Betrayal Blog: Development Diary #3

Hi everybody,

Just wanted to give you a heads up on some updates going on behind the scenes. I’ll try to do it quickly, because there’s a lot to cover.

For starters, I’ve tried to improve the website and Google search a little. This took longer than I would have liked. The thing is AoT, Act of Treason, playaot, all of them don’t appear near the top of the google search page. As you can imagine, this is a serious problem. This will DESTROY my online visibility. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on and why it’s not showing up. I’m currently studying the guide on how to fix it, but unfortunately the cause is unclear. All I know is that if I do everything to secure SOE for my site, strengthen my position on the list as best as possible, that will certainly be beneficial. It hurts, but like most painful things, it’s worth it. So I did.

For the website, the main thing I improved was the video link, which would take users off the website and to the YT channel. This may seem small, but is it very unprofessional and disconnects readers if they leave the site like that. We need to keep users there as long as they need to start absorbing the information there, and hopefully convert them into customers of our flagship product. Stay tuned for our next video, coming soon!

How the video appears now

Ultimately, I will do more beatification of sites and products because I think that will at least generate more shares. People will be more likely to share a link to something high quality. Almost all shares come from the line “Hey, this looks awesome, I saw it and thought I’d share it with you because you might think it’s awesome too.” This is where being ‘nice’ or ‘fine’ is not enough. Having a great product is one thing. But demonstrate that the product is good – a completely different story.

Mockup of the game box and setup I created

However. I’m also starting to get the hang of online paid advertising using very small dollar amounts, but making sure I keep my eyes on the page + being prepared. I want to make it so that when the big day comes, I’ve maximized my advertising potential. To this end I have some ideas that will help me get a rough projection of the conversion rate, which will be useful in determining how effective the advertising is, and whether I should increase it, or leave it alone. I also filmed some more footage with the help of my brother and his company bbgroup.net.nz. This is all just a learning curve, but I think video is the way forward and I will try to use the medium as much as I can. I need to create shorter snippets and use them in posts. Something like live games and rules being 100% exposed on the website is an example, which is definitely something I had planned to do.

Actual Act of Treason Advertisement

I will also be following videos that will be used for advertising, I think the videos I am currently using are good, but need better reading and a call to action to encourage those interested to join the mailing list, or follow on social media. It can also be much shorter. 30 seconds would be ideal.

I’ve decided to release a public schedule of things I still have to do with rough time frames associated with each task block. Keep in mind that this is a Rough outline of the things I still need to do. But hopefully this will provide clarity as we move forward. Keep in mind that the timeline will probably differ greatly depending on what blind play tests reveal. But at the same time, many of these tasks can be performed simultaneously.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I had a play test last Friday, and the results were excellent. The changes added to the game seem to have improved things. As mentioned in Design Diary #1, I’ll explain what I tested, why, and my findings…. But not now. There’s a lot to cover this week and there’s a lot I want to say about my design choices and thinking behind them – So I’ll quickly save that for another post. So excited to follow it all!

Be sure to follow this blog or the other social media below and be sure to sign up for the Kickstarter mailing list so we can let you know when the game is released!

See you again friends.

Cheers,
Tyson

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