Getting Niche Traffic in Second Life.

If you play second life and own a club, a venue, a store, a sim, or a unique place or property that you need people to visit, then you need traffic and most of the time a lot of it. With most forms of businesses in the real world we could all use solid, lasting and new traffic constantly. Whether we need to gain operating funds, or people to see a band, traffic is the vital thing for any venue or market to succeed.

Getting the type of traffic you need to run a venture in second life is almost the same in the real world as it is in the game...but not quite. In second life rules and regulations have changed and we cannot just keep using the same old tricks to run a business. In the late 90's second life was still relatively new and still had a ways to go. But if you built a club or bar, you were almost guaranteed to get traffic quickly. Today? Not so much. Today there are literally 1000's of clubs around Second Life. And the ratio between them and the users that are online at any given time are almost impossible to see traffic in your first few months of business. Many clubs just die and leave for the next within the first 4 months of opening. Just having a venture these days just does not cut it.

What worked in the yesteryears no longer works today. At one time we had forms of camping to get people to come and get paid. We had networks of advertising means to get the desired traffic. Plus we had lists of friends that helped with word of mouth. Today Second Life is too big to rely on advertising boards and have anybody even see them. Camping is now considered illegal. And if you are new to SecondLife, your friends list has a ways to grow before you can use them for word of mouth. And on top of all of this, the costs to put up any kind of venture has more than doubled.

So what is the answer? I don't think there is any means that is new on the scene to generate the niche traffic many creators need. There is multiple ways to still get "traffic" but traffic is nothing unless it is the type of traffic you need at your venue. You don't want traffic at your popping disco club if they hate disco. You don't need male traffic if you sell women's designs. And why waste time and money to get traffic that is not beneficial for your business. Oh the traffic score some would say. If your venue has a large score than you move up on the ranks of second life's search engine. But that score changes daily and needs to stay in the top to stay in the top of searches, which costs wasted money.

I think the best effort is time and effort. If you put in the time and effort, it will pay off in the long run, even though the long run may take a year. If you run a restaurant, put in the time to be there to greet your guests. If you have a club, put in the time and effort to be there hiring people to help you. The more time and effort at this will build rock solid traffic for your place and end up doing the snowball effect without spending a dime. Give it some time. It won't happen overnight.

Spending time in second life working on the methods is our best offense. If you only spend one hour/week at your place, and your expectations don't amount to enough to pay the rent, you only have yourself to blame. Spend this time researching how to get niche traffic using means that are new. We are trying something new by adding a website linked to our property in second life hoping we can also bring new users to the game of second life. We use the vampire game to bring new people to us. The means to get your traffic is out there, you just have to spend the time and effort.

Never say never. If you don't get the results you need go to the next source. Then again if you have to. And again. Don't give up if you venue is not hopping with traffic at the end of a month.

I have always told my friends to go look for failing businesses in second life and ask them what they did. And do the opposite. If it did not work for them, chances are it won't work for you either.

But if you are like me, you are looking for new ways to provide the traffic. So if you have any sort of suggestion, please leave a comment or link below so I can try.