Clan-Man

A Big problem alot of clans have (especially FPS clans who have to worry about server costs.) is coming up with enough money to support their clan. This can be a daunting task when you factor in all the probable costs of any serious clan. There’s web hosting fee’s, advertising, server fee’s, scripting fee’s, and any other web design fee’s a webmaster may come across that he himself can not deal with. Below are a few strategies that I personally have found effective.

Donations- If you are able to provide a fun, stable gaming enviorment for your members, there are usually at least 3-4 older members who don’t mind donating a small amount of money to help you out. Place a paypal button on your page with big, colored, boldened letters above it that say “DONATE.” Perhaps even ocaisionally make a forum post reminding everyone that donations do in fact go to the clan, and not into your pockets.

Make sure your clan members know what their donation is going towards. If they know their $15 are going toward website improvements or an expansion into a new game, they will probably be more likely to donate. I’ve spoken with many clan leaders that have paid for all of their clans fee’s with donations alone.

Adsense - Since Clans (usually) don’t draw huge amounts of unique visitors outside of the memberbase, Adsense usually doesn’t generate all that much money. However, it can’t hurt to have it. A few points about Adsense:

-Never ask your members to click on your adsense, this will cause you to be banned from their service.

-Always try to have your Adsense ad’s blend in with their sorroundings, because this generates more clicks.

Try to place Adsense on pages that contain lots of ‘keywords’ so adsense will pop up with relevant advertising links that will interest your readers.

Try to offer the general public a reason to visit your clan site. Maybe have it double as a game fan site? This will also attract new Clan Members.

http://www.adsense.com

There are numerous other advertising agencies, but if for some reason Adsense is not suiting you (AKA you are banned from it :)), then I would suggest using http://www.adbrite.com

JohnnyLocke