A question to all those SEO magicians and web millionaires out there - don't you find it extremely boring??? By 'it' I mean doing all those necessary things to bring traffic to your sites (paid advertisement excluded).
As probably every single webmaster in the world, sometimes I get frustrated by extremely low traffic. A long cursing session is my first aid, but once I've let some steam off, I usually surf around for phrases like 'How to increase traffic' etc. Tips I'm finding are usually pretty much the same: go on Facebook, Twitter, blah blah, be active in the forums, comment on other blogs, submit to directories and so on, ad infinitum. Yeah, right.
I'm not saying it wouldn't work. It might as well. Only it's... so. damn. extremely. BORING!!!
I don't know how it works with other people, but I'm not turned on by shallow socialising. I don't even get close to social networking websites because guess what - all they are is only one big popularity contest. I mean - what the hell, has the whole world suddenly turned into a permanent high school? One would think people grow out of it...
Nope. Apparently they don't.
The whole idea of being active on other blogs, forums etc... I thought leaving comments with the sole purpose of getting backlinks is considered SPAM? Well, of course, you're supposed to PRETEND you're very interested and radiate the oh-no-I'm-not-here-to-get-you-to-visit-my-website-at-all attitude. So, in other words, spam like hell but don't let anyone catch you and never, ever admit you're spamming.
Or directories and other article submission places. Write a short article about nothing (because come on, most of web content is just a lot of blah blah, served in politically correct sauce), then write ANOTHER article on how you wrote the article about nothing and perhaps write an article on writing an article on writing an article... Is this really how it's supposed to go?
How come nobody ever, EVER, mentions things like
- learn to write better. It doesn't mean you're not good, it only means you can get better, right? What's wrong with being a better wordsmith? Guess what, nobody seems to care, ha ha.
- think about your own web-browsing behavior. Think what you're rewarding with your traffic and your attention.
- how come we are all allowed to praise anything to high heaven (regardless of its worth) but any critique is met with howling dogs of communal fury? If this trend continues, I'm going to commit my life to browsing the web and leaving nasty comments on weak websites. Simply because nobody else dares to do it.
And so on.
Writing is great. Interacting with people is - well, if not great, then at least stimulating. Interacting with traffic gatherers is surrounded by a very nasty stench.
So how about - think twice before you publish another article on 'How to bring more traffic to your website'?
Please?
