kind of think a part of it is due to some other webcomics not pressing their readership to vote more. I say that because my readership is maybe half of some of these other guys but I'm higher in the rankings.
I do try to utilize new voting incentives every update. Many times, that's just a preview panel for the next update.
When I do an ad blitz with PW, I usually make sure it's on an update day. I've been known to bid on a high profile site for only 4-12 hours to get the most bang for my buck. I also *try* to change up my ads every so often. People aren't as likely to click on an ad that they've already seen.
That's really it. I'm going to see if I can replicate similar success in March as I have in February.
The 80/20 rule lead me to get flatters and also helped me focus on what's important, i.e. do I want to work on the comic or do I want to twitter.
Haha, "do I want to twitter", thats so true. I joined so many forums and started so many groups that it's a full time job to keep them all going. It takes 90% of my time if I were to keep updating them all day. That's a real good example. I came to the same conclusion with using flatters from the 80/20 rule. Man, it just save me so much time. I use to stop working on my pages because I was so sick of just filling in between the lines for hours before I could start coloring them. Now it only takes me about 4 to 6 hours to color a page but I'm still learning so much every page.
I never knew there was incentives for TWC. Now that you say it, I remember some comics having a picture come up after you vote. I never put the pieces together until now. Thanks for revealing this to me!!!
Changing up the ads is a good idea too. I definitely wont click on the same ad I've seen over and over. And I should try to buy ads on my page updates too. I never though about that either. This is some good stuff man. Thanks for letting me in on some of your tricks. Good luck in March!
Great advice and great study my friend. I'm sure a lot of people will benefit from your effort to figure this all out. I know I will.
It might be good to mention my good friends over at TX Comics as well. It's not a place to post your web comic of course, but they do have a pretty active forum. – www. txcomics dot com/comics
Or maybe even Zuda comics as an option? – www . zudacomics dot com
Keep up the great work man!
Rawls.
rawlsy.blogspot dot com
rexbunyan.blogspot dot com
I've heard of Zuda but not txcomics. I'll have to look into them. Is it just a bunch of artists who joined forces? It looks like they have a pretty professional site and web presence. I'll check out their forum too. I dont know if I partake though, I seem to have way to many forums that I've been neglecting already.
These are some great leads and I thank you for giving this blog your time Rawls! It's always fun to see you stop in. Plus your work is amazing! I can't wait to meet you some day at a Con or something.
Rawls. I noticed wordpress spammed your early comment attempts because of the hyperlinks. Sorry about that. I'm glad you stuck it out and got one to work. I get so much crazy spam in comments I had to turn on the spam filter otherwise it would be 30 comments with gibberish and tons of links. Sorry again about that.
Zuda is a hit and miss type of thing. I find there's a lot of 'cliques' that hang out in the forums there, and they can make or break your nomination. As for publishing and artist rights, I'm not sure how it works since its a DC property. You may have to change your format as well, since they have a proprietary widescreen format reader they use.
I can vouch for Rawls when he talks about TxComics. That site has loads of good content. I've never checked out the forums though, but I'm sure there's probably a good community there.
Interesting points you brought up with Zuda. I never could really put my finger on it but that explains a lot. I didn't realize that it was apart of DC either. I guess that could be a good or bad thing. And the widescreen format is a real letdown for me. I understand if it works nicely for a computer screen but still. The limited options is a really turn off.
In fact, Piperka mentioned above is not just a html-list. It builds an index of all of the archive pages of a comic, and checks periodically if new pages have been added.
I have figured out the main purpose of Piperka is to serve people reading plenty of web comics, and it works very well, at least for me, for personally I love Piperka. There’s no billions of flashing lights, or other annoying stuff like that.
You browse comics by.. clicking browse comics, then you tag them to be in your list of followed comics by clicking th red based plus-sign. And voila, you have the list of the brand new comics of your favourite series – or being more exact, the list of the comics you havent read yet – Yep, I also like the bookmarking system.
the keeper of the piperka makes a great job. Comics are added quickly and “manual” is easy to follow. It there were any flaws, they are quickly fixed, too. I’ve tried to use other “comic hunter pages” too, but they were much more clumsy and had no similar elegance.
True, Piperka is not very big yet, the most popular web comic has about 553 readers, or something like that. But if we always use the big system, we can miss the great one. And then great one never will be big one. And very bad thing, that is.
Well, I might have to look into Piperka more. I’m not really interested in these lists to read comics though. My main purpose with them is to get traffic to my site wheather by advertising or through people just searching the site. I will have to put reMIND on there and see how much it actually helps.
I hear what you are saying about not giving the little guys a chance. There are just so many little guys out there that it’s kinda hard to give enough time to each to see if they actually are serious enough to become the next big guy. When they start making waves then it’s easier to jump on board.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I’ll sign up and see what happens.
I've not much of a nerd, but I thought I should comment somehow, so thank you very much for answering….
However, I think I may have made mistake in my last post; I happened to find a source which said there's about 3000 users in Piperka. Sorry I messed up with that number, and again, thanks for answering.
Kat
I was trying to figure out how to advertise on Top Web Comics. Its a bit surprising how difficult it can be to navigate the site at times.
Adding my 2 cents, I've figured out that advertising on Project Wonderful works better if you bid on sites that have a similar "vibe" as your own. Advertising on HarkaVagrant netted me a grand total of 11 uniques in a day, so I switched to BearNuts, which has a similar Cartoon vibe as my strip, and as of this moment I already got 45 uniques within a 12 hour period.
You know, I have been learning the exact same thing. Even if the site has a small following, you can get lots more clicks to your site if it's a similar vibe. Great point! I should write about that in a future post. I'll definitely mention you when I do for pointing this out. Thanks man!
It's good to see you moving up the Comic Blog Elite too. If you want to get some quick traffic then post a few of your individual comics to reddit.com. That's a quick way to drive traffic to you. if 5% starts following you then that's great.
Thanks for the Reddit.com heads up. Moving on up. :D
By the bye, Comic Hovel, which is last on your list, hit my eternal blacklist for spamming my comic site with a "I'm a fan – come join this list so I can fave you!" line. Not my style, man. It may be an up-and-coming site, and it may not, but spamming creators, especially small-time independents, by pretending to be a reader, is just plain annoying. What would have been wrong with an email saying "I'm starting a list, and you have a comic that ought to post there?"
I for one will not list there. Ever, if I can help it.
–M
Now this is the kind of info we all need to hear. Thanks so informing me of this. I'll make a note of it on the list.
I found this comic through the skyscraper banner at TWC and I've clicked on one or two of them… I click based on art, read enough to know if I like the story, and then either become a regular reader (and voter) or not. There are a few that I don't read regularly but check up on them every several months.
Many of the comics I've found though were through "pimpings" in the comics by other artists: How I found The Zombie Hunters, the Meek, and String Theory.
++ for the "same vibe" thing, but that goes at least two ways: same art style, or same story genre (some people read all art styles about vampires or furries, while others read all different stories so long as their drawn like marvel). But, of the comics whose ads I've clicked (as someone who reads about 10 comics regularly, not a bazillion), it was for the art, because there's little about the story to be told in a banner ad.
Thanks for your thoughts. I’m kinda in the same train of thought about the banner ads having good art to sell someone on a click. It’s really hard to convey much else in such a limited pace or time. The banner ads at TWC are really effective it seems. I’ve been able to get more visitors from that site that almost anywhere else.
Also, thought you'd appreciate knowing how I got here. I followed a link I found voting for Fey Winds on TWC — it was on the voting page.
I do have to agree that TWC is one of the most fantastic communities for advertising yourself. I took part in one of their campaigns in May and I got a free 150 000 impressions total in various places, I was dumfounded as to how many uniques I was hitting. I’m sure in the future I will be purchasing more advertising and utilizing TWC better. Belfy was nice until a temporary Hiatus took place on my comic, then that kind of fell out on me. However the people who did subsribe when I first joined still check out the site regularily. I also find Comixpedia links becoming more relevent- however that has only been a recent development. I believe that in order for that to be really useful you would have to write some very compelling / relevent information to entice and sell yourself to your audience. It’s only since I made some major edits to this that I’ve been getting hits from here.
However! The reason I wanted to comment was on what you wrote on the Motivational Books, I am unsure of what you have all read, but I strongly believe in these type of books if you are venturing out on your own to accomplish something that may seem daunting in the beginning, but your very being needs to accomplish in your life time. I think it is a vital way for people running their own show to not only stay positive and maintain an effecient level head, but for your Dreams & goals, and life in general. I’ve only been reading these kind of things for a year now, but it’s really changed my outlook on how I want to control my life. As I said prior I do not know all that you have read, but I suggest The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson :)
Thank you for this wondeful blog, not only has it strengthened the things I have learned over the past year, you’ve taught me some new things on how to be more effecient!
Elginive
Comicrank is good if only for the stats. I don’t get really any traffic from them and I don’t think they get a lot of traffic themselves but they use a different algorithm that counts readers (returning traffic) instead of just hits. This gives you a more accurate understanding of your audience.
I think you are one of those occasional readers who read when they feel to.