This is one of the most commonly asked questions in the community of Minecraft admins, so naturally it should be answered.
Lucky for you I am here to shed some light on this question and help you get your server full of active and helpful players!
Lets start off by covering vote site's such as Gtop100 and Planet Minecraft. To gain new players you need to have some way of advertising your server to the Minecraft community, a great way to do this is by using vote sites. There are many different vote sites to choose from, but what they all share in common is the way they work. They require people to vote for a particular server every 24 hours, over the course of a month the votes will add up and the site will display the servers with the most votes at the top of the vote page. At the end of the month the number of votes on all servers are reset and the process is repeated. One way servers tend to tempt their users to vote is by providing rewards such as in game gold or diamonds for the players who decide to help the server and vote.
External links to some more popular vote sites are listed below.
Another way to gain new players is to promote your server by posting creative adverts for your server on Minecraft themed forums. There are many different forums that allow you to post details about your server to help gain the attention of new players, two examples are Planet Minecraft and Minecraft Forums. You don't have to put too much time and energy into creating this post but I do recommend you put at least some effort into it.
Some good features to add to your forum post would be.
- The server IP (It's a good idea to post this at the very top as it catches the eye)
- A link to the server website
- The type of server you're advertising (Survival, Creative, PvP, etc.)
- A paragraph or two on what makes your server unique and fun to play
- Media of your server such as images and YouTube videos
Now that we have covered vote sites and forum posting, lets take a look at advertising your server via YouTube. This is a very common way for server's to gain popularity, I mean the YouTube user base is massive and with all those people roaming around on YouTube I'm sure one of them is going to run into your server's advert video sooner or later. The video you post doesn't have to be something out of Hollywood just as long as it gets the point across about your server and what makes it unique. A few good features to add to your YouTube advertisement would be clips of the awesome structures your server contains (Such as the Spawn point) and the friendly, helpful player base that you have, these will edge on viewers of your video to come take a look. Of course just don't forget to post a link to your server's IP and website in the video description, without those your advert is almost pointless.
So, now you have people joining your server left and right, that's great! There's just one problem. How many of them are actually going to stick around and keep playing? Chances are they are just having a look around and will soon get lost or bored and leave.
So how would you prevent this? Well there are few ways. The first point being your spawn point. You want it to be organized and informative, this is the first thing new players will see and if they are welcomed with an empty dirt house they will probably just pack up and leave, keeping the spawn tidy is eye candy to the new players and helps your server seem official and well put together. Along with this your spawn should be informative. There needs to be signs helping them find their way around and showing them how they can get started in your server. This stops confusion among new players and helps save the global chat a bit of spam coming from new players asking the same questions over and over.
The second point being your player base. If a new player is welcomed into a community of spammers, griefers and hackers chances are they will leave right away, who wants to spend their spare time on a server if they are constantly going to have trouble with other people who share the server around them? You should personally welcome new players to the server and ask if they need any help. Not many servers have active and helpful owners, as soon as a new player see's that you're welcoming them and offering your help they know that they are in a safe place to build and enjoy their Minecraft experience.
Thank you for reading my article explaining how to get more players on to your Minecraft server, I hope this was useful to you and I wish you good luck on increasing the number of players joining your server. Just remember what you have read here and I'm sure you will see and increase in player activity on your server.
- MarcuzPwnz
