creating a guildFollow

after being in a few really good guilds and having helped build one from lvl 1 to lvl 25
but never really being involded in the running of a guild i would like to get some tips
1.how to get people to join no matter what lvl
2. to stay

Don't kid yourself, people come and go and; sometimes if you let them, come again. Seriously, a guild can't really support all levels. The goals of your members will be to varied. I have been in all types of guilds, raiding, leveling, pvp focused, etc...

The best advice I have for you is to find the aspect of the game you like best and have your guild focus in that direction Invite like minded people, talk to them first and find out what they are serching for. A guild can quickly spin out of control if everyone is pulling in different directions. It creates drama, and believe me, drama kills guilds.

One of the best tools out there for building a guild is VoIP. Servers are cheap. Being able to talk to one another easily helps build a group feeling. When you talk casually, it makes the game environment easier to connect to. I spend more time playing while chatting than I do when I do not log into the guild voice servers... and I generally enjoy that time more. At its heart this game is designed to be a social one. Remebering that may help you.

Most of all be fair and open minded. People join guilds for various reasons. Some reasons are good and some are disruptive. The guy who constantly wants high level players to run them through low level instances can be a real drag. The player who just wants to raid and complains that no one else is raid ready, will never stay. The last guild I was in rides the fence between raiding and casual, and they do it pretty well. I played with them through most of Wrath and for a few months into Cata. (I took a break to streach my legs and try a few other things.) I credit the guild leadership for making it work. It started with a random whisper in Dalaran, that lead to a 30 minute "interview" type of conversation. It gave me a good chance to find out what type of guild they were and how well they fit with how I play.

I wish you the best of luck. There are great people out there, I hope you find them

First you'll want to have some idea what you want your guild to be. Guilds evolve over time, but it's nice to have some sort of idea so you can tell people who ask when you're getting started. What's the focus of the guild going to be? Raiding (casual or progression), PvP, do you just want it to be a social guild, or just a leveling guild? Some random other things:

It takes a long time to make a decent guild. Though you're probably aware of that if you helped raise one to 25. 6-8 months to get from where you started to something resembling what you wanted wouldn't be unusual. Be sure you're willing to invest the time.

Don't expect to get a lot of assistance. There's some helpful people out there, however most of them will just raid the guild bank, complain that you aren't doing any rated battlegrounds (or something) and leave after a few days. If people wanted to spam chat and help grow a guild, they'd start one of their own. Your banker got hacked and stole from the guild bank? Well Blizzard will usually be nice and return your stuff, but it's your 2 hours spent restocking and reorganizing things.

That being said recruitment will be hard in the beginning, even more so now that some people will see you're a low level guild, with few members and simply not want to join. Inviting everyone and anyone in the beginning certainly works, but many others find it annoying. If mass invites aren't your thing put together a guild summary/recruitment macro that you can spam in /1 as you go about your usual routine. If you can make it humorous or somehow interesting you'll get more bites.

Eventually as you get more established as a guild you can do things like put together an application, or be more selective somehow with recruits. This will mean fewer people joining, but you'll have a better turnover rate, and they'll usually (usually) be less trouble. Unfortunately these things can be tough to have when starting a guild. You need to have something worth them filling out an application for.

As for keeping people around, that's a bit tricky. It's politics, kinda. One thing you can do is help people make the guild their own. You can delegate things to the more responsible members. Guild banker, recruitment, PvP, raid leader, website admin, nanny (seriously solving in-guild issues is a real talent), etc. are some ideas of jobs. It can be a nice touch to have someone who comes up with fun things for the guild to do on occasion (naked gnome races anyone?).

More work isn't for everyone though. For others it is about the social environment. If you are a social/friendly person it'll help.

Give the responsible people a voice. I did an officer vote on a lot of issues affecting the guild.

Finally many people will just leave for many different reasons. Don't worry too much about it, it happens. If a problem person leaves, good riddance. If someone good leaves, let them know the door is always open if they want to come back. Don't burn the bridge, good guildies are hard to find. We had people who didn't fit in with our guild, but were quite happy to join us for the occasional herioc, or fill a raid spot.

Okay, wow that's a massive block of text. Sorry about that, I was on a nostalgic rambling. Here's a summary...

TL:DR = Work hard; the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it.

Ask yourself why this is important to you. If your answer is "because our guild goals, be they PVP, Raiding, whatever, will work best if we can retain the same members for a period of time", then you'll have your answer. Recruit like minded people who are interested in what you're interested in and provide as damn good of that experience that you can.

If your answer is "because I don't like it when people leave my guild", don't make a guild. You'll only know pain from it.