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[falconire]

Like 90% of the people on this forum I also have a webcomic. We only get a few hits, maybe 30 or so a day, do you other guys get more? Any suggestions or ideas?

[Neuvost]

I haven't launched my webcomic yet, but I can give some advice I plan on following for myself:

Buy some advertising! It's not that expensive. You can buy some on Starslip Crisis for ten bucks a month. As long as your link icon doesn't suck, you're bound to get some more readers.

Make good link icons! Think about what makes you click a webcomic banner ad, and what might make other people click a banner ad, then do that.

Tell people! There's a fine line between whoring yourself and informing others of your site. Try to strike a balance. There should be no shame in starting a thread about it in forums you already regular or putting it in your sig of forums you post on once in a while. Tell your friends and family and ask them to tell their friends.

Make an audio ad for the podcast Digital Strips. Last I heard, it was still free to do so. Just make sure your audio ad doesn't suck!

And most important: have a good product! You can get hundreds of people to visit via all these methods, but if you're comic ain't up to snuff, they're not going to stick around and their not going to tell their friends. Other webcomic artists aren't going to add you to their links page either. 

Once I'm ready to launch, we'll see if any of this works, but it sounds sensible to me!

[Justin]

you should wait until you have at least a small archive of strips before you start advertising your comic, whether you're buying adspace or just pimping it on a forum, because if you don't have much to look at it's not as easy for people to get hooked or get a good impression of whether or not they like your stuff.

cheap advertising is always nice (you can buy adpace on my site if you want  ) another great thing is doing fanart for comics you like. usually they'll post it in a fanart section with a link to your comic and even talk about you in their blog thing. i hear link exchanges are good, but i feel you should only link to comics you think are actually good, as opposed to just linking whoever will link back to you, but that's just a moral problem.

as far as keeping readers, drawing decently well, being entertaining, and having easy site navigation aside... update regularly and when you say you will. if you miss enough updates (and enough may be just one) a reader, even one that likes you, might forget you exist.

that's all i can think of right now, good luck.

[falconire]

I'll keep that all in mind. Actually we're on our 81st comic as of last night, plus extras. I had a QC fan art comic that I'll be sending in so we'll see on that too.

[TheLanyard]

you should wait until you have at least a small archive of strips before you start advertising your comic, whether you're buying adspace or just pimping it on a forum, because if you don't have much to look at it's not as easy for people to get hooked or get a good impression of whether or not they like your stuff.

cheap advertising is always nice (you can buy adpace on my site if you want  ) another great thing is doing fanart for comics you like. usually they'll post it in a fanart section with a link to your comic and even talk about you in their blog thing. i hear link exchanges are good, but i feel you should only link to comics you think are actually good, as opposed to just linking whoever will link back to you, but that's just a moral problem.

as far as keeping readers, drawing decently well, being entertaining, and having easy site navigation aside... update regularly and when you say you will. if you miss enough updates (and enough may be just one) a reader, even one that likes you, might forget you exist.

that's all i can think of right now, good luck.

All good points.  I was on the Webcomic List's forums and it seemed like the bulk of the strips being posted on there had like 5 strips to read.  You need enough so readers know how consistent you can be.

Joining webcomic lists help to bring in extra people too.  But so far, my biggest aid has been just participating in like four forums and just throwing your url in the sig of your profile.  I guess people who end up liking you on a board, will check out your site or something.

As for cheap advertising, does that really help noticeably?  My budget is really really tight but I was looking at Master's of Art's website yesterday and was pondering what type of help 1,000 page impressions could do?  Has anyone with a really unpopular webcomic had some decent success with this method?

[Justin]

well, cheap advertising helped me. i advertised on the webcomic list when it was first starting, it was a lot cheaper then but i bet you'd get a lot more hits from an ad there now too. As it was i only had like 10 people reading my comic off that website and after the ad i got about 100 more people who had favorited my comic, cost me $10.

what was REALLY great was the wacky box at the webcomics list (with an "s", unlike the webcomic list). that would rake in huuuge amounts of traffic and it was free. but that site mysteriously vanished a while ago, no one knows why, everyone i've talked to seems at a loss.

so my experiences with cheap advertising were good, though you're right, it's hard to know in advance if it'll be worth your money.