11–20 of 26 posts
I think the 37Signals and Joel Spolsky examples are a little misleading. Maybe this goes without saying, but when blogging to get traffic, be sure to remember your desired audience. 37Signals and Spolsky's audience is web developers, like many HN readers , so they can promote their apps on a tech blog. If your audience is grandmothers or tweens, don't expect to get much traffic from your blog about Rails programming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a lesson from Politics, if you focus all your energy into attacking your opponents it doesn't mean people will choose you, it just means people will choose not to choose. This tactic does not extend to business. You don't 'win' by having the most users, you win by making the most money, and having a wide open market is stupid and dangerous for a company. This is the major failure with Apples 'PC and Mac' adve…
The prime example here is again in politics, slander is a tactic always taken by the right-wing parties, however when your claims are hollow and see through they can fail by record numbers. This happened in the UK when Labour gained the majority with Tony Blair, the conservatives launched a slander campaign that not only alienated voters from the conservative party but had no effect on keeping liberal voters out of t…
I think the 37Signals and Joel Spolsky examples are a little misleading. Maybe this goes without saying, but when blogging to get traffic, be sure to remember your desired audience. 37Signals and Spolsky's audience is web developers, like many HN readers , so they can promote their apps on a tech blog. If your audience is grandmothers or tweens, don't expect to get much traffic from your blog about Rails programming.
But even if they don't, you'll get some interest from people just because they know who you are and are interested in what you're doing. And they may know know someone who would be interested in it...etc. So the permission asset is a pretty flexible tool, but obviously most valuable when it's on topic.
good suggestions. rank for long/medium tail keywords is incredibly important. it just takes time and concerted effort to do the work to promote your site and most people, particularly developers/hackers don't want to spend time on 'chores' like that.
I'm not sure I agree with #2 unless your competition is really truly despicable. I think that if you use that method against something that's really popular, it will come back to bite you.
This is a lesson from Politics, if you focus all your energy into attacking your opponents it doesn't mean people will choose you, it just means people will choose not to choose. This tactic does not extend to business. You don't 'win' by having the most users, you win by making the most money, and having a wide open market is stupid and dangerous for a company. This is the major failure with Apples 'PC and Mac' adve…
I'm not sure I agree with #2 unless your competition is really truly despicable. I think that if you use that method against something that's really popular, it will come back to bite you.
A very wise and extremely successful businessman I know has as one of the core values of his businesses that we DO NOT BAD MOUTH THE COMPETITION!.
Employees caught spreading rumors about competitors are reprimanded.
Why?
Because it makes the business look insecure. Your goal should be to be so much better than your competitors that there is no need to even address the issue. Trash talking your competition might net you some really short-term users/customers...but if you're not actually better, this bump will be very short lived.
2. Tell people your competition sucks - unethical.
4. Seed your site using Mechanical Turk - unethical, depending on the type of site you have.
5. Have a blog - should be 'Have a Popular Blog'
He leaves out useful techniques like twittering about your new site using popular hashtags associated with its subject. Or posting it on Facebook, creating a fan site and encouraging your friends to spread the word.
I think the 37Signals and Joel Spolsky examples are a little misleading. Maybe this goes without saying, but when blogging to get traffic, be sure to remember your desired audience. 37Signals and Spolsky's audience is web developers, like many HN readers , so they can promote their apps on a tech blog. If your audience is grandmothers or tweens, don't expect to get much traffic from your blog about Rails programming.
Nothing says you can't also have a customer-focused blog, too. I got around to installing one on my site a few months ago but haven't found time to write for it in a compelling manner yet. That will be another topic for 2010.