How often are you beat about the head and shoulders with some web marketing gimmick? I don’t much care for those pages (called squeeze pages) that trap you on that page, unable to click out of the trap without spawning pop-ups and redirects and slide in windows.
The technique has been around forever and in just about every industry, not just the Internet. There was a car dealership in Phoenix that got in trouble for locking customers in the salesman’s office so they were unable to leave when the salesman went out of the room to talk to the ‘manager’. If you’ve ever bought or read any Internet Marketing get-rich-quick schemes, you know that the focus is to get people to a certain page and keep them there until they buy! Then they make you feel like an idiot for passing up the offer (don’t you want to join the exclusive club that makes thousands a day?).
People nowadays are a little more Internet savvy. They steer clear of the Google ads that are obvious gimmicks and look for sites that truly have what they’re looking for. I never understood that sort of black-hat marketing where you click on something because the search engine told you it was what you searched for only to find it’s something completely different. Do these guys really think that someone searching for “Garden supplies” is going to buy car insurance on a whim from their trap ad?
BTW: A lot of those get-rich-quick Internet Marketing courses that promise overnight wealth simply give you the material to start your own get-rich-quick marketing campaign selling the same course you just bought (or similar).
Anyway, let me get to the point (finally!). There is an unlimited number of ways to get people to visit your site without tricking them or resorting to shady tactics. It just takes one original idea that is popularized by Internet users, not Google ads or pop-ups. People that visit, promote, and frequent those sites generate more real and loyal traffic than any search engine ad placement.
Case in point, shitmydadsays. What is it? It’s a twitter / facebook account written by a young man who lives with his elderly father. When his father speaks pearls of wisdom, he posts them on Twitter (Example: "Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."). It’s very addictive. We all have relatives that have reached that age where they no longer care about what they say or who hears it, but this guy took it to the next level. The concept is so insanely simple that the genius of it escapes many who are still trying the unfriendly blast and trap methods. The Twitter account has over 1.2 million… that’s right, million, subscribers. The facebook page has almost half a million fans.
Justin does not have any ads for his site other than the facebook ones. However, if he put these ramblings on a website and posted just a few simple relevant ad links, he would make bank! The traffic to that site just to check out the quotes would be phenomenal, and thanks to word of mouth the site would continue to grow like the Twitter / facebook pages have.
Want proof that this is an Internet marketing goldmine? Check out the posers on facebook and other sites that are trying to horn in on this guys popularity. Again, do these people really think that someone is going to buy a diet pill because they landed on a site they thought was shitmydadsays? I think not.
The last bit of proof that this honest, niche Internet entertainment source is explosively popular is this: They have a book deal and now CBS is in talks to make a show based on this guys postings! I have no idea how they are going to accomplish this because the beauty of the postings is in the colorful language. Congratulations to him and his family. Y’know why, because he did the right way, he built a simple mechanism to get the word out about his dad’s humor without resorting to the dishonest and slimy tactics of Internet marketers.
My point is this… If you want to drive people to your site, give them some actual substance. Drudgereport is a free site that I visit multiple times a day because it lists headlines from dozens of news sources and doesn’t constantly beat me over the head with ‘buy this product now’ BS, pop-ups, or pop-unders. They rely on a few simple ad links that I click on to send a few nickels their way as a thank you for their website’s service. And if you find a site that provides decent content without those tactics, throw ‘em a bone and click their ads just to say ‘Thanks’.