Controversy equals Traffic

Karen    Populating your site     traffic

Be they politicians, celebrities or criminals, anyone wanting attention has long known that one of the surefire ways to get it is to take a controversial stance on something. Anything at all actually – well anything that has two distinctly different sides to take a position on.

And the effect of a truly controversial stance?

Traffic.

Traffic to the news sites that cover the controversial story, traffic to the blogs or forums where people can comment and put their own point of view, email traffic to the source of the story, and even old fashioned snail mail correspondence if people feel strongly enough about it.

As a very current example, witness the explosion of traffic that has resulted from erstwhile and former TV presenter Paul Henry’s most recent outbreak of ‘foot in mouth’ disease. Seems that this five year old masquerading as a grown up has gone too far this time, but who can blame him, given the limp wristed slap with a wet bus ticket he has been given for past behaviour along similar lines.

In fact, one might even suspect he has a clause encouraging, or at very least enabling this kind of ‘no internal censor’ verbiage in his employment contract with TVNZ. As one of their most highly paid employees, Henry’s style has continually been rewarded, and no doubt is one of the only reasons that many watch the show – whether they love him or love to hate him.

His juvenile sense of humour and inane giggling make for a sometimes entertaining start to the day. In my household he was a favourite of my 18 year old son, for sheer entertainment factor and the car crash nature of his unpredictability.

His resignation after insulting the queen’s representative in New Zealand and the Indian minister in charge of the Delhi Commonwealth Games has resulted in thousands of letters of support for him – and I am sure has boosted traffic of all other kinds to TVNZ and their website. Videos of Paul cackling away uncontrollably are getting more views on YouTube than ever before, and his actually very clever acceptance speech at the recent Qantas media awards will no doubt also be doing the rounds again.

So, what is the moral of this story from a web content perspective?

If you want to drive traffic to your website, don’t be afraid to express yourself. Be controversial if you actually have a position on something and are prepared to stand up for it.

But be prepared. By the very nature of controversy, some will love you for your stance and others will berate you for it. So this is not something for the weak of heart or an overly sensitive nature.

And perhaps most importantly, once the  &*^% has hit the fan, be objective enough to be able to stand back and laugh. The worst thing you can do in a situation like this is take yourself too seriously!

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