Looking into web promotion, I’ve been aware of a number of websites who use traffic and links like a currency online. Links, traffic and blog-rolls ARE indeed a great currency for online promotion, but it needs to be seen less as a monetary investment and more as a selfless act every time its used. I’ll try to explain..
When promoting my personal blogs, I’ve very often been contacted by other bloggers and, more generally, companies, offering a traffic exchange. Basically, “If you link to me with over 100 click throughs, I’ll link to you!”. This is, in my opinion, thaw WORST thing about online promotion. People thinking that links and traffic are the only way to promote themselves, and that if one guy doesn’t link to them, they’ll be damned if they’ll link to him. Very often, bloggers or websites will refuse to write a post about another blog without a fair exchange coming back. You wouldn’t go to the pub with a friend and say “I’ll buy you a beer, but only if you buy me one first… And my beer has to be bigger!” would you? so why do people do this online?
I’ve worked with companies before who have had the chance to work with some highly influential and popular bloggers. The blogger had requested that, as they were reviewing products, would the company be so kind as to link to the reviews from their website. Stupidly, the company decided that this would lose them traffic and declined. The campaign with the bloggers fell through quickly afterwards due to the companies lack of willing to support the bloggers, a huge amount of traffic was lost, as was a chance to improve brand awareness and link closely with their own customers online.
Traffic shouldn’t be locked away like gold in a vault, it should be distributed and thrown around to friends and contacts. Don’t demand traffic in return, just be generous and link to any interesting stories you see. No one likes a Scrooge off line, so why would online be any different?