How To Get Attention for Your Web Site
September 25th, 2007 (6:00am) Dian Schaffhauser 14 CommentsTweet This
When social scientist Herbert Simon came up in 1971 with the concept later branded as “attention economics,” how could he have known that getting fly-by surfers to stop and pay attention would be the bane of existence for those of us cranking out content for one or another of the 135 million web sites that currently exist?
Getting information onto your site may be the easiest thing you have to tackle. How do you get people to pay attention?
The topic surfaced at a recent panel on writing about technology for consumers, co-hosted by Yahoo! and Media Bistro. The experts included journalists and editors from newspapers, magazines, web sites and television stations. In spite of the fact that the audience consisted of writers, editors and PR folks, the advice applies to anybody out to game the system to their advantage.
1. “Invent a meme, then write a book on that meme.” This from Wired’s Nancy Miller. That’s what happened for Nicole Stich, delicious days, and Penelope Trunk, Brazen Careerist.
2. “Becoming famous for something is going to be your answer,” according to Tom Abate, business reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. “Become the most knowledgeable person on [a] subject and hope that fortune follows fame…”
3. Target women. “Women represent a new gold standard in the marketplace. In study after study, women bring a very different sensitivity to technology. If it’s new or cool, that’s not good enough. It has to be very usable.” This from Patrick Houston, VP of Content and Programming for Yahoo! Lifestyles.
4. “Community is integral.” Houston again. “If you wanted to distinguish yourself, become a gathering point around which a community will gather.”
5. “Be accurate.” This from Rusty Weston, founder of blog site My Global Career. Give scant thought to getting your facts right and your online standing will suffer a humiliating virtual bludgeoning that can besmirch your first life too.
6. Provide information people can’t find easily on Yahoo or Google. This from Janelle Wang, co-host of “The View from the Bay” on ABC7. “That will set us apart from other TV stations. We’re trying to be more specific that way — to build our reputation that way.” Understand your community well and be prepared to tackle a given topic from their unique perspective.
7. Get locked into a person’s “ritual.” Miller again “People are ritualized about the way they go to the Internet. How you get locked into that person’s ritual is up to you.” That frequently requires engaging them using — yes — entertainment. As Abate added, “Whenever I write a story today, [I ask myself] what is the image I’m going to attach to this story? If I can’t get a strong image… it won’t be effective.”
Have you figured out a unique way to get attention to your site?
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I find one important factor is that you need to understand your target marketing and apply your web content to their likes, dislikes, and where their going to be searching for what you have in the future.
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Some interesting insights. Some of the most seemingly obvious things (eg ‘be accurate’) are surprisingly often neglected by people. I think the point about the importance of community is especially relevant in the current climate.
Be honest, and if you screw up admit it, scoble has his 10 rules to blogging that are well worth checking out to see if they can be part of this kind of meme.
As simple as it is, this is very well written. I wholeheartedly agree – and I don’t think many people understand when writing a blog or web site how targeted you have to be. Many people start with an idea like “birthday party favors”, and build a nice site with lots of items to buy and then wonder why people aren’t coming to it. It’s no different than owning a pizza parlor and putting a guy in a clown suit out by the road. What’s your gimmick? How do you stand out? What makes people remember you and keep coming back?
I like the ideas contained in this post so much, I took the 7 points and wrote my own article with actual “action points” (something I wish the WWD posts had more of). Read my version here: 7 Steps to a Waterfall of Traffic, and let me know what you think!
JTPratt, nice job of expanding this! — Di
My companies logo and website clearly indicates that we are the key for business between Africa and Asia. In particular, our other “buttons” allows the viewer to become acquainted with the real purpose of our business – sourcing goods, services and new technologies for our prospective clients. Furthermore, the acronym AABCO for Africa-Asia Business Consultants allows us to be positioned first in the queue for “directory” listings. I shall be obliged if bloggers could visit our site @ http://www.aabco.co.za and provide advice.
Many thanks and best wishes
Dhiru
Very well written post. But the contents should have been expanded more.
Thanks for the nice work.
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