I was perusing one of the journalism sites this morning when I came across an interesting blog post, wherein Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi felt compelled to make a reference to that little pubescent-looking kid who dances and sings.
Despite a somewhat concerted effort to fix things up in the past year or so, Rolling Stone's web presence is still fairly abysmal. The site is difficult to navigate and star political reporter Matt Taibbi's blog is impossible to find--it isn't even featured on the home page, it's buried below the fold in the politics section. Not surprisingly, Taibbi's RS blog posts aren't gathering nearly the attention or the comments his old True/Slant blog used to. And it looks like Taibbi is starting to get a bit desperate. In a post last week about former Reaganite David Stockman's elegant rejection of Reaganomics in the New York Times, Taibbi did the unthinkable and dropped a Justin Bieber reference.
(from Taibbi's blog)"...I know I'm late on this too, but I just caught my first Bieber video -- I must have been asleep for the last two years while the world lost its fucking mind. I don't want to say anything mean about a child, but I don't get it -- his videos look like soft-core kiddie porn set to elevator music."
Funny line, but it just seems a little out of place. Anyone who has ever been paid to blog knows what Bieber references mean--traffic bait. Taibbi has enough on his plate without having to worry about SEO tricks. Put the guy on the home page already Rolling Stone.
So it got me to thinking: I want to increase my blog traffic, so why don't I mention Justin Bieber? If I mentioned Justin Bieber my blog traffic should skyrocket, right? Who cares if the mindless zombies who find my blog through a search engine query on Justin Bieber aren't the kind of people who'd actually read the blog? It's all about the traffic, right? That is the driving force in most online publishing right now, the "screw quality, just throw some shit up there that'll get us hits" mentality.
Why fight it? So here goes...
Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber. I got Justin Bieber Fever. Or is that simply Bieber Fever? I have no clue, care not one wit, this Bieber blog is a piece of shit.
I'm now anxiously awaiting a HUGE jump in my blog traffic. I'll let you know how it turns out...
You'll get it, but expect a high bounce rate! Hard to imagine a bunch of salivating pre-teen Tiger Beat-reading girls staying here for long. Though I'd love it if one or two proved me wrong.
ReplyDeleteSo THAT'S why my "Doggie Style at the Doggie Park" post did so well!
ReplyDeleteJustin-cough-Bieber
My daughter is 5 and lucky for me the Biebers of the world haven't invaded my world yet. And Holly, you'll be happy to know that she does go dove hunting with me on occasion. Me: 2 Teeny-boppers: 0. Not sure how long I can hold this lead...
ReplyDeleteLet me know how that works out for you. I can surely find some way to work the Bieber Fever in a post about pickling things other than my liver.
ReplyDeleteTruly the cloven hoofed deceiver walks amongst us. These are the end of days. The will come a time when a great flood of crap will sweep the away the thoughtful and the righteous, for their search engines will be sub-optimal and low their traffic will be low, while their bounce rate will be on high. In in that end of days the air-brushers and the lickspittles will call this world their own.
ReplyDeleteSBW
Worked for me!
ReplyDeleteChad, good luck with that!
ReplyDeleteI did the same thing back with the word Sex. It worked, but the traffic it attracted wasn't exactly what I was looking for.
Well, to be honest folks, I didn't really see any kind of jump in blog traffic. I don;t know if I just didn't type "Bieber Fever" enough or maybe I didn't have the right string of words or what, but I can say my Bieber experiment was an epic fail, damn the bad luck...
ReplyDelete