How Huffington Post's Clever Traffic-Generation Machine Works 165
Hugh Pickens writes "Frédéric Filloux writes that traditional newspapers that move online are losing the war against pure players and aggregators because original stories are getting very little traffic due to the poor marketing tactics of old-fashion publishers. Meanwhile, aggregators like the Huffington Post use clever traffic-generation techniques, so the same journalistic item will generate much more traffic. Here's an example: On July 5th, The Wall Street Journal runs an editorial piece about Mitt Romney's position on Obamacare and the rather dull and generic 'Romney's Tax Confusion' title for this 1000-word article attracted a remarkable 938 comments. But look at what the Huffington Post did: a 500-word treatment, including a 300 words article plus a 200-word excerpt of the WSJ opinion and a link back (completely useless) but, unlike the Journal, the HuffPo ran a much sexier headline: 'Mitt Romney is 'Squandering' Candidacy With Health Care Snafu.' The choice of words for the headline takes in account all Search Engine Optimization prerequisites, using high yield words such as 'Squandering' and 'Snafu,' in conjunction with much sought-after topics such as 'Romney' and 'Health Care.' Altogether, this guarantees a nice blip on Google's radar — and a considerable audience : 7000+ comments."
"Huffington Post has invested a lot in SEO tools and will even A/B test headlines to random groups. 'I was told that every headline is matched in realtime against Google most searched items right before being posted. If the editor's choice scores low in SEO, the system suggests better terms,' writes Filloux, adding that original stories are getting very little traffic due to the poor marketing tactics of old-fashion publishers. 'Who can look to the better future in the digital world? Is it the virtuous author carving language-smart headlines or the aggregator generating eye-gobbling phrases thanks to high tech tools? Your guess. Maybe it's time to wake-up.'"
Re:Only the SEO Part Is True (Score:2, Funny)
Lastly, ever since The Wall Street Journal put up that arcane paywall, I don't think I can even read the comments let alone click a link to go there and see anything. Even if it's an Op-Ed they are practically gutting themselves while aggregators feed off their remains.
Moreover WSJ is a pay site, and not a cheap one by any means. In contrast HuffPo is free. I'm surprised that HuffPo only got 7 times as many posts.
Now that you mention it, it was asking a bit much to read the entire GP post.
Huff in Shock Headline Grabbing Sex Scandal (Score:5, Funny)
Oh my, I never realised that the average readership of the average media outlet is drawn in by the headlines. That really *is* news. Wow.
Re:If we're judging articles by comments... (Score:3, Funny)
Their use of SEO not-withstanding, judging articles by the number of comments generated is kind of like judging the performance of a car engine based on how load the stereo gets.
Controversial topics will get many more comments than topics about boring stuff. Hell, comments with horrible grammer andd skeling mystakes will get more comments than the actual story.
And yes, I realize the irony of posting this in the comments section of Slashdot. ;-)
...and the irony of the skelling mistakes in a rant on bad grammar and spelling.