Overview: The Foundation and Birth of your Guild
I wanted to write something that could help guilds get started, and give them a checklist of things that they should do to get noticed, attract their target market (recruits) and to thrive in whatever game they play. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to building online communities, and keeping them from stagnating. Prior to building the Lost Order of Akalabeth for Ultima Online, I worked with the mailing list community called, "Games-L". I basically took a mailing list of 900+ people, and turned it into a web based community that shared technical knowledge of games, hardware, software, etc. So what I am about to share with you is 4 years of trial and error, and tips and tricks that have made the LOA succeed, as well as many other guilds who I have helped.

I don't want to come across as arrogant, please, that is not my goal here. I don't want to sound like I am Mr. Guildman, and I can do no wrong. I simply want to share with you some of the things that have worked for us, and continues to work to this day. Take what you like from this, and mend it into whatever works for you.

Guild Charter and your Edge
What is it that sets your guild apart from others? What do you plan to do in the game you have selected to play in? Will you be good, evil, neutral? Do you wish to be a large guild, or a small faction of players? Role play or Power gamers? Perhaps both?

Your guild charter and your 'edge' is one of the most important things you can do for your guild. It will be duplicated on almost all your advertisements, your web page, etc. If you do NOT have the writing skills to come up with something well written, SEEK A WRITER either within your guild, or outside of your guild, to help. You do not want to come across as a guild of kewldudez, who cannot spell or speak properly. You want your charter to be powerful, descriptive, concise, and to the point. If you need help in this arena, you can visit our message board and ask for one of our writers to help you out. They 'may' work for free, or perhaps charge you either in game money, or real money. I doubt the latter will be asked for. If this doesn't sound good to you, ask your fellow guild mates or your RL friends to help out.

Webpage Presence
Before you go advertising all over the place, you want to make sure that people who visit your site are WOWED when they get there. They took the time to ACTUALLY click on your link, and learn more, last thing you want is to display poorly designed graphics, design, or worse yet, a site that is TOO BUSY and takes forever to load.

Create a page that looks good, both the HTML design and the graphics. If you need help, again, visit our message board and ask, or seek those who you know in RL to assist you. If you are an evil guild, make the look dark and foreboding. If you are a good guild, go with a lighter look and feel.

Make sure that you have an easy to find a.) email addy for point of contact, b.) message board, c.) news page. If you DO have a news page, KEEP IT UPDATED EVERY DAY if possible. Nothing worse than visiting an inactive guild. Your news in many cases becomes your HOOK. Show everyone how active YOUR guild is. Show us WHY we should join or ally with you, as opposed to the gajillion other guilds who are out there. Your news page should load fast, be well written, and easy on the eyes. If you cannot do that, again, seek help.

Policies, Rules, Procedures, Application Form
Ok, now we are at your site, and I like what I see. I want to learn more, about your ethics, morals, rules, etc. I should be able to find this EASILY from your main entry page. TAKE THE TIME to work on this information, it is crucial. Make sure you specify the type of guild you will become. If you don't want foul-mouthed freaks, say so. If you only want RPG'rs, say so, if you are looking for excellent PVPrs, say so, etc. Don't worry about hurting feelings, you are looking for the BEST ENVIRONMENT FOR 'YOUR' guild. Trust me, you will be thankful later on when you grow to an enormous size and the political mumbo-jumbo begins.

I would recommend that you hold off on 'guild fees' and taxes just yet. Instead, the LOA adapted a "Trust Tax" system. We wanted people to donate to the guild if and when they could. This system worked well, and the LOA still has about 1,000,000gp in the bank (Ultima Online) - a fully constructed player-run village, etc. It works, and it is less intrusive.

Advertising your guild, finally!
With your foundation built, you can now start spreading the word about your guild. Get a listing of ALL the EverQuest (or game your are playing) message boards, all the EQ mailing lists, all the EQ newsgroups, and any other RPG gaming resource forums and record them in an email message, addressed to yourself (and guild mates). This will be your guide for future posts as well. I normally write my advertisements in an email first, making sure everything is spelled correctly, all the HTML tags work, and all the images are working. I then cut and paste this massive message into memory, and start visiting all the links from my EQ Forums Email Message I made. One by one, I post the ad over and over again. Just once per forum - don't go pissing people off!

Try to make each advertisement a mature, well written document. If you make spelling errors, poor grammar, etc. in this message, people will flame you, make fun of you, and ignore your posts from that point on. So take your time, seek help if you need to.

Try to make the TOPIC of this message count! Be descriptive so that people know what they are going to be reading when the click on your link. Nobody likes to waste time loading posts that are not what they wanted to see.

Each post you make should include your ICQ #, your email address, your guild URL (Make it clickable, if you know how to), your message board URL, and your guild charter. Even if your message is a reply to another persons post, you should include that information. Oftentimes, if you are an intelligent poster, it can act as advertising and attract people to learn more about you and your guild. I have witnessed this by posting role playing stories to various lists, after reading the stories, people joined our guild because they wanted to be a part of the magic.

To end this topic, everything you say publicly should be well thought out, IF YOU WANT to make that impression you are looking for. If you don't care about guilds, or attracting friends and guild mates, then don't worry about what you say to the boards.

Things that are good advertising for your guild:
a.) Role playing stories written about your guild, or about your day to day adventures.
b.) Screen shots of interesting things your guild/members have done.
c.) Utilities created by your guild and shared with everyone.
d.) Sharing tips and tricks with everyone via forums.
e.) HELPING PEOPLE 'just because'. When you give your time and help, people will tell their friends about you and your guild.
f.) This list of things goes on and on. Advertising can be anything. We even have guild t-shirts with our logo/URL on them. :) That may be overkill, but it sure was fun!

Help Others Whenever Possible
Go out of your way to assist other guilds at all costs. Why? Because they will become your friends, your allies, your 'rpg' enemies that you can trust to play fair, etc. Also, in the future as guilds dissolve, you may find that people will join YOUR guild if/when theirs has been disbanded. Everything you do now, will come back to you later. If you are a jerk now, don't expect people to like you later. If you go out of your way to help people with HTML, Java, Msg Boards, Graphics, etc - they may very well be the people with tons of gold in Everquest, a castle, a guild of 300+, etc. Basically, the kind of person you WANT TO KNOW.

I love helping people, and I know that when I do something for a guild now, they will remember me later and help me out if/when they can. If you all do this now, you can all appreciate and thrive together. Help those evil guilds rise to power! You can Role play a war with them down the road!

Everquest isn't out yet, but you can start the Role play Wars Now!!
If playing UO, do THIS to add more excitement to your guild:

If you can find a guild who is a race you hate, or a class you hate, or whatever, approach them NOW and discuss some formal rules for war. First via your message boards and stories, then later, in game. The LOA and Order of the Ebon Skull (OES) started off this way. We didn't trust each other at first, so we kept our war OUT of game and fought via words on our message boards. In time, we grew to respect each other and moved the war to the game. We now fight all the time, never loot from each other, and after battles are over, we heal each other, drink together, and then write stories in Role play fashion about the battles we just had. In most cases, the stories and message board wars are more fun than playing the GAME!! Don't ignore the guild ads you see, read them, learn who else is out there, and approach them NOW, while everyone has time on their hands to get involved in this. You will NOT regret this later.

For an example of this, visit the LOA and OES message board. You will SEE what I mean.
LOA Public Message Board - The good guys.
OES Public Message Board - The bad guys.

Closing Words
I hope that you got something out of this message. Like I said, I am no expert, but I do have a few good ideas up my sleeve. If you want to chat more about some strategies to raise your guild awareness, let me know. I love doing this stuff. If you hate what I said and think I am a fool, I am sorry to disappoint you.

I hope that in months down the road, I can hear from some of you and see if this letter helped anyone out. I hope that you can print this document out, and refer to it once in awhile. See if you are doing all that you can to succeed.