How to Promote Your Minecraft Server and Get More Players

Marketing strategies for server owners: voting campaigns, banner best practices, links, status badges, and gamemode tag pages.

Getting your server listed is just the first step. This guide covers practical strategies to attract more players and climb the rankings.

1. Upload a Banner

Servers with banners stand out in browse results and get more clicks. A good banner is visually striking, represents your server’s theme, and is legible at a small size.

Requirements:

• Maximum file size: 5 MB
• Accepted formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF
• Dimensions: between 64px and 4096px on each side

To add or update your banner, go to your dashboard, click Edit on your server, and upload an image in the banner field.

Banners are displayed on server cards across the site and used as the social preview image when your listing is shared on social media.

2. Fill In Your Discord and Website Links

Your server detail page can display links to your Discord server and website. Players often want to join a community before committing to a server, so having these links available makes it easy for them to get involved.

To add them, edit your server from the dashboard and fill in the Website and Discord fields. Both appear as icon links on your server’s detail page.

3. Build a Voting Strategy

Voting is one of the most effective ways to climb the rankings. Here’s how it works:

• Each user can vote for a server once every 24 hours.
• Anonymous votes are tracked as well, so even players without an account can vote.
• The default sort on the browse page is by player count, but the top servers page and voting leaderboard are ranked by votes.
• Vote rankings use a decayed score with a 14-day half-life, meaning recent votes count more than older ones. Consistent daily voting keeps your score high.

Tips for getting more votes:

• Remind your community to vote daily in your Discord announcements or ingame.
• Link directly to your server’s detail page so players can vote with one click.
• Use the voting leaderboard to track your progress against competing servers, filtered by all-time, monthly, or weekly periods.

4. Embed a Status Badge on Your Website

You can embed a live status badge on your own website, Discord, or forum post that automatically updates with your server’s current player count and online status.

The badge is served from the endpoint /api/badge/[your-slug].svg and renders as a 200x60 pixel SVG image. It updates automatically - no manual refresh needed.

To generate the embed code, visit the widget generator (sign-in required), select your server, and copy the snippet. Three formats are available:

• Status badge (image) - a standalone <img> tag showing live status.
• Vote button (linked badge) - the badge wrapped in a link to your server’s detail page.
• Text link - a plain hyperlink to your listing.

For a full walkthrough, see our guide to embedding status badges.

5. Leverage Gamemode Tag Pages

Your server appears on dedicated gamemode landing pages based on the tags you select. These pages attract specific players searching for specific gamemodes.

There are 12 curated gamemode pages:

• Survival · Creative · Skyblock · PvP
• Minigames · Anarchy · Economy · Roleplay
• Factions · Prison · Bedwars · Modded

There are also broader tag pages for every available tag. Make sure you select the most relevant tags (up to 15) when editing your server so you appear on the right pages.

6. Keep Your Listing Updated

An accurate, up-to-date listing performs better:

• Update your description to reflect new features, events, or seasonal content.
• Keep your tags current - adding a new gamemode? Add the tag so you show up on that page.
• Update supported versions so players know they can join with their client.
• Check your uptime on the status page - if it’s low, investigate server stability.

You can edit all of these from your dashboard at any time.

7. Get Featured

Featured servers appear on the featured page and receive a visibility boost. Featuring is done by admins based on review criteria including uptime, activity, and listing quality. See our guide to getting featured for details.