Are You a Troll or a Linkbaiter?
Yes, a troll is a mythical creature and a popular doll with spiky hair. It’s also an annoying cretin who deliberately posts antagonistic comments to create a disruption and generate some traffic. Visit this Urban Dictionary page for the definition and Wil Wheaton’s blog post on the rising problem of trolling for more details.
Being a dick purely to get traffic and attention is never recommended. Don’t be a troll.
However, there are more gentlemanly and subtle alternatives to increasing traffic, like linkbaiting. The best article I’ve read so far on linkbaiting is here.
If you can’t be bothered clicking, its simple suggestions for ways to ‘hook’ incoming traffic are:
News Hook
Be the first to post about Britney shaving her head, or the latest winner of American Idol, or actual news.
Contrary Hook
“Actually, I disagree with what [link to fellow bloggers] said about Dancing With The Stars. It’s the best show ever.”
Attack Hook
“[Blogger’s name] is a complete asshole! He’s just posted the most ridiculous crap…”
This one’s a trolling minefield. I’m far too nice to even try it. Attacking will surely get someone’s back up. Don’t do it unless you are prepared to suffer the consequences.
Resource Hook
Link, link, link to helpful sites you’ve read. Having said that, here are a few bookmarked links I have:
Self Made Minds blogs about the $5000 hour.
Vince Cordic shows how to go from $0 to $100 a day.
Steve Pavlina has an epic post on how to make money blogging. It’s 7000 words but more than worth the read. And the re-read.
I enjoy the Face-Offs of successful bloggers at Daily Blog Tips.
Humour Hook
It’s not hard to find a funny pic or video for your site and generate traffic from it. You can even Photoshop one to make it funny, like Wednesday’s lightsaber squirrels on Digg (well, I assume it’s Photoshopped!). The challenge is to keep it relevant. That pic wasn’t, but it sure was cute.
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Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 7:31 am
under
You’ve definately fallen into the HUmour Hook category, although you cover many of the others.
Great stuff!!!
By the way, the Kiwis have just won the first of the Louis Vuitton final races against the Italians. I’ll be there on a yacht tomorrow cheering them on.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:14 amThe only advantage to either of these tactics is to increase you technocrati rating.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:05 pmMy tactic is simply ask to exchange links, or to post articals of bloggers I like and have a link to their post in mine, there are enough readers out there that we can all share, and it has increased my CTR in the process.
Steve: That’s awesome! Thanks for letting me know. We’ll get that Cup back yet…
June 1st, 2007 at 7:00 pmThanks for the link Shona, I appreciate it. This is my first time to your blog, and it’s looking good.. keep up the good work - I’ll be back!
BTW, I’m just curious do you pronounce your name with a long or short O?
June 2nd, 2007 at 1:18 amThank you Vince!
My name: Well, how you pronounce it partly depends on accent but basically it rhymes with phone-a.
June 2nd, 2007 at 8:17 am