Opinions about traffic gaining techniques

What's funny is that my store's group gets absolutely no Group IM spam. I'm not sure how I got so lucky. Maybe all my group members are quiet people.

I have, however, left many groups because of the Group IM spam, which is sort of a bummer cause I like to catch updates/new products.

I've thought about setting up a treasure hunt, where people can walk around the shop and click on a magic egg or something, and get a different piece of an outfit from each egg. Like, put the shirt in one egg, the pants in another, etc. It's a freebie but it's sort of a fun way to get it.

Probably. I'm in your group, after all.....

Maybe I should start making clothes lol... So many ideas that are clothes specific =P


The 'model' camper/job, the outfit easter egg....I'd like to see someone piecing together a house like that XD

As a responsible group owner, I would eject spammers from the group. This takes up too much time and energy.

Stop the presses! When did 'disable group chat' get added as an option? I know that's been a huge deal forever but I've never seen it in the Group Info dialog window.

I think you can.. not sure now lol.. lost my confidence!

But can't you make a role that can't talk in group chat? All customers could be in one role, and you could change the role settings whenever you needed. Give other support people the ability to talk in group chat always or something.. and ability to alter role abilities...there ya have it.

If I'm wrong then 'D'OH!'

Here's the JIRA issue. It's still open so I assume this hasn't been "fixed." Check the linked issues and sub-tasks for adding roles...

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-64

well members cant mute groups at this time no but.. I mean the owner to set certain roles to not being able to chat.

I was stopped from chatting once that I can remember, and I think I remember seeing it.. I didn't see anything linked tot he JIRA concerning this specifically.. I'd look harder but heading out.. so have fun all and thanks for opinions!

do you have your houses /builds on display? do you make furniture as well?

Do you have the ability to put out one of your builds furnished with your own stuff to act as a "store" for you

then you could have camper window washers, washing the windows of the building you made, and/or customer service reps sitting on the sofa or at a desk you made

just adapt it to your items

easter egg, if you make furniture, have a suite (living room, bedroom, kitchen, which ever) in pieces in eggs, couch in one, coffee table in another, love seat

you get the picture

First of all the obligatory "the forums don't represent the entire population" disclaimer . If there was an as big portion of people in-world that felt about camping and other shopping nuisances as some of the forum "crowd" then it wouldn't be used because they'd go out of business, instead they apparantly do get more sales so it obviously works for the masses.

If I spot that a store has camping, I just tp away. I don't agree with camping at all (neither the gaming search part, nor the encouragement of the "free money" mentality). I also don't need to have campers beg me for some L$ while I'm shopping.

I don't dislike lucky chairs and mobvends quite as much as camping, but if I happen to tp over to a shouting lucky chair, or a whole group of freebie hunters I'll tp back out and look for a more quiet, less laggy store.

If your aim is to game the new Search / All, traffic is a poor way to do that. If you get 12 people to add you to their picks you get the same boost as being in the "Top 10" of 'popular places'.

Just an off-the-top-of-my-head idea regarding Oryx's treasure hunt: Wouldn't it be cool to do this as a cooperative venture among several businesses with complementary products or even different locations of one business? The "easter egg" could contain the item and a notecard and landmark for the next item in the loop. It would need to be a closed loop to work, of course.

Hey Kitty, would you run over to my shop and add it to your picks?

That would be fun! I remember something like this last year around Christmas time; stockings were placed at different places around the grid, with a little freebie in each one and landmarks to the next place. I discovered lots of fun/cool places that way.

AvaStar is doing something similar right now. Each day the group is sent to a different retailer to pick up their gift from the Advent Tree.

Kind of fun, but it hasn't been without it's glitches

Is there a detailed explanation of how the ranking is calculated that leads you to make that specific a statement? (and if so what's the link?)

LL creates 12 different "top xxx traffic" pages which count as incoming links for a parcel (/327/86/224252/1.html#post1792268). A profile pick counts as an incoming link as well.

It could be that a "top xxx traffic" link has more value than a "profile pick" link, but there will be some ratio of where the two give an identical results and in comparison profile picks are free (get people to do it or just create the alts for it) and last forever (as long as the pick isn't deleted) whereas traffic gaming is an ongoing expense.

I don't think we'll ever hear from LL about it one way or another though so no detailed explanation, just my personal "educated" guess.

The best traffic builder is word of mouth. Offer a quality product and/or service, and people will talk about it. But of course that takes time. The Initial 'getting yourself known' can be the biggest hurdle for any business (same for RL). A combination of tactics is usually the best bet, attack the issue on multiple fronts. I am fond of classifieds myself. I get hundreds of teleports from my ads every week. I consider them Linden well spent. A little camping, tastefully done, isn't a deal breaker for me. Something like what I witnessed yesterday (approx 35 camp bots lined up 3 rows deep on camping beach rafts) sends me off and gone.

And I never met a lucky chair I didn't like (well, unless it didnt have my letter showing )

Same here. I don't think anyone's started a group IM in the whole time I've had mine active.

I recall back when the names of the sandbox sims where changed from Cordova, Goguen, etc. to Sandbox Cordova, Sandbox Goguen, etc. that that struck me as not the best solution to making the sandbox sims findable. I see now that there are non-Linden sims with names that start with Sandbox.

If one puts words like Ahern, Welcome Area, Sandbox, Linden Land, etc. into the description fields of objects for sale, wouldthat boost search ranking?

If you add to your parcel name words like " Ahern Morris Sandbox Welcome Area Infohub Cordova Goguen Help Orientation Waterhead Linden" is that going to boost your parcel's rank?

How long can a sim name, parcel name, object name, object description, etc. be?

On one site covering 11k of land....i use 2 guitarists on the approach to my main shop.
I don't consider them tacky, i think it adds to the overall ambience. I do monitor who is using them.....i regular ban camper bots in favour of a group of genuine campers that i have grown to know.
On my other plot which is a 1/4 sim, again i have 2 campers outside one of the stores (the store that needs a bit of a helping hand) Its a Chinese noodle vendor with steam coming off the wok....looks pretty cool! The other camper is a Sculptur banging away at a rock with a chisel. For the 4 camping animations i spent over 2k L, but i'm happy with
how they appear. They might all be removed anyway as soon as the New Search becomes mandatory.....or i might keep 1 Guitarist and the Chinese noodle vendor just for the hell of it......because i like looking at them

I agree chairs, benches and dance pads look real naff.

Not a bad idea! Got blank wall space on the walls? Charge to put up someone's billboard. On the plus side- if its one of those cheesy ugly-rotating-signs you see on ad farms, charge them ALOT.

Thanks to you all for your input ^_^

I'll not use more than 3 campers, and they will each be individually pleasing to the eye. I like campers because as mentioned, humans camping cause more eyes on the product plus if done well can actually look rather nice.

I won't use mob vend ever (I've been asked to vote for someone in contests at random and hated it, so essentially the same thing.. ick)

I'll use one lucky chair, with a rather spaced message, maybe every 10 minutes, to avoid spam and annoyance. It will only be able to be heard 10m away (Maybe 20). I like the idea of giving a chance of a special free item. Lucky chair items from me won't be possible to be bought at my store.

I'll of course share adspace, this is already being done with my shop and a couple of friends' places.. a wonderful practice in my opinion.

I won't ever game the system for traffic in the search listing. Whether using campers, bots, mobvend, repeated words in the listing, anything, I won't be gaming it. If I can't get the people from my own products (Including the campers), then I don't deserve the business.

I will have a linden tree, simply because it's good to help people without them just sitting in a chair for hours.

I will have a support group with special offers only available to the group (Wonderful idea!)

I will have some small events when I can.. its not a club or show venue, so not as many.

I will have friendly partnerships with other shops when possible, meaning sharing adspace, maybe a vendor shared, whatever is possible depending on the partnership.

I will have freebies..thats a given. I like giving some things away, so some simple objects will be free, plain and simple. (Such as my sculpted and hand textured football and oreo, which are both now throwable.. IM me if you want one lol.. shameless plug.. I'm proud of em XD)

I will have a build on display, always, already had that planned and have one that isnt even boxed yet on display already. It's just a good idea for a shop like mine. I will also have miniature versions of two builds always up in the entrance, floating and spinning on either side. These will change sometimes, maybe monthly, maybe more, less, not sure yet.

I will always have at least one other person selling out of my shop. I have space, why not let someone else use it? Free of course, it would give me more traffic theoretically so I see no reason to ask for rent.

I will always have support information up to date, and offer physical support when I can.


So yeah.. there we go ^_^

Those are the morals of my business =P

Again, thanks all!

-Oki