Last year, the promoters behind the award-winning film Prince Among Slaves tried to hire freelancers to Digg their movie to the front page of Digg.com. You can read about it here. And yes, this story is from January ‘08, but this backwards mentality still persists. Online marketers are still trying to pay for mass traffic – whether it’s hiring diggers, paying for links or even opting in for reverse pay-for-view schemes.
Too bad that’s never going to work.
You Have to Be Genuine
Not only will tales of paid-for-traffic haunt your business and your reputation, it’s ineffective and a waste of money. In the new Web 2.0 world, traffic has to be earned, not purchased. You need to attract visitors with genuine interaction and content that’s both valuable and sincere. And yes, you can outsource some of the content, but work with them closely and be sure that what gets published is real.
It’s not about paying for hits, hiring diggers or spamming – it’s about being transparent and genuine and really engaging the viewer.
So, how do you do it?
Stop Thinking About Demographics
If you’re running a blog for your business, stop thinking about demographics. Put away your assumptions that everyone who visits your site is 40-65 and female. Remember, iVillage’s visitors are 44 percent male while AskMen.com’s visitors are almost 25 percent female.
Instead, group your communities by interest, encourage their feedback and use (more…)
