Hello. Thank You for reading the thread. I have spent a long while developing this site now but I believe that it is now ready to be marketed. http://arcade79.com How would you personally go about marketing it? All attempts +repped.
First, engage free marketing strategies like SEO (optimizing your titles and METAs), putting up signature in the forums and trading links with other related sites. Then, buy some text links from popular sites to get more traffic
Write articles/reviews about each game or game type and submit them to a few of the top article directories with deep links to the actual games or categories.
Try advertising directly on other arcades or try looking at something like adengage.com where you can browse publisher sites and advertise directly on them.
Do a google search for "arcade topsites" and submit your site to as many as you can. This works well for me.
Exchange recip links with other/related sites. Get some cheap, branded Flash games and distribute them. Join a game site banner exchange like MoreGamers.
I also get some traffic from Yahoo answers. There is a lot of people in the gaming sections that specifically ask for new arcade URLs. They have gotten sick of the major sites, and want to find something new. Doesn't bring in tons of traffic, but you may get some returning visitors out of it.
OK, this is what i do. Buy/Make a decent game -- not some rebranded one like egdcltd said, a decent one. Pay some cash for it. Make sure there are two versions 1 -- the one you are going to give out 2. a scoreboard version. The one you are giving out should really promote your arcade. Links on loader, intro, and at the end ("Play for a high score here...") Then submit it to: newgrounds, heavygames, and a few other games websites -- do not bother with sites that make you put THEIR logo in YOUR, forget that! Install moochibot in the game so you can see where it goes etc. You will build up sooo many backlinks quick, its crazy. All the cheaper arcades rip the new games from the big ones. Your came will spread round the net like wildfire. You will also get html backlinks, aswell as the ingame clicks you will recive. A single game will give your new arcade about 2000 uniques per day for over a week from each good sites. Really good games mroe. Now, these arnt backlinks, but this is impressive. The game i made, the unique cool game i made, if you seach for its "Exact" name in google, has 22,000 links with it. These are not links to my site, just sites that have ripped the game -- all potential clicks in the future from well placed links to your site in the game. Hope this helps mates.
I am a big fan of oddball marketing and am always trying to come up with new ways to promote my websites, here are a few good ways to push teenage related sites like arcades: 1. Have your girlfriend or hire a cute chick to walk around the local shopping mall on a Saturday or Sunday with a tight t-shirt that has the name of your arcade site. 2. Go to your local print shop and have a few hundred cheap business cards made up and then go around the local schools and pay kids to drop them around the lunch rooms 3. Make a large banner advertising your website and then park you vehicle as close as you can to the main entrance for any major sporting event, hang the banner on the side of your vehicle and you now have a super high traffic billboard for free. 4. Small donations can go a long way, the next time you hear of a fundraiser on the radio call them up and make a donation in the name of your website. (don't be a cheapskate, donate what you can afford) 5. Buy a large helium ballon and have the name of your site printed on the ballon and fly it around town, this one is not cheap but can be very effective. I hope this helps.
You can become an active member on a popular arcade forum and promote your site there. It will get you a steady amount of users and traffic. Start a thread here in the Link Exchange forum at DigitalPoint where you can show your interest to exchange links with other Arcade sites.