Traffic – Billboards – A Content-Based Viewpoint

Photo by ladyyoyo via PhotoBucket.com

For many years now, the great flood of people roaring onto the data superhighway we call the Internet has been labeled “traffic.”  It’s not a bad analogy, as far as it goes.  It’s true that there are streams of people interfacing with websites, ISPs, communities and corporate space, much in the way cars, buses, trains and even jets navigate the corporeal world.  The problem isn’t that traffic is a bad analogy for the people flow on the Internet, the problem lies in the inferences that have been made along the way that seem based on the initial comparison.

On the highway, or in the city, you are bombarded with flashy billboards, neon signs, handbills – anything that can lead you to the cash register.  You find things like McDonald’s burned into your brain, and you react to these advertisements.  Everyone does.  Sometimes they work, most of the time they blend into the background.  They are fixed and bombard you continuously.

In the early days of the Internet, the fact that there were pictures, and then moving pictures and sounds and other interactive entertainments led advertisers to believe that if they pelted people with the stuff in e-mail and on web pages, it would work like billboards and drive them to buy.  At first, it probably even worked.  It was new, and flashy, and we do love our toys.

This is a new world though, and I believe that the paradigm shifted some time back.  Companies still pay advertisers for the click-through ads, even though there are armies of people out there trying to make a buck just clicking things to pad the numbers.  They still buy lists of e-mails gathered by all sorts of dubious means, paying for bits of phosphor that shoot out onto the net and die without a bit of effect.

People have filtered, deleted, and ranted over the spam e-mails – moved away from places that feature pop-up ads, and generally come to loathe the hard sell on the net. You might have to drive past that billboard on the way to work every day, but you don’t have to do the same on the web.  There are millions of destinations, communities, and entertainments to be found, and if the ads irritate you, you can just go somewhere else.

Blogs have come to be like store-fronts on busy streets.  People tell you to just hang up your shingle and go to work.   It’s a good thing the overhead is low, because it’s no longer enough just to be there and convenient; on the Internet you can surf a hundred blogs before you stop to shop – or read.  You have to engage people immediately, and once this is done, you have to hold their attention.  If you are trying to sell something, you’d better find a way to make people care, or they will never come near the page where you actually sell your product.  They probably won’t even wave on their way past.

In short, I suppose, I think that it’s time we quit using “traffic” as our analogy.  If we could let that go, maybe the associations it brings to mind could fade a bit and give us perspective.

You don’t want to focus on the idea that people driving  by will notice, because they are going somewhere and unlikely to shop.  You want to catch the window-shoppers.  You want people gawking at the wares in your windows, coming in, browsing the shelves, and making you a part of their routine.  The minute you bring them face to face with that big, cold-faced billboard with the glaring flashy advertisements, they’re moving on.  You want to build your business the old fashioned way – person to person, word of mouth, and a solid reputation.

It’s not about hits on a blog, it’s about how many pages they sift through while they are there, how often they return to read, how they interact, and how willing they are to pass you along as a trusted commodity.

People like the folks at Mashable have got it right.  They are to traffic what a scantily clad Angelina Jolie is to a group of sailors just in from two weeks at sea.  People feel at home there.  That’s the key now…draw them in, give them coffee and donuts and tell them something interesting.  Be that place where everyone knows their name and they feel important.

You do that, and you’ll need a bigger parking lot.  Now…who wants a donut?