Be Strange, Weird, Funny, Odd... Catch Clicks the Easy Way
In a world where many people have seen the same thing time and time again, and again, and again, and again, it pays to be new, fresh, and unique. But sometimes fresh and unique aren't enought to get someone to click to visit your website. There's something to be said for getting someone to think, "WHAT!?!?!?!". When someone thinks, "WHAT!?!?!?!" with a significant amount of emotion behind it, they are going to click... guaranteed.
Why do so many teen kids dress strange and weird? It's because it makes people look at them and remember them. Why wouldn't you want your website to be like that?
Four steps you can take to make your website stand out from the pack.
1. The links to your website should be designed to be a little strange. For example, how do you think the clickthrough rate for each of these links would compare to the other?
Sure, one has more keywords and, according to people who know more about search engine optimization than I do, might help Google rank your website just the tiniest bit higher on ("investing" and "stock picks"), but the other will get more traffic to your website. Usually a lot more, especially if your niche is dull and boring already, and especially if you can continue the joke a bit on the page they click to.
2. Use jokes on Your Website. People remember it when they laugh. Have you ever seen a website that didn't have anything funny on it at all? If you have a website on real estate investing, you better put at least a few real estate jokes on there for people to giggle about. Giving someone a laugh, and they will remember it. Give someone a joke to repeat to their friends, and, likely as not, they will tell them where they heard it from. Word of mouth advertising is primo.
3. Use an interesting template or design. Design pages to be interesting, strange, and memorable. The close and closer one gets to the point of being annoying withought actually getting there is excellent. Annoyance is caused by an excessive amount of stimuli which have little or negative emotional significance to a particular individual. The morepositive emotional significance attached to an idea, the greater the tolerance to stimulation relating to that idea. You want to be the most stimulating you can be to the majority of your website visitors without being annoying. Strive to walk as close to the line as you can without ever stepping over it. To make a site that people remember well requires that the site be noteworthy, and to be noteworthy requires that the website visitor was stimulated enough to cause her to remember it well. Often subconscious stimulation may be achieved through the use of bright colors, movement, flicker, etc. Don't be gaudy, though... gaudy is the same as annoying.
4. Give something weird away free. A strange e-Book, four very odd pictures of cats, a program to turn your cubicle partner's computer screen upside down... be creative.
That's right, be creative. Be odd. Be funny. Make your website fun, and people will perhaps even be stimulated enough to bookmark it. Otherwise, you're going to have to rely completely on the stimulation of your written content, and if your could rely on your written content to enthrall and thrill people, you wouldn't be writing on a website, instead you would be writing bestsellers for Random House Publishers or John Wiley and Sons.
