Gamification

“Gamify it! – Using Game
Mechanics to Improve Your SEO”
Starting at 10:30am PDT

Chat with follow webinar attendees:
http://bit.ly/seomozchat

Ask questions using the Questions
functionality to the right.

Technical problems or feedback on the webinar:
Please email team@seomoz.org

“Gamify it! – Using Game Mechanics
to Improve Your SEO”

Richard Baxter, CEO + founder, SEOgadget
August 2011; PRO Webinar

What’s Gamification?
ga∙mi∙fi∙ca∙tion [gay-muh-fi-kay-shuhn]
integrating game dynamics into your site,
service, community, content or campaign,
in order to drive participation.

via bunchball.com

http://getglue.com/ - entertainment (TV and Movies) check ins. Earn stickers by getting likes and
checking in. Also check out gomiso.com and www.tunerfish.com
Chat: http://bit.ly/seomozchat Twitter: #mozinar Questions? Use GoToWebinar panel

I love http://dribbble.com/ - to become a popular player, you need to earn follows and likes from
other players. You have to be invited (drafted) by another player. Great designs win business.

What are the rules?
What basic elements do I need to gamify my strategy? Understanding
game mechanics for the win…

Game mechanics 101: Points

Points are by miles the most popular unit of measuring performance in a gamified system.
They’re everywhere. Points do not guarantee success.

Game mechanics: LeaderBoards

http://www.testq.com/ “learn specific skills you'll need to get ahead at your career and discover
what you really should be now that you're grown up.”

Game mechanics: Levels

http://harmonic313.com/wordproblems/ get to level 5 and receive an unreleased MP3.


Game mechanics: Challenges

http://www.ribbonhero.com/


Game mechanics: Virtual Goods

OR

http://icanhascheezburger.com/ If you want to get collectibles straight away, you can by buying cheezburger
coins http://lolmart.com/product/coins/ and you can use this virtual currency to customise your profile.

Game dynamics
All the points and trophies in the world won’t make a game – you
need game dynamics, too. “What are game dynamics?”, I hear you
ask…

Game dynamics: rewards

http://www.imhomedia.com/ earn $IMHO for sharing and rating cutting edge content or inviting
new users via Facebook, Twitter. Users get content and they can exchange $IMHO for discounts.

Game dynamics: status

Higher contribution creates improved status – status influences perceived reputation and can
benefit outside of the environment in which status is achieved.

Game dynamics: competition

Via: http://tnw.co/qKm8x0 iActionable’s Engage platform adds
points, challenges, achievements and leaderboards to create competition.

Game dynamics: altruism

Kiva.org creates an environment in which lenders can form teams (social interaction).
Each team is ranked by amount loaned.

Game dynamics: self expression

Linkedin motivates users to complete their profiles by scoring the level of profile completeness.


Gamification for good
Gamification can be used to help, to motivate and reward for doing
good things in their lives, other peoples or the environment around
them.

A beta (via http://www.buzzseed.com/) rewards for only sharing great content…


http://foodzy.com/ - signup, keep track of what you eat and compete to be the most healthy!


Opower have gamified energy use – by awarding for below average energy consumption
(coming to the UK soon) via http://opower.com/what-is-opower/analytics_portal/

Epic Win gamifies getting things done via a task list set in an RPG environment…


So, what?
Now we’re cool with game dynamics and mechanics – what new
kinds of awesome can we unleash on our (clients) sites?

Reward users for the behaviors that are critical to
the growth of your business
Credit: Dawn

Reward users for creating content

YouMoz! Write great content, get promoted to the blog, get recognised, get hired, meet
people, earn points…

Lockerz.com – upload photos, (and watch videos), earn points…


Use your Lockerz points for discounts on real things…


Reward users for creating link bait, for good

How to make being environmentally friendly fun? VW created “the fun theory” for users to
compete by creating an innovative environmentally friendly idea…

Increase signups

Not logged in…

http://icanhascheezburger.com/ If you want to get collectibles straight away, you can by buying
cheezburger coins http://lolmart.com/product/coins/ and you can use this virtual currency to
customise your profile,

Motivate users to increase your subscriber base

Dropbox.com rewards the user for completing steps and inviting friends. For every friend who
joins, bonus space is awarded to the referee and the referrer.

Generate revenue and entire websites!

Check out DevHub.com – I built this site very quickly…


http://www.devhub.com/ is powered by the bigdoor.com gamification API


Devhub’s dashboard shoes your sites as entities that generate revenue – you earn points, track
earnings and earn trophies…

Generate links to a site!

That’s a trackable
link…

This is fundamentally the same principle as an “SEO friendly” affiliate program. Disclaimer: I
caution this approach, but I’ve seen in work in many industries.

Reward for sharing via social networks

Referrals and
User id added
Logged in user sign ups can be
to share links
tracked

This is fundamentally the same principle as an “SEO friendly” affiliate program. Disclaimer: I
caution this approach, but I’ve seen in work in many industries.

Give users stats in their logged in profiles

Hi user! You’ve referred three new signups this month!
Have a t-shirt, partner!

Why don’t more companies tell their users (their brand advocates) how valuable they are?


For developers
It seems you don’t have to build this stuff from scratch. +1 for the
API…

For Facebook API developers

http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/539/ using the Graph API
for achievements and scores

For web application developers

Check out: http://bunchball.com/products/nitro, www.badgeville.com and
http://www.bigdoor.com/developers/ or this ruby gem: http://rubygems.org/gems/userinfuser

Just a few sources
http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/25/devhub-scores-engagement-increase-by-gamifying-its-web-site-creation-tools/
http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2011/01/06/interview-gabe-zicherman-about-gamification
http://mashable.com/2011/07/06/7-winning-examples-of-game-mechanics-in-action/
http://gamification-research.org/chi2011/papers/
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/07/18/achievements-points-and-leaderboards-hit-the-workplace-with-engage-for-salesforce-com/
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/ribbonhero2/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtOoNR83Thw
http://gamification.org/wiki/Gamification_Benefits
http://www.bunchball.com/sites/default/files/downloads/gamification101.pdf
http://gamification.org/wiki/Encyclopedia
http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy-alerts/pleasure-the-future-of-marketing/

And if you only do one / two things, watch these:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html
http://www.vimeo.com/21459099

Gamification is huge! Research it – learn the mechanics, build it into your SEO strategy. Whew!


Q+A
Richard Baxter, CEO & Founder, SEOgadget

• Twitter: @richardbaxter Come and see us at SearchLove London.
24th and 25th October 2011
• Blog: seogadget.co.uk http://www.distilled.net/events/

• Email: richard@seogadget.co.uk

Don’t forget to sign up for the next Mozinar
on August 26th!
http://www.seomoz.org/webinars

Gamification

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (11)

Similar to Gamification

Similar to Gamification (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Gamification